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Notable names in sports and music have gathered to make credit building more accessible to the masses. According to a press release shared with AFROTECH™, Tinashe, Quavo, Chris Paul, and Marshawn Lynch are among the investors who participated in Altro’s latest strategic funding round totaling $4 million. The round brings the credit-building and financial literacy platform’s total funding to $22 million. Altro, formerly known as Perch, was founded in 2019 by Michael Broughton. It allows users to strengthen their credit scores through “everyday payment and subscriptions” such as Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Starz, and more. Additionally, the company offers educational resources even to its baseline free membership model. Resources include Altro’s Convo, consisting of brief audio episodes discussing various cultural and financial subjects, and in-person and virtual networking events and opportunities. Prior, Altro was available in 10 U.S. states. In light of the star-studded round,...
In the words of Jay-Z, “I won’t buy it until I can buy it twice.” The Hip-Hop mastermind turned business mogul has been dropping gems for Black people to get their finances in order for quite some time now. So, it’s only right that he does his part to help the community do so by investing in Altro, a platform that helps build credit and provides education on financial literacy. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Altro (@altro_finance) Altro — formerly known as Perch — has just secured the funding needed to further democratize credit building “through recurring payment forms like digital subscriptions” — think Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and more. With approximately 63 million Americans who are either unbanked or underbanked, Altro is on a mission to use streaming service payments to help people not only build their credit but improve it. According to a press release, the Series A funding round, led by Pendulum, totaled $18 million thanks to other companies like Jay-Z’s Marcy...
Celebrity hair colorist Kadi Lee has secured an investment from Meghan Markle. Markle became acquainted with Lee through a recommendation from Serge Normant, the stylist behind her wedding hairstyle for her 2018 marriage to Prince Harry. According to People, Markle has worked with Lee for more than four years. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Highbrow Hippie (@highbrowhippie) Markle joins a star-studded client roster that includes Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Brad Pitt, Lee’s bio mentions. Based in Los Angeles, CA, Lee operates out of her salon, Highbrow Hippie, and her work has been featured in renowned publications such as Vogue, Elle, and Vanity Fair, among others. Her career, which dates back to Frederic Fekkai in Manhattan, NY, where she received training under chemist and color director Constance Hartnett, now spans more than two decades, her LinkedIn notes. She also counts Normant as her greatest mentor. “I work with some of the most visible women in the...
Career Karma’s Ruben Harris and Timur Meyster have co-founded an AI-powered platform that aims to improve customer experience teams. Since 2018, Harris and Meyster have been building out customer experience teams through Career Karma, a platform designed for people to break into the tech industry. It has been tasked with answering numerous calls to assist its users on job training and questions related to their career trajectory. Beyond Career Karma, Harris has had several conversations with customer experience leaders to have a deeper understanding of what is needed to create more optimal solutions. This materialized into an artificial intelligence (AI) agent, which had already been deployed at Career Karma. “On nights and weekends or on holidays, people could come to Career Karma and still have some kind of human feeling interaction that guided them into job training programs and what we learned is that other companies and industries are going to also have to do that as well,”...
This women’s health company has been acquired. Launched in 2017 by Erica Chidi, LOOM has been a helpful sexual and reproductive resource for women, launching first at a physical location in Los Angles, CA, before scaling to a mobile application, its website mentions. TechCrunch reports its offerings included courses, content, and community for women. Chidi’s vision had been emboldened with a $3 million raise a few years later, joining the few Black women to do so. “I was like the 34th Black woman to raise over a million dollars in venture capital,” Chidi recalled to TechCrunch, adding that she didn’t expect she would raise the nearly $3 million in three months back in late 2019. “At the moment, there was just a new interest in women’s health.” In total, Chidi has secured $6.5 million in funding since its inception with support from Slow Ventures and Founders Fund, along with celebrity interest that included Tessa Thompson and Gwyneth Paltrow. Now, LOOM is turning a new leaf. It has...
