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Editorial Note: Opinions are the writer’s own and not those of AfroTech. There is a persistent myth that investing in Black businesses is a charitable endeavor rather than a profitable one. In fact, almost twice as much money is donated to BIPOC focused nonprofits vs. invested in BIPOC founded startups. This myth assumes that Black entrepreneurs are not capable of producing the same level of returns as their white counterparts. However, research has shown that investing in Black-owned businesses can be extremely lucrative. A report by McKinsey & Company found that companies with diverse executive teams are 33% more likely to have above-average profitability than those without diversity. Furthermore, a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that companies with Black CEOs receive higher valuations than those with white CEOs. Despite these findings, Black founders continue to face significant obstacles when it comes to securing funding. In 2022, only 1% of all venture...
Diversity and inclusivity have been trending since protests against systemic racism reached fever pitch this summer. As many companies scrambled to prove their support of Black lives, other entities have continued to shutout Black creativity, ideas, and wealth. Ahead of the new year, The Startup Pill reported on Silicon Valley’s top 25 venture capital firms least likely to invest in founders of color. The information is compiled of data from The Black Founders List, which serves as a running historical record of Black founders and the investors who invested in them. The list names well-known firms that have less than five Black-led investments while boasting thousands of investments and billions in revenue. The Startup Pill says that only one percent of venture-backed companies are led by Black founders. “On a macro level, the lack of diversity in the industry is a problem because it means most of the money flows to types of founders VCs understand — businesses with white men of a...
If you don’t like the way something is working, you create your own! Hadiyah Mujhid is doing that as the CEO and Founder of HBCUvc, the nonprofit creating the next generation of venture capitalists. “My goal is to see more Black-founded venture firms or Black GPs, which are controlling where the capital goes,” she told host Will Lucas on the latest episode of AfroTech’s Black Tech Green Money podcast. View this post on Instagram A post shared by HBCUvc (@hbcu.vc) Mujhid’s program is increasing access to capital for communities that are historically overlooked. She herself brings an intersection of experience as a Black woman, technical founder, and software engineer. During the Black Tech Green Money episode, she speaks on Black people’s ability to break down the barriers permitting us from being institutional investors along with the unique value HBCU students and graduates bring to tech startups as VCs — a group that she continues to uplift through her nonprofit. “This is not...
Back in June, PayPal made a $530 million commitment to Black and minority-owned businesses to fight racial injustice. Now, as a part of that promise, the financial giant is paying up. In a press release , Paypal announced an investment of $50 million in eight early-stage Black and Latinx-led venture capital funds: Chingona Ventures; Fearless Fund; Harlem Capital; Precursor Ventures; Slauson & Co.; VamosVentures; Zeal Capital Partners; and one additional fund. The money will be funneled to each company through PayPal venture capital arm, PayPal Ventures, which invests in startups from series A to late-stage funding. “Black and Latinx founders have been underrepresented in venture capital funding for far too long,” said president and CEO of PayPal, Dan Schulman. In addition to providing capital to minority-led VCs, PayPal Ventures is offering a three-month fellowship to a Black or Latinx graduate student each semester. In the program, the student will be mentored about business....
Morgan Stanley recently released a study called “ The Trillion-Dollar Blindspot” showing that trillions of dollars are left on the table by venture capital (VC) firms who won’t invest in women and minority founders. “I think it’s important that people start to think to themselves that we could be in fact cheating our LPs if we don’t give ourselves full access to all of the opportunities that are out there,” Carla Harris, vice chairman at Morgan Stanley told Bloomberg’s Alix Steel on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas.” The report shows that only 17 percent and 18 percent of investors say they “very frequently” review startups and businesses led by women and minorities, respectively. “When VCs are thinking about investing they say ‘no’ in most cases to women and multicultural entrepreneurs is because the product or the process or the opportunity doesn’t fit,” Harris said. The study reports 46 percent of investors said traditional business sectors were a compelling factor when assessing a...
Chicago venture capital firms are collaborating to launch a new initiative aimed at examing and addressing the diversity gap across the tech industry in the city. “A few months ago a group of Chicago VCs and I started talking about ways to help our firms and the companies we invest in build diverse teams and inclusive environments,” wrote Lindsay Knight , director of platforms at Chicago Ventures in a blog post. “A lot of us are making some progress individually, but we know the power of this venture community is greater than any one firm or individual on its own.” Chicago Blend launched last week rolling out a couple of data collection projects looking at the demographic makeup of venture capital firms to better understand the ecosystem. The results reflect the diversity figures across the industry, lacking racial and gender diversity at all levels. The initiative surveyed 348 employees at 70 Chicago based-firms and found roughly 86 percent of the Chicago venture capital community...
