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Tech startup Bevy — the only enterprise virtual, hybrid, and in-person event community platform on the market — announced that the company has just secured a $40 million Series C funding round in an effort to continue helping companies expand their global customer communities and drive radical change for diversity and inclusion in tech. The funding round was led by Accel Partners — for the second time in the past year — with participation from other investors such as LinkedIn, Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith, Upfront Ventures, as well as over 25 top Black leaders in the tech industry. Bevy — currently operating with a completely remote workforce located in 10 different countries on four continents — plans to use the new funding to expand its team from 100 employees to 250 later this year. Not only does this new funding round mark a major milestone for Bevy, it also outlines the company’s intentions to establish more diversity in tech so it deliberately carved out more space to allow...
If the bevy of look-alike summer event flyers flooding our timelines are any indication, we are fully in the AI era, and we won’t be turning back. While it seems like we’re just scratching the surface of end user applications of GenAI, companies are looking to adapt their businesses to incorporate GenAI. However, many are not quite sure how to do so in a way that is sustainable, both from a business perspective and in terms of environmental impact. Enter CoreWeave, where they are actively customizing AI innovation for a variety of clients to develop cloud infrastructure intentionally created with AI in mind. CoreWeave’s approach to creating a modern infrastructure stands out from that of other companies in this space in that they directly address the fact that so much compute capacity (up to 65%) is lost due to system inefficiencies once embedded in GPUs. With that and other factors in mind, the company built out data centers around GPU clusters powered by NVIDIA along with powerful...
Amid the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, proptech startup Sugar Living emerged to help enhance the at-home quarantine experience for everyone stuck indoors. Now, over a year later, the Los Angeles-born company is expanding that mission to further connect people in their residential communities through technology. This week, Sugar announced the raise of a $2.5 million seed funding round as it strives to transform apartment buildings into interactive communities with its visionary technology. The round gathered funds from strategic investors across property tech, community and innovation — including MetaProp, Agya Ventures, Concrete Rose, Debut Capital, The Community Fund, Consonance Capital, Lightspeed Scout Fund, and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH syndicate. PropTech angels investors who participated in the round also include Wasserstrum and Diran Otegbade, Oleksiy Ignatyev, and Zillow board member Claire Cormier Thielke. According to Sugar founder Fatima Dicko, the new...
Halle Berry is nothing if not living Black history. In 2001, she made Oscars history when she became the first — and, to date, the only — Black woman to ever win the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was also one of the top-paid actresses of the 2000s, one of the top runners-up in the Miss USA and Miss World pageants, and dated a bevy of hot celebrity men. Not bad for a woman from humble beginnings in Cleveland, OH! But Halle Berry hasn’t always had it easy. Estranged from her father since she was a child, Berry was also the victim of domestic abuse from past partners, and the abuse was so severe that it left her hearing permanently compromised. Unfortunately, too, Berry seemed to be reliving her own childhood in her own relationships: before her father and mother divorced, she recalled him being very abusive. “I wasn’t married to a man that beat me up, but my mother was,” she said to TVGuide, recalling that her mother would get kicked, pushed down the stairs, and even hit in the...
Consumer tech giant Best Buy just found a huge way to pledge its support toward Black and brown entrepreneurs in the tech industry. According to a press release, Brown Venture Group — a venture capital (VC) firm created to fund Black, Latinx and Indigenous tech entrepreneurs — announced that Best Buy has committed up to $10 million to its $50 million inaugural fund, considered one of the largest in the country dedicated to this group of techpreneurs. This commitment from Best Buy builds on its recent pledge to spend at least $1.2 billion with diverse businesses by 2025 with a focus on the tech industry. “We’re committed to taking meaningful action to address the challenges faced by BIPOC entrepreneurs,” Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said in a statement. “Through partnerships like this, we believe we can begin to do this by helping to build a stronger, more vibrant community of diverse innovators in the tech industry, some of whom we hope will become partners of Best Buy in the future.”...
Google is committed to investing in the future of tomorrow’s Black leaders and professionals, and its latest initiative is directly addressing the diversity gap in tech. Today, the tech giant has announced a new $50 million grant for 10 chosen Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to help fund scholarships, invest in technical infrastructure to support in-class and remote learning, as well as develop curriculum and career support programs for these students. “As Google’s Chief Diversity Officer and an HBCU alum, I am proud to continue our long-standing partnership with HBCUs and help provide Black students with access to opportunities in tech,” Melonie Parker told AfroTech exclusively over email. “This work is deeply important to me and the amazing talent, unique perspectives and lived experiences of these students embody the true meaning of diversity. This grant will help to fund the important work needed to further prepare students for the tech industry.” HBCUs have...
Thrilling, a Black- & Asian-owned secondhand marketplace, has announced that they’ve raised $8.5 million in a recent Series A funding round. The Series A funding round closed in April 2021 and was led by Prelude Ventures and joined by Defy, Congruent Ventures, Urban Us, Closed Loop, Phoenix Rising, and DLA Piper Venture. The funds raised will be used to bring on key team members and further develop Thrilling’s core technology, which offers innovative tools to support small business owners and a personalized, uniquely enjoyable shopping experience. The online marketplace, which is the latest company to join the growing trend of upcycling fashion, has a number of celebrity fans, including iconic costume designer Mona May and Zerina Akers, Beyoncé’s stylist and the owner/ CEO of Black-Owned Everything. Thrilling has also partnered with Banana Republic to offer a limited-edition capsule that’s inclusive of vintage pieces as part of the brand’s BETTER REPUBLIC sustainability efforts. The...
