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venture capital - Page 8

1 min read

This Black Owned Payment Platform For Pharmacies Just Raised $1.3M

HealNow is a Black owned payment platform that helps pharmacies to improve patient onboarding and modernize their patient experience.

HealNow was founded by Halston Prox and Joshua Smith in 2018 and has now raised a total of $1.4M in reported equity funding.

black owned payment platform
Halston Prox

This includes the most recent seed funding round of $1.3M from investors that include Softbank Opportunity Fund, Alabama Futures Fund.

black owned payment platform
Joshua Smith

HeallNow allows patients to pay co-payments, schedule deliveries (or express pickup) and enter medical information online. They also enable pharmacies to offer online payments of prescriptions.

Their solution allows healthcare organizations to increase revenue by capturing more sales of prescriptions, over-the-counter medications, and other medical products from every discharged patient. Keeping all pharmacy orders in-network.

 

Tony O. Lawson


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2 mins read

This Black Owned FinTech Payroll Startup Has Raised Almost $11M

Gig Wage is a Black owned Fintech startup that builds modern payroll, payments, and banking tools for the Gig Economy.

As of a few weeks ago, Gig Wage has now raised $10.7M in total equity funding. The funds will help with its growth in areas that include sales, marketing, and ongoing product innovation.

We caught up with founder, Craig J. Lewis to find out more about his business.

Black owned fintech
Gig Wage founder, Craig J. Lewis

What inspired you to start Gig Wage? 

In 2016 I read a report from McKinsey on the Global Independent Workforce aka the Gig Economy and it struck me that no one was really servicing the businesses that pay these workers.

I thought to myself, “We can become the payroll technology for the Gig Economy.” It also really scratched an itch I had to leverage payroll to impact the end user experience (the people getting paid). Gig Wage was an opportunity to be B2B2C and help everyone involved.

To what do you attribute the rapid growth of your business? 

The Gig Economy was rapidly expanding and Gig Wage was growing really fast pre COVID but COVID19 has definitely been an accelerant. The increased need for delivery has been the main area of growth we’ve seen.

black owned fintech

How does Gig Wage benefit employers? 

Gig Wage provides all the technology and tools businesses need to pay contractors/freelancers/gig workers in a fast, flexible, and modern way. Also by having 1099 specific software helps with classification concerns.

Where do you see your business in 5 years? 

Global with a 10 figure valuation.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs? 

Get started, keep going.

 

Tony O. Lawson


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1 min read

Black Owned Investment Firm Has Helped African Startups Raise $60M

Nichole Yembra is the Founder and Managing Director of The Chrysalis Capital, a $15M Africa and Diaspora early stage tech fund, and The Chrysalis Advisors, a strategy and investment advisory firm.

In this interview, we discuss:

1) African startups being forced to solve “African problems” vs Global problems (3:30)

2) The African Startup ecosystem (10:11)

3) Funding Bias – Foreign Black Privilege (13:00)

4) The need for government to create infrastructure and regulation that helps entrepreneurs (16:00)

5) The importance of supporting women founders (22:45)

6) Advice for founders looking for funding (25:15)

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Tony O. Lawson


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3 mins read

Black Owned Credit Building App Raises $2.3M

Today, Esusu, a platform that aims to dismantle barriers to housing, announced the closing of $2.3 million in seed extension bringing total capital raised to $4 million.

Humble Beginnings

The name Esusu is a Yoruba word that describes informal savings in traditional African societies.

Co-founder Abbey Wemimo came up with the idea for the app when his family, led a single mom of three, struggled to afford his education. His relatives had to pool their resources to afford his education, and his mother contributed much of the money.

Abbey Wemimo

The Platform

Esusu’s rent reporting platform captures rental payment data and reports it to credit bureaus to boost credit scores. This enables tenants to build credit while property owners can encourage on-time payments. Esusu currently operates in over 30 states and covers over 200,000 rental units.

“Esusu’s vision to use data to eliminate the racial wealth gap is driven by the role that credit and housing play in financial stability and wealth accumulation in the United States. Our fundamental belief is that where you come from, the color of your skin or your financial identity shouldn’t determine where you end up in life. We are privileged to join forces with world-class investors to address these systemic issues through the innovative use of data,” said Esusu Co-Founders, Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel.

