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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...
When it comes to venture capital, it’s important to have people in the space who reflect the Black-owned businesses and founders they’re looking to help serve. This commitment to serving underserved communities is vital because it allows firms like Clearlake Capital and New Enterprise Associates to use their funds for buying minority stakes in investment firms which in turn equips them with the capital they need to grow. Today, the market wants to use these same partnerships to expand into newer firms specifically with founders from diverse backgrounds. Moves like this are designed for those firms seeking early-stage capital in order to build the necessary infrastructure for winning large pensions and endowments. Wilshire Lane Capital — an early-stage capital firm led by Adam Demuyakor — announced that the company would sell a minority interest to Nile Capital Group this past Friday (August 13). Nile Capital Group is a firm that stakes general partnerships. Demuyakor is a...
Harlem Capital, a diversity -focused venture capital firm, led a $3.7 million seed round for Singuli, according a press release provided to AfroTech. Founded in 2019 by Benjamin Kelly and Thierry Bertin-Mahieux, Singuli created an AI-powered platform that allows retailers to use consumer behavior to better inform inventory decisions. This seed round is the first major funding deal the company has closed, which includes participation from High Alpha Capital, AVG Basecamp Fund, existing investors Interlace Ventures and LAUNCH, as well as angel investors Paul Goodman and Darwish Gani. The fresh funding also includes a previously unannounced $700,000 pre-seed round. “Our mission is to provide commerce brands of all sizes with state of the art tools to make optimal inventory decisions,” Singuli co-founder and CEO Benjamin Kelly told AfroTech. “This is a gnarly space and there are lots of tricky problems.” Kelly was inspired to launch Singuli with Bertin-Mahieux after working as a data...
For the past 15 years, Choice Hotels has devoted itself to its long-standing commitment to make small business ownership a reality for minority entrepreneurs. Now, the hotel group has announced the creation of a first-of-its-kind collective exclusively for Black hoteliers called the Choice Hotels Owners African American Alliance (CHOAAA) — the hotel industry’s only franchisee-focused group dedicated to Black hotel owners, a press release shares. As stated in the announcement, CHOAAA was designed to provide ongoing representation, support and advocacy for these underrepresented entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry. “The racial and social inequality challenges facing our nation and industry have moved us as a company to do more, building on the work we’ve been committed to for decades,” said Patrick Pacious, President/CEO Choice Hotels, in a statement. “As part of our pledge to cultivate a culture of diversity, equity and belonging, we have taken steps to decisively move us...