Fans of 50 Cent’s “Power” franchise may have been first introduced to Michael Rainey Jr. in 2014 for his breakout role as Tariq James St. Patrick, but his acting days started years before. In an interview with Forbes’ “New Money” podcast, the actor recalled landing his first movie, “Un Altro Mondo (Another World),” at age 9 in 2010. Before the starring role, Rainey’s acting journey began when a talent agent approached his mom to consider placing him in the business. “She literally just walked up to my mom and said, ‘Your son has a great face for acting or modeling. Does he do any of that?’” Rainey told host Rosemarie Miller. “And she was like, ‘No.’ And then, like a week after, they had a meeting in the office and after that, they just started getting me auditions.” The auditions that rolled in included TV time for shows like “Sesame Street” and more. The progression of Rainey’s gigs led to landing his bigger role on “Power.” However, prior to the hit Starz show, he says that his...
Quavo is diversifying his portfolio with a new restaurant venture. On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, the rap artist took to Instagram to share with his 23.8 million followers the development of V12 Restaurant & Sports Bar in Atlanta, GA. “We finally here. We finally here,” Quavo expressed on an IG story. “The top secret project is almost finished. Yeah V 12. We live.” It was also revealed in the same clip, a soft opening will be held at the restaurant located at 610 Spring St NW, near the Varsity restaurant, per Hip-Hop Vibe. He continued, “We will be ready for the light open and light flex on Huncho Day, man. We appreciation the prayers. We’re appreciating the guys giving back. Where we at? Right across the street from the Varsity man. The heart of the city. Big blessings. It ain’t done. We ain’t done.” It appears Quavo had a jam-packed day as he was also seen promoting a white cognac in Georgia. View this post on Instagram A post shared by QuavoHuncho (@quavohuncho) According to a news...
A mental fitness startup co-founded by Pittsburg Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson has scored new funding. In 2018, Wilson (chief impact officer) founded the digital fitness company Limitless Minds with his brother Harry Wilson (CEO), a former med device and pharma sales leader; DJ Eidson (president), a former pharmaceutical and biotech sales leader; and the late Trevor Moawad, a mental conditioning coach named Sports Illustrated’s “World’s Best Brain Trainer,” according to the company’s website. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Russell Wilson (@dangerusswilson) The website also mentions that the Louisville, KY-based company started as a business coaching consultancy. Four years later, it created a digital platform called Club Limitless, which offers coaching, live on-demand mindset training, and performance tools to train users’ mental fitness. Over the years, some of Limitless Minds’ clientele have included Fortune 500 companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Workday,...
A former White House official has announced his interest in buying TikTok. On March 13, 2024, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. As previously shared by AFROTECH™, the bill is focused on TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance and was created to “protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications.” What’s more, if the bill is passed by the Senate and President Joe Biden as well as signed into law, ByteDance will be required to sell TikTok within 180 days. If not, it would be banned in the U.S. Amid the controversy around the potential status of TikTok’s future, CNBC reports that Steven Mnuchin, former treasury secretary for former President Donald Trump, is working to gather an investor group to purchase the app. “I think the legislation should pass — I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin said, according to CNBC . “I understand...
British actor and DJ Idris Elba is planning to leverage technology to benefit a West African country. According to CNN, Elba is looking to build a “smart eco-city” on Sherbro Island, an island off the southwestern coast of Sierra Leone. Elba is acquainted with the area as his father was born in the country, and the English actor became a citizen himself after a visit in 2019, per BBC. The efforts surrounding Sherbro Island are being undertaken through a collaboration between Sherbro Alliance Partners (SAP), a U.K.-registered company, and the Sierra Leone government to improve the area’s economic state, the island’s website mentions. Elba is also co-founder of SAP, spearheading the venture. “At some junction, my business partner Siaka Stevens, the grandson of the former president, said, ‘Look, someone needs to cultivate Sherbro Island for tourism.’ That was seven years ago,” Elba explained to CNN. “Where we are now is that we partnered with the government to figure out a plan of how...