Currently, less than 1% of rental payments are reported into the credit bureaus despite being the largest expense for most Americans. According to HUD and Urban Institute, rental data is one of the strongest predictors of a tenant’s credit risk.

Esusu’s model presents a profitable solution for property managers to help keep renters in their homes while equipping financial institutions with the data to underwrite renters with limited credit history.

We are experiencing the greatest public health crisis in a century, the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, and accelerating income inequality. Concomitantly, we are dealing with systemic racism that stifles the promise of America. “At Esusu we have a unique opportunity to challenge the status quo by using our platform to dismantle barriers to housing for working families and over the longer horizon, eliminate the racial wealth gap,” continued Abbey Wemimo and Samir Goel.

Tony O. Lawson


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1 min read

Black Owned VC Firm in London Is Raising £100 Million to Invest in Black Founders

Recent reports have found that less than 1% of venture capital is invested in Black businesses in the US and the number for the UK is no better.

London based, Impact X Capital Partners is a Black owned venture capital firm that is raising £100 Million ($131 million) to support underrepresented entrepreneurs within the entertainment, media, tech, health, and digital industries.

We spoke with Ezechi Britton. Founding Member, Principal & CTO in Residence at Impact X Capital about several topics including:

  • The need for diversity in the tech industry
  • The importance of investing in Black founders
  • How entrepreneurs can position themselves to be attractive to investors

Don’t forget to LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel!

Tony O. Lawson


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7 mins read

One of the Largest Black Owned Venture Capital Firms Just Doubled in Size With a $250 Million Round

One of the largest Black-Owned Venture Capital Firms just doubled in size. Two years after closing their debut fund of $150 million, Base10 co-founders Adeyemi Ajao and TJ Nahigian are back with a $250 million investment fund and a sense of vindication for their thesis of investing in startups making automation for the people.

For Ajao, an immigrant who grew up in Nigeria and Spain before moving to the U.S., the new fund is a confirmation that even without having an explicit focus on minority investments, it’s possible to create a portfolio led by a diverse mix of founders. Indeed, roughly 60% of the firm’s investments have been into companies led or co-led by women or minority founders.

Part of the firm’s diversity simply comes from the geographic diversification of the portfolio, said Ajao. “We like to invest in Latin America [and] we like to invest outside of Silicon Valley… We have always had the knack of look where others are not looking.”

And as part of that commitment, the firm is making a diversity pledge, including doubling-down on a commitment to diversity through its investment process, hiring practices and bias training; and a commitment of 1% of the firm’s profits from its management company and another 1% commitment of its carried interest to support organizations fighting for inclusion and racial equality.

Ajao and Nahigian have already enlisted firms like Precursor Ventures, Illumen Capital, and Plexo Capital in the new commitment.

Drawing on Ajao’s connections in the Spanish and Latin American community of entrepreneurs has meant that Base10 already has a geographically and racially diverse portfolio. Latin American companies account for about five of the firm’s 28 publicly listed portfolio companies, with other portfolio companies coming from the Netherlands and Germany.

Ajao and Nehigian have also spread the wealth pretty broadly across the U.S., with companies in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Stamford, Connecticut and Seattle, in addition to the traditional startup hub of San Francisco.

At Base10, the typical check size will remain in the $500,000 to $5 million range and the focus remains on experienced founders in industries as diverse as agriculture, construction, waste management, shipping and logistics.

Investments include Cottage, which is building adjacent dwelling units for the California market; Faber, which provides staffing for commercial construction; the Mexico City-based digital freight forwarder, NowPorts; birth-control delivery startup The Pill Club; on-demand staffing company Wonolo and TokenSoft, a platform for compliant token sales.

The new capital is a huge vote of confidence in both Nahigian, a Los Angeles native who spent years as an investor at Summit Partners, Accel and Coatue Management before founding the mobile job platform, Jobr; and Ajao, who only began working in venture as a corporate investor with Workday Ventures.

Previously, the serial entrepreneur launched several companies, including Identified, which was sold to Workday, and Tuenti, which Telefonica acquired for $100 million back in 2010. Ajao also has the distinction of co-founding Cabify, which raised at a $1.4 billion valuation back in 2018.

And he was Nahigian’s first investor in Jobr. The pair stayed in touch, discussed startups and potential deals, and ultimately decided to go into business together back when the firm was first getting off the ground.