The right circle can change your circumstances in the blink of an eye! Calling all early-stage, pre-seed, and seed founders — join the AFROTECH™ Insider Founders Circle to build for the future alongside a network that could lead to your next investor or co-founder. This membership aligns with our mission to empower Black entrepreneurs with the tools to succeed and drive innovation across industries, including fintech, medtech, and consumer tech. “At AFROTECH™, we strive to help make a difference and change the narrative regarding raising capital, starting and scaling a startup, and networking with the right people to help grow your business,” Blavity Chief Revenue Officer Michael Hadgis said on LinkedIn. “We created the AFROTECH™ Insider Founders Circle to help founders navigate the path and their business pitch become investor-ready!” Perks The sky’s the limit! Your direct participation in the AFROTECH™ Insider Founders Circle gives you access to exclusive perks, including office...
Venture firm Ulu Ventures has raised $208 million to support diverse founders. WSJ Pro reports that the VC firm founded by Miriam Rivera and her husband, Clint Korver, has invested in companies where 80% have a white co-founder. However, an equal 80% share also has at least one founder who is an immigrant, a woman, or from a minority group. Since its inception in 2008, this initiative has supported 250 startups , leveraging a data-driven approach to minimize cognitive bias and foster inclusive investment across all demographics. “Venture capital has so many decision-making problems when it comes to bias, diversity, disdain for data and analytics, hubris, misapplication of pattern-matching, and so on, that we feel like the one-eyed VCs in the land of the blind,” Korver told the outlet. The couple acknowledges a shift due to the changing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) landscape. Major companies are throwing in the towel and dismantling DEI commitments, with some erasing...
Serial investor Tré Baker says relationships are the secret weapon for Black investors to scale and produce greater impact. Baker is an investor in nearly 160 startups, including Groundfloor Finance and TribeVest. Reflecting on the venture capitalist space, he admits he wants to see a systemic shift in the investment landscape, particularly concerning Black venture capitalists (VCs). This desire for change also prompted his exit from Techstars Accelerator in November 2024 after nearly three years with the organization, serving as Managing Director. “I’m no longer the managing director of Techstars Tulsa. And part of the reasons that platform is not operating at a systemic enough level, it wasn’t big enough,” he explained during an episode on the “Black Tech Green Money,” hosted by AFROTECH™ Brand Manager Will Lucus. Baker believes Black VCs can operate more effectively, suggesting they move away from the idea of “meritocracy,” which prioritizes talent over wealth or status. In...
Michael Jordan has invested in a VC firm aiming to align itself with multiple unicorns. Sportico reports that Jordan has invested an undisclosed amount in the fourth fund of Courtside Ventures, a firm focused on the sectors of sports, media, entertainment, technology, and gaming. According to Crunchbase, the firm was founded by Deepen Parikh and Vasu Kulkarni. With over $200 million in assets under management, Courtside Ventures’ portfolio includes companies such as Veo (hardware and software subscription); Winzo (social gaming); The Athletic (sports media brand); and Betty (social casino platform), among others. “When we started Courtside in 2016, we did so out of desperate market need,” a statement from Courtside Ventures’ blog post reads . “Not only was there no venture fund that focused on sports, but existing VCs would run to the hills every time they saw a sports deal. This left entrepreneurs constantly having to look for alternate sources of funding, mostly from the very...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. Before Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic ticket’s front-runner, support for the party was low among the tech industry. In fact, many who now back Harris had previously withheld support from Biden, even favoring Trump over the Democratic candidate. Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, is one of those people who recently shifted their support in favor of Harris. After Harris took over the ticket in July, the energy across the tech industry shifted significantly, leading to the formation of new groups representing tech professionals — groups that hadn’t emerged during Biden’s campaign. These groups are VCs for Kamala and Founders for Kamala. They have raised money for her campaign and increased awareness of her positions on key issues impacting the tech industry. I will cover the tech industry’s sentiment under Biden, the current shift with Kamala as...
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. When one thinks about interest rates, the first thing that comes to mind could be credit cards, car loans, and mortgages, but did you know that they also have materially shaped the tech industry over the past 20 years? That’s because the federal interest rate that the Federal Reserve Board sets also informs the industry on whether money will be cheap or expensive, and that changes the way the industry seeks to operate. Below, we will touch on all of the players impacted by the increases and decreases in the federal interest rates. The startup ecosystem players that are affected in different ways by lower or higher interest rates are limited partners, venture capital firms, founders, and employees. The first one is limited partners, or LPs as they are called in the industry. LPs are the institutions or people that invest in venture capital firms. Examples of institutional LPs can be pension funds...
The AFROTECH ™ community continues to push the mission and discussion of inclusivity in the tech space. As we gear up for AFROTECH™ Conference 2024, let’s dive into a session of the past. View this post on Instagram A post shared by AFROTECH™ Conference (@afrotech.conference) On the Executive Stage at the 2023 AFROTECH ™ Conference, Kapor Capital’s founding partners Freada Kapor Klein and Mitch Kapor were part of the panel “Closing The Equity Gap: C reating Wealth and Fostering Justice in Startup Investing” — titled after their book, released in March 2023. Alphonzo Terrell, co-founder and CEO of social media platform Spill, moderated the panel, addressing equity gaps in the startup landscape and how to build a more inclusive future. Klein and Kapor shared that the company has invested more than $106 million into over 170 companies, 62% of which are women-led or underrepresented founders , according to their website . In addition, Kapor Capital has achieved an internal rate of...