Encouraged by rap-artist -turned-businessman Bun B, Derrick Turton elevated his interest in cooking. Turton, who was born in Brooklyn, NY, moved to Miami, FL, in 1998 and enrolled in culinary school. Upon graduation, he secured his first job as a line cook at a Red Lobster, according to The New Tropic. However, he disdained his time at the restaurant and made his exit. “I thought I was going to be a ‘Top Chef,’ and I got my first job at Red Lobster,” Turton told the outlet. “It was either Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, and [orders] were coming out of the register [nonstop]. I was just staring at it, and I was like ‘I’m out.’” He then pivoted, becoming a club promoter, which was his entry into the music scene. As he moved into record label promotion, this put him under the radar of rapper and record executive Luther Campbell, and he began to work for Campbell’s record label, The New Tropic reports. Turton was introduced to Armando Christian Perez, who is widely recognized as...
Cordell Broadus persists in his quest to foster opportunities for artists. On Thursday, March 7, 2024, Broadus was seen in The Bahamas to distribute scholarships through t he Champ Medici Arts Fund, a $1 million philanthropic initiative in collaboration with the Tezos Foundation. The purpose of the financial commitment is to ensure “emerging and legacy musicians and artists” are supported in their creative endeavors on the Tezos blockchain, the foundation’s website mentions. “The power of community is at the center of everything I create,” Broadus told AFROTECH™. “My vision and the inspiration behind the fund have been to provide opportunities and access to new technology and innovative forms of artistic expression for up-and-coming artists, especially for minority groups.” Broadus’ focus on the country follows years of visitations, igniting his desire to support local artists in a meaningful manner. Hence, the University of The Bahamas (UB) emerges as one of the recent recipients...
Co-hosts of the “Earn Your Leisure” (EYL) podcast are bringing more financial education to the masses, and it’s a full-circle moment. During an interview with Bloomberg, Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings revealed they are piloting financial literacy courses in 10 public high schools in the Bronx neighborhood in New York City. Reflecting on their own adolescence, they recalled the lack of exposure to such education. They have also observed minimal change in the schools today, reinforcing the importance of the curriculum. “If you think about New York City, the capital of capitalism, but financial literacy is not mandatory in schools, and the school that we went to, there was no financial literacy 20 years ago, and there’s no still financial literacy to this day,” Bilal, a financial advisor, explained, according to Bloomberg. “So, we developed a financial literacy curriculum for different modules: investing and financial literacy; entrepreneurship; savings; investing; credit.” EYL’s...
Three Black women are on a mission to uplift food entrepreneurs in Dayton, OH. In March 2024, Jamaica White, Dabriah Rice, and Charlynda Scales celebrated the soft opening of their nearly five-year passion project, the 6888 (pronounced “six triple eight”) Kitchen Incubator Project. According to a press release, it serves as a business incubator that will support food entrepreneurs through a commercial kitchen, training, and business — including ingredient sourcing, marketing and distribution, and access to capital services. This initiative serves as an extension of the endeavors of their nonprofit organization, OH Taste Foundation. “We’ve been working on this for four and a half years now, and we’re just excited to be able to open up this project and offer these resources to our food entrepreneurs here in the Dayton area,” Rice said, Dayton Daily News reports. The need for the 6888 Kitchen Incubator Project became evident during the pandemic. Rice, who serves as the executive...
In MoonPay’s recent funding round, celebrities from the worlds of music, sports, and entertainment backed the crypto firm with hefty investments. According to Independent, 60 stars including rappers Snoop Dogg and Drake participated in a whopping $87 million raise for the Miami-based firm. Fellow investors also included Justin Bieber, Jason Derulo, Questlove, Gwyneth Paltrow, and more. The announcement follows MoonPay’s $555 million round — bringing its valuation to $3.4 billion. The outlet discloses that many of celebrities involved already had familiarity with cryptocurrency. “Hollywood is using smart contracts and blockchain technology to assert their creative intellectual property rights,” said Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and co-founder of MoonPay, according to Independent. He added: “Major global sports franchises have used digital tokens and NFT collectibles to transform fan engagement. And recording artists are beginning to explore how NFTs can give them more control over royalty...