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Hello Alice can continue on its mission to support small businesses. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the company, created by Elizabeth Gore and Carolyn Rodz, was named in a class action lawsuit for awarding up to $25,000 in grants to 10 Black-owned businesses in partnership with Progressive Insurance Co. They were sued by Nathan Roberts, who owns an Ohio-based trucking dispatch company and claims he didn’t know Progressive Insurance’s Driving Small Business Forward fund was exclusively for Black-owned businesses. Progressive Preferred Insurance Co., Progressive Casualty Insurance Co., and Circular Board LLC — which operates Hello Alice — are listed as defendants in the lawsuit filed by America First Legal, Mitchell Law PLLC, and Ashbrook Byrne Kresge LLC. Now, a resolution has been reached. According to a news release, the case has been dismissed by a federal judge in Ohio. “This resolution marks a pivotal moment not only for our company but for the broader small business...
It looks like TikTok is standing firm on not going down without a fight. In April 2024, AFROTECH™ previously reported that President Joe Biden signed a law to ban TikTok if its owner, ByteDance, didn’t sell it within a year. The bill followed the House of Representatives’ introduction in March of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act , which aims to “protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications.” A main allegation that has come from U.S. government officials is that TikTok puts Americans’ personal data in danger of being exposed to the Chinese government, which catalyzed Biden’s law. However, TikTok has doubled down on stating the claim is false, saying it hosts data on U.S.-owned Oracle servers, according to CNN . “We will not stop fighting and advocating for you,” TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew shared in a previous statement on its platform, per AP News. “We will continue to do...
Amid the attack on venture capital investments to Black businesses, Hello Alice has come out on top. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the fintech platform — created by Elizabeth Gore and Carolyn Rodz — that has helped small businesses through capital, had been named in a class-action lawsuit filed by America First Legal, Mitchell Law PLLC, and Ashbrook Byrne Kresge LLC in October 2023. The company was targeted for partnering with Progressive Insurance Co. to offer up to $25,000 in grants to 10 Black-owned businesses. “We were founded on the principle of equality, with the aim of ensuring that everyone — women, men, people of color, U.S. Veterans, and more — have an equal opportunity to launch their businesses and pursue the American Dream,” Hello Alice shared at the time in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. “From Texas to California to Florida to New York, small business owners are the most trusted voice in America and a critical engine of our economic growth. Today our...
Business for Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty has been booming as of late. In January, AfroTech previously shared that the lingerie brand raised $125 million in a Series C funding round — bringing its total venture capital funding to $310 million. The round included participation from Neuberger Berman, L Catterton, Avenir, Sunley House Capital, and Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners. According to Savage X Fenty co-presidents Christiane Pendarvis and Natalie Guzman, the new funding is for “retail domination.” The brand’s evolution continues as Rihanna is reportedly looking to take it public. According to Bloomberg, the business maven has been “working with advisers on an initial public offering” that could possibly take Savage X Fenty to a valuation of $3 billion or more. The banks that her company is said to be working with is Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, according to the outlet’s sources. The listing could go into effect this year, but nothing has been publicly confirmed yet by...
Flutterwave has reached exponential heights within the span of six years. AfroTech previously reported that the Nigeria-based fintech startup raised a $170 million Series C round in March 2021. “We will continue to connect you to a world of opportunities and growth, to make it possible for you to reach your customers wherever they are and create endless possibilities for your business,” Flutterwave wrote via an Instagram post following the Series C round. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CMOphnrHe2s/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Now, slightly less than a year later, the company has closed on a recent funding round to power its mission of helping provide payment infrastructure across the African continent. Quartz Africa reports that Flutterwave has raised $250 million in a Series D round at a $3 billion valuation, reportedly making it the highest valued African startup. For the list of investors, click here. The latest funding will go toward “expansion and customer acquisition, by looking...
A new claim by Forbes suggests that celebrity startups may not be what we think they are. The outlet starts out by taking aim at both Rihanna and Kim Kardashian’s recent announcements about their latest funding rounds in their celebrity startups, questioning whether Savage X Fenty and SKIMS (respectively) were really worth the money they’d raised in recent funding rounds (Savage X Fenty raised $125 million in a Series C funding round, while SKIMS raised an additional $240 million, thus bringing its new valuation to $3.2 billion). The outlet also points out that celebrity investments (in other words, what they’ve invested from their personal checkbooks) in their own companies are often not disclosed — and neither are the real sales numbers. “All these private companies are on a PR tear and it’s even easier when a big name is involved,” said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester, to Forbes. What’s more, she said, company valuations are often inflated by up to ten times their...
When you’re a fashion killa, there’s no ceiling when it comes to smashing records! From making waves as an entrepreneur to then setting the standard for what a young, Black billionaire can look like, Rihanna has continued to build the life of her dreams brick by brick. Now, she’s preparing to soar to even greater heights as someone’s mother! Following yesterday’s baby news, Rihanna has shown just why her name turns heads with a +200 percent increase in the fashion demand for “Pink Padded Coats,” in response to the photos shared of the Savage X Fenty creator’s growing belly. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Blavity News (@blavity) According to LovetheSales, the influence of both Rihanna and boyfriend A$AP Rocky are major with the father-to-be driving up the fashion demand for “Men’s Sweater Vests” by a whopping +124 percent as well as “Men’s Leather Trousers” by +78 percent.
In the words of the pop icon herself, “that Rihanna reign just won’t let up!” Right along with the news of Savage X Fenty’s debut brick-and-mortar store in Las Vegas, it has been announced that there is more to come for the successful lingerie brand. Forbes reports that the company had a new funding round of $125 million led by Neuberger Berman.