Billing itself as the leading online program training underrepresented founders on how to raise money to scale their tech startups, the Founder Gym (FG) has just announced that they’re ready to go forward with yet another cohort. This cohort, according to their Medium page, will be part of the inaugural fundraising cohort specifically designed for Black women who want to raise money to scale their startup. FG Fundraising Cohort 17 is for all Black women, including trans women. The best part about the Founder Gym is that they don’t take a portion of equity when they do get you funding for your startup. Rather, they’re a fee- and tuition-based program, and there are even payment plans available for those that can’t afford the tuition all upfront. For those that don’t identify as Black women, Founder Gym has you covered, too. Although non-Black women can’t apply for this next cohort, there is another cohort that’s available for all underrepresented founders (women, Black, Latinx,...
For Brandon Carr, reading isn’t just fundamental. It’s his purpose. Long before his football career earned him a spot in the 2008 NFL draft, the Flint, Michigan native tackled the importance of literacy. At the influence of his mother, Kathy, who worked as a schoolteacher for 33 years, Carr’s childhood was filled with acclaimed children’s books , including kid classics “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” “The Berenstain Bears,” and “Curious George.” “Those books intrigued me to a point where I signed up for “Scholastic” and read “National Geographic” in the mail every Saturday at the breakfast table,” Carr — who still prides himself on being a book nerd — said. “My dad had the newspaper, I got my mail with the books and my mom sat just watching it all. It got to a point where I was so thirsty for more that I would beg my parents for entire book sets.” Years later, Carr’s unwavering thirst for reading at an early age set the tone for the Carr Cares Foundation , a nonprofit dedicated to...
Teen rapper and viral sensation Alaya “That Girl Lay Lay” High just secured the bag. In an Instagram post on Tuesday (June 16), High announced a deal with Nickelodeon to develop original multiplatform programming, music initiatives, and build cross-category consumer products, Deadline reports . “So so so soooooo excited to announce that I signed a deal with @nickelodeon and will be doing TV, Music and a bunch of other cool things with the #1 kid network to further my career,” she wrote. View this post on Instagram A post shared by That Girl Lay Lay (@thatgirllaylay) The Houston native has garnered millions of followers with her viral rap freestyles , which attracted a bevy of celebrity supporters, including Nicki Minaj and Nick Cannon. At age 11, Lay Lay became the youngest female rapper to sign a recording deal under her own imprint, Fresh Rebel Muzik/Empire, according to Deadline. Under the banner, she released her 2018 debut album “Tha Cheat Code,” — along with the deluxe album —...
Quibi is finally here! Add the new mobile streaming platform to your regular Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video rotation. Launched earlier this month, Quibi offers over 50 scripted and unscripted shows. Its first batch of content includes daily essential news programs, documentary, competition shows and everything in between. What’s more, they’ve got some much-anticipated shows in the pipeline. Though Quibi’s aim was to provide entertainment while folks are on the go, the subscription-based service can still be a treat for those of us safely quarantining indoors and looking for some good feels. As Rolling Stone reports , Quibi is currently offering free 90-day subscriptions to anyone who signs up on their website before April 20. With that said, here are the most uplifting shows you should try out while it’s free.99! “Thanks A Million” Yes, this human interest show will tug at your heartstrings. The idea is that A-list celebs pay it forward with enormous acts of kindness — in the...
Detroit high school senior Michael Love is trying to pick a college and has a bevy of choices. Love applied to about 50 colleges and received acceptance letters from 41 institutions, reports WXYZ. As the acceptances rolled in, so did scholarship offers: the Cornerstone Health and Technology student has amassed more than $300,000 in scholarship money. Love’s mom, Micole Ewing, was initially wary of her son applying to so many schools. “I thought he was crazy when he told me he was applying to so many schools,” said Ewing. She changed her outlook as her son kept receiving good news, however. “Every time I open up a letter I jumped up and down, we praised God and everything. I’m super proud of him,” she said. Love struggled at the beginning of high school but was determined to succeed despite discouraging comments from naysayers. “I got told a lot when I was younger I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t do that,” Love said. “So I just wanted to show people I’m better than what they think I...
The creator of programming language Python has officially banned its master/slavery terminology. The use of the terms “master” and “slave” aren't exclusive to Python, and have sparked many a debate in the tech community due to their connotations, and their connection to America’s sad history. Things came to a head last week when Python developer Victor Skinner submitted four pull requests to remove the words from the Python lexicon, according to Motherboard. “For diversity reasons, it would be nice to try to avoid ‘master’ and ‘slave’ terminology, which can be associated with slavery,” Skinner wrote. The request led to a bevy of heated commentary from other techies on Python.org . One user, Steven Daprano, argued "master" and "slave" are actually positive terms: “I strongly disagree with this as a general principle. Master/slave" is a powerful, obvious metaphor which works well and is not the same as parent/child, server/client or employer/worker. In fact, in the BDSM...