These days, Ajao believes the public’s fears of automation coming for people’s jobs have been replaced with a realization that automation is “essential to survival for millions of people and small and medium businesses” looking to stay afloat amid the wave of economic shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Moreover, with issues of racial, economic, and gender inequality front and center, it is evident today more than ever that we have a collective responsibility to focus on urgently solving problems that are actually important for 99% of people,” Ajao wrote in a blog post announcing the new Base10 fund.

As the co-founder of what is one of the largest Black-led venture funds, with $400 million in assets under management, Ajao is taking this moment to situate his fund in a place that supports the development of technology for the 99%.

Examples of portfolio companies stepping in to solve real business problems abound, writes Ajao in his blog post, from a family-owned restaurant in San Francisco using Virtual Kitchen Company to transition its operations to a full-service delivery model; to restaurants across the Southeast using PopMenu. There’re also newer portfolio company investments like AMI, a Salesforce-style software platform for direct marketers.

As employers responded to the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 epidemic by slashing jobs, many laid-off workers turned to direct sales to support their families, Ajao said. Tools like AMI are helping these stay-at-home entrepreneurs continue to make money as their main source of income.

New investments in the firm’s second fund include companies like Wise, which gives online storefronts and gig economy workers a way to set up bank accounts online easily; Mimic, which is building a distributed kitchen network for Brazil; and Lana, the financial management service for gig workers in Latin America.

These new deals illustrate the firm’s belief that “the tech industry’s collective responsibility [is] to focus on the problems that affect 99% of people, and to work in tandem with communities, governments, and existing Real Economy companies to solve these problems.”

Ultimately, Ajao and Nahigian are attributing their success to what amounts to the old (and overused) investment cliche that investors go where opportunities are going to be.

“If the VC industry as a whole is overlooking minorities, you can generate alpha by simply taking steps to ensure that you don’t have this same blind spot,” Ajao writes.

 

Source: Tech Crunch

 

 

 

3 mins read

Squire, A Black Owned Barbershop Scheduling App, Raises $34 Million

Squire is a business management platform for barbershops. This software has the capability to serve independent professionals, stand-alone locations, and multi-location franchises, with tools such as Point of Sale, Scheduling, Payroll, CRM, and a host of other features.

squire
SQUIRE Founders Dave Salvant (L) and Songe LaRon (R)

The company just announced a Series B round that includes $27 million in equity financing and $7 million in debt financing, bringing the total raised to $46.2 million for the tech startup. This investment round aims to assist the growing company as it adds financial services to its already functional digital platform.

Squire provides barbers and shop owners with the ability to operate their businesses with cashless and contactless pay transactions, thereby streamlining service interaction and helping them earn and retain loyal clientèle as a result.

“Barbershops have been forced to modernize overnight, where scheduling and digital payments have become imperative to their operations and livelihood. And thankfully for shop owners, they have Squire to enable their expedited digital transition,” says Reid Christian, General Partner at CRV. “From an investment perspective, backing Dave and Songe with their unique perspective on the industry, coupled with the underlying structural shift in how consumers expect to interact with businesses, made this a unique opportunity to revolutionize an entire market.”

squire

With new regulations regarding social distancing practices and mandatory appointments amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Squire’s technology will continue to perform, and help shop owner’s organizational structure, with the goal of assisting them in reclaiming some of their losses during the global crises and increasing their overall revenue afterward.

“Small businesses are hurting right now. Fortunately, barbershops are well-positioned to thrive in an economic downturn since people will always need haircuts,” says Songe LaRon, co-founder, and CEO  of Squire. “We’re focused on providing the payment infrastructure and financial services that will help barbershops reopen successfully and excel post-COVID. This investment will help us scale and execute on our goal of becoming the industry standard for barbershops.”

“Our goal has always been to put our customers first and be a resource in times of need,” says Dave Salvant, co-founder, and President.

Funds from this round will also be utilized to assist and educate barbershops; equipping them with the necessary tools to function in a post-pandemic society while providing training and access to digital practices that will aid them in operating a seamless business.

 

-Tony O. Lawson


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1 min read

Serena Williams Invests in Mahmee, a Startup Fighting Maternal Mortality

After Serena Williams gave birth to her daughter in 2018, she shared the life-threatening complications she experienced—and how, as a Black woman, she was three times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes.