Many student loan borrowers can expect to be compensated due to a vicious repayment scheme. Bloomberg reports Navient Corp. has reached a $1.85 billion settlement with 39 states for unethical student loan practices, which placed billions of dollars of debt into the hands of its borrowers. Navient Corp. will have to cancel $1.7 billion in private student loans for nearly 66,000 borrowers and pay $95 million in restitution, The New York Times reports. According to Delaware officials, Navient Corp. was responsible for ensuring its customers would be provided affordable repayment plans. Backing away from their word, Navient Corp. secretly pushed customers to take on expensive payments to be paid over an extended period. “The bottom line is this: Navient knew that people relied on their loans to make a better life for themselves and for their children,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Thursday, in a press conference, according to Bloomberg. “Instead of helping them, they...
Payment gateway CinetPay has received $2.4 million in seed funding to further its mission to provide an online payment solution in Francophone Africa. The round was led by Pan-African venture capital fund 4DX Ventures and unicorn Flutterwave, TechCrunch reports. Founded by Idriss Monthe and Daniel Dindji, the birth of CinetPay was due to an uncanny experience Monthe experienced after a slew of issues arose to collect payments at his former startup CinetCore. “When we launched our website to sell domain names online, we faced difficulty in collecting online payment after creating many PayPal accounts which were blocked by PayPal because we were in Africa,” Monthe said, according to TechCrunch. Determined to create a solution that would benefit many others who face similar obstacles in Francophone Africa, CinetPay was born in 2016. Enlightened by the realization that the majority of the African population have a mobile bank account, and up to 20 percent have access to a bank and...
New fintech development platform Emerging Impact has announced that it’s raised $1.5 million in a recent financing round with investors, including Coinbase Ventures, Mercy Corps Ventures, 500 Global, and others. Founded in 2020 by Jon Lewis, Robert Greenfield, and Sandra Hart, Emerging Impact was created to send blockchain fintech products to areas in the market that have not been easily accessible through fiat and mobile money on/off ramps. Supported by recent funding, the company’s latest innovation will launch the open developer platform Umoja. Now consumers can tap into any financial service available within their peer market at a competitive rate while enjoying transaction costs 40 times cheaper than competitors and the utility of experiencing an economic system that is 1,000 times faster, according to a press release provided to AfroTech. “We created Umoja to accelerate inclusive, digital finance through open banking, and to empower and uplift more than 2 billion people...
Damilola Olokesusi — the founder of Shuttlers — has joined the small percentage of women who have received major funding from venture capital in Africa during 2021. After experiencing her own trouble securing transportation in Nigeria, Olokesusi would later become driven to find a solution to combat transportation insufficiencies. Her startup Shuttlers was created in 2016 to transport professionals and organizations from buses to work and combat the continent’s transportations costs in Lagos, Nigeria. Now, the company can further its mission with the help of a successful seed round totaling $1.6 million from investors housed in Nigeria and beyond, TechCrunch reports. The round was led by VestedWorld, a venture capital firm based in Chicago, IL, and Africa. Other investors included Rising Tide Africa, Launch Africa, EchoVC, Consonance Investment, CcHub Syndicate, CMC 21 & Alsa, ShEquity, Five35, Sakore and Nikky Taurus. Olokesusi acknowledges the interest for these investors was due...
Chipper Cash, an African cross-border payments company, has announced its new $2 billion valuation after its recent Series C extension. According to NairaMetrics, this new Series C extension raised an additional $150 million for the company. The funding was led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX. SVB Capital, as well as other previous investors such as Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos Expeditions (owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos), One Way Ventures, and Tribe Capital, reinvested in this extension round. Chipper Cash, which was founded in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, is a no-fee peer-to-peer cross-border payment service in Africa. Through their app, users can accept payments in Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya — to name but a few places that use the app. In 2021, the company expanded again — this time, into the United Kingdom. By using Chipper Cash, users can send money from the United Kingdom to their...
It’s a business mogul linkup! Will Smith, Kevin Durant and Diddy have joined forces to invest in Arc, an electric boat startup. Arc launched ten months ago and now with the trio of big names tied to it, the early-stage company is hoping to breakthrough the market. The startup is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Arc also announced that it has garnered funding from Smith’s Dreamers VC, Durant and Rich Kleiman’s Thirty Five Ventures and Diddy’s Combs Enterprises. “Along with being world class in their respective fields, these individuals bring a wealth of experience in building brands, marketing products, and cultivating strong communities. Together, they’ll help Arc execute faster and amplify our impact,” the company wrote in a blog post. The company also said that it envisions a future where all boats are electric (the majority of watercraft run on fossil fuel). With the support of an all-star team, the company seeks to make its mission come to fruition. “All of...
UnitedMasters, a startup record label and distribution company, has announced that it has reached a $550 million valuation after a new infusion of capital led by Andreessen Horowitz. In a press release, it was announced that the New York-based company raised a $50 million Series C, which they said they will be using to advance their operations overseas. What’s more, they said, their music business model is one that’s different from so-called “traditional” record labels, in that they rely on such social media platforms as TikTok to bolster their artists’ presence. In the UnitedMasters business model, artists retain the rights to their masters, and the company takes a fee for licensure and other opportunities. In this way, the company makes money from licensing, while the artist gets the backing of a company with a record label type of service behind it. Additionally, AfroTech previously reported that the company also has partnered with Coinbase to provide cryptocurrency capabilities...