Now Williams—through her firm Serena Ventures—has invested in digital maternal health care company, Mahmee.

Mahmee  uses predictive analytics to provide personalized, on-demand support to new mothers and infants. Mahmee members can book appointments — both in-home and virtual — with a growing network of highly-qualified postpartum care providers, including registered nurses, board-certified lactation consultants, registered dietitians, certified massage therapists,  and more.

Mahmee also features a private messaging hotline, online support groups led by experts, and a personalized dashboard of content and advice that evolves with mom and baby through every age and stage.

Mahmee, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer Melissa Hanna

About 700 women die from pregnancy-related complications in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Three in five of those deaths are preventable, and one-third of those deaths happen up to a year after the birth.

Williams was joined in the $3 million funding round by angel investor Mark Cuban, as well as  Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital.

 

 

1 min read

This Black Venture Capitalist sold his former company for $100 Million

Adeyemi (“Ade”) Ajao is co-founder & Managing Partner at Base10 Partners, an early stage venture capital fund.

Ade Ajao

Black Venture Capitalist

Base10 recently made news for raising $137 million, the most money ever raised by a Black-led  venture capital fund.

Before Base10, Ade was a co-founder of Tuenti (The “Spanish Facebook”). He launched Tuenti in 2005 and in 2010, it was acquired by Spanish telecommunications giant, Telefonica $100m.

Black Venture Capitalist

Ade was also co-founder of Identified (acquired by Workday in 2014 for an unspecified amount) and a founding investor of Cabify, the largest ride sharing company in Latin America. Cabify is currently valued at over $1 Billion.

As an angel investor, Ade has participated in more than 40 deals including companies like Dollar Shave Club (acquired by Unilever), RelateIQ (Acquired by Salesforce), Jobr (Acquired by Monster), Instacart and Reflektive.

Joaquin Ayuso de Paul, Ade’s co-founder from Tuenti once stated, “He is the guy that trusted me to be his copartner on Tuenti.com project. He is the mastermind behind the social network idea and concept.”

Ade volunteers with CODE2040 to create access, awareness, and opportunities for gifted Black and Latin engineering talent.

 

-Tony O. Lawson


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10 mins read

Nichole Yembra: Managing Partner of One of The Largest FinTech VC Firms in Africa

One of my goals is to invest in many startups here and on the continent. The African Fintech (Financial technology) sector is one that’s always been interesting to me because of its potential to solve many social and economic issues.

According to a recent report from Disrupt Africa, the overall startup funding from venture capitalists jumped by 51 percent to $195 million from 2016 to 2017, with fintech funding accounting for one-third of the funds.

One company that specializes in financial technology is GreenHouse Capital. This Lagos based VC firm is assembling the largest portfolio of FinTech companies in Africa.

fintech
Nichole Yembra, MP – GreenHouse Capital

We spoke with Nichole Yembra, Managing Partner at GreenHouse Capital for more insight. Nichole is the local partner for foreign investors eager to transform African technology startups.

How would you describe the startup scene in Nigeria?

Over 40% of Nigerians identify as entrepreneurs; whether that is a one-woman store selling sweets and household items to series B tech companies getting international buzz. This spirit of hustle and solving every day Nigerian problems runs at the core of who we are.

While there are plenty stories of those who have started, we don’t yet have enough tales of exits which holds the Nigerian startup scene back compared to Kenya and South Africa. For the first time in 2017, Nigeria raised the most money on the continent and H1 2018 is already ahead of that trend.

Both domestic and international investors are backing really brilliant ideas, and this is setting up the ecosystem for much needed success stories.

What do you look for when deciding to invest in a company?

At GHC, we actually have a 10 item criteria, but the most important is the team. We need to know that they are resilient, flexible enough to pivot, technologically sound, and have the right set of morals.

Nichole Yembra

A great team will weather all the challenges thrown at them from both the macro and micro level and we honestly want to invest in people that we simply enjoy being around! We only invest in post revenue companies, so someone out there has to be willing to pay for your product.

Other areas including having at least one technical co-founder, assessing whether the timing is right for this product to enter the market, and modeling scalability.

Currently, your portfolio consists of mostly Fintech startups. What makes this such an attractive sector?

Fintech as we define it is the solution for so many issues on our continent. The most important thing we are looking for is data and a whole lot of it! Data allows everyone to make better decisions and innovate much faster.

For all the hundreds of payment companies, we still simply find it hard to move money across Africa and targeting the large percentage of the unbanked. Let me take one small aspect of fintech—inbound international remittances. In 2017, Nigerians (or others) in the diaspora sent $22 Billion dollars to friends and family in Nigeria. Nigeria’s entire 2017 oil revenues were $20 Billion.

fintech
Bunmi Akinyemiju, MP/CEO of Green House Capital

That’s right; inbound remittances were larger than all of Nigeria’s oil revenue. Furthermore, the average fee on those transactions is 10% meaning $2.2B for fintech companies moving foreign currency into the country.

Fintech’s are prominent throughout every fiber of society; from getting accurate patient records to track illnesses and medications to understanding why African aviation runs at a loss compared to its global counterparts.

Fintechs provide increased transparency and improve predictability. Any business that wants to make money needs to be plugged into a payment system, therefore permanently increasing the need for innovative fintechs.

Kunmi Demuren – Founding Partner, Greenhouse Capital

Congratulations on the launch of Vibranium Valley. What is the mission and vision behind it?

We’ve actually only completed phase 1 of Vibranium Valley now which houses Venture Garden Group’s 7 companies and the HQ for our investment arm GreenHouse Capital’s 14 companies.

Vibranium Valley launch day with Nigerian Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo (center)

We will also hold the 8-12 companies we are choosing for GreenHouse Lab, our all female tech accelerator. Once the full project is completed, we will have space for not just long term resident companies, but also those with budding ideas.

The mission is to enhance the tech ecosystem by fostering collaboration. Let’s say one company is trying to provide banking solutions to a state government and their primary system requires microfinance or commercial bank accounts, but the state wants to also incorporate the unbanked.

Vibranium Valley

That company can reach out to other fintechs that help cooperatives or have agency networks to partner with eachother rather than building that aspect of the solution from scratch. Vibranium Valley also serves as a central point for international investors and companies looking to better/more quickly understand the Nigerian investment landscape.

Vibranium Valley

If you have a question about a tech company in Nigeria, someone on our team most likely knows the answer or can easily direct you to someone who does. Being this ecosystem connector and helping shine the light on tech successes in Nigeria are the reasons why Vibranium Valley had to exist.

In your opinion, why is it important to support Nigerian and African startups in general?

Because nobody else can solve our problems for us. Developed countries like Japan, the US, and Germany have median ages between 46.9 and 37.9 years old; whereas the median age for the African continent is 19.5 years old with Nigeria averaging 18.3! Africans are not just the future, we are the now!

Garden Women’s Network

These young minds are growing up intrinsically connected with technology and innovation around the world and still hungry and imaginative enough to create both enabling and disruptive solutions to our nations’ problems.

We have already begun outsourcing our brain power to Silicon Valley companies with entities like Andela and countries looking to increase their global foothold can only come here for expansion. Given the large number of infrastructure and systemic issues around power, education, etc., there is not a shortage of problems to solve and the impact can be more immediate and widespread.

What is your advice for a foreigner investors that are interested in investing in Nigerian startups?

Come on over, we’re waiting for you. The beauty of investing here is that it naturally has a societal impact and given the perceived high risk, much higher returns.

I’d advise that you do your homework by engaging someone like us at VGG and always have a local investor in your round that can keep an eye on things on ground.

The biggest point of advice though is don’t come here trying to structure a silicon valley type deal; bring in global best practices, but be willing to localize and always search for context.

GHC CEO, Bunmi Akinyemiju, Managing Partner, Nichole Yembra, and Executive Director, Kunmi Demuren

Where do you see the company in the next 5 years?

Hopefully as a billion dollar company! For the new age unicorn definition, no African company has yet reached this milestone and we hope to be amongst the first.

We have deployed our fintech solutions across aviation, power, education, banking, and social investment while investing in companies addressing financial inclusion, renewable energy, healthcare, and so on.

With this connected ecosystem, we hope to increase not just our net worth but create a new class of tech millionaires and billionaires who are impacting millions of lives across the continent.

 

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson (IG @thebusyafrican)

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