28 black founders and investors making an impact in tech

[mson]

28 black founders and investors making an impact in tech
Mikey Tom February 27, 2017

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In honor of Black History Month, we've compiled a list of 28 founders and VCs who are making an impact in the tech industry. If you're interested in learning about other black founders and VCs, check out last year's post.
Founders

Riana Lynn is the founder and CEO of FoodTrace, a startup that builds software and mapping applications for food sourcing management. The company utilizes Big Data and small business user profiles to link food distributors, local farms and specialty food manufacturers with wholesale food buyers. Lynn is also an entrepreneur-in-residence with Google Code 2040, a program that works to support and connect black and Latinx entrepreneurs with resources needed to build their companies.

Ryan Williams is a co-founder and CEO of Cadre, the provider of a platform that connects qualified individuals and institutions to vetted real-estate opportunities. The company has raised about $70 million in VC funding since its 2014 founding—most recently a $50 million round in January 2016. Investors include General Catalyst, Thrive Capital and Founders Fund. Williams graduated from Harvard in 2010 and has previous experience working at firms including Goldman Sachs and Blackstone.

Kimberly Bryant is the founder and executive director of Black Girls CODE, a nonprofit focused on teaching girls from underrepresented communities (around ages 7-17) skills in computer programming and technology. The organization was founded in 2011 and proceeded to launch in 10 US cities and expand to South Africa the following year. Bryant is a graduate of Vanderbilt University.

Blavity is a media enterprise that features user-generated editorial content, original video and a custom-designed backend for the black millennial market. The company, which was founded in 2014 by Morgan DeBaun, Jonathan Jackson, Jeff Nelson and Aaron Samuels, was a part of 500 Startups’ 17th accelerator batch and currently boasts more than 7 million monthly users.

Lisa Dyson is the founder and CEO of Kiverdi, a chemicals company working to transform carbon-rich waste into high-value, lower cost oils and oil-derived chemicals used in everyday products like plastics, detergents and fuel additives. Kiverdi was founded in 2008 and has raised funding from firms including Kapor Capital. Dyson holds a PhD in physics from MIT and has done research in bioengineering, energy and physics at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Princeton and UC San Francisco.

Wayne Sutton is the co-founder of Change Catalyst and its Tech Inclusion programs. Tech Inclusion is an organization that partners with the tech community to address diversity and inclusion through conferences, career fairs, strategic consulting and training. Sutton is also a general partner at BUILDUP fund, a nonprofit designed to support an inclusive ecosystem of tech entrepreneurs through offering workshops, founder/investor events, an angel network and a pre-accelerator program.

Brit Fitzpatrick founded and is the CEO of MentorMe, a platform designed to help organizations, businesses and communities organize mentorship opportunities. The site has over 4,000 active users and counts the Memphis Grizzlies and New York state as clients. Fitzpatrick is a graduate of Howard University and holds a master's degree in digital media marketing from the University of Memphis.

Asmau Ahmed is the founder of Plum Perfect, the developer of a cross-platform technology that uses digital photos to identify color matches and recommend personalized merchandise to customers (i.e., lipstick that complements your skin tone). Founded in 2010, the company counts firms such as Golden Seeds and Kapor Capital among its venture backers. She is also part of Capital One's Digital Product team. Ahmed holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS with Honors in chemical engineering from the University of Virginia .

Kelechi Anyadiegwu is the founder, CEO and creative director at Zuvaa, an online marketplace for African-inspired fashion and accessories. The website was officially launched in May 2014 and features products ranging from women’s and men’s apparel to headwraps, watches and phone cases. Zuvaa was part of digitalundivided’s 2016 incubator cohort. Anyadiegwu has earned degrees from Michigan State and Carnegie Mellon.

Nnena Ukuku is a partner at Venture Gained Legal, a boutique law firm that provides a variety of transactional legal services to emerging tech companies and nonprofit tech-focused organizations. She is also a co-founder and CEO of Black Founders Startup Ventures, an organization whose mission is to increase the number of successful black-led tech companies by connecting and equipping black entrepreneurs.
Venture capitalists

William Crowder is the lead investor of Comcast Ventures' Catalyst Fund, a $20 million vehicle that looks to invest in early-stage tech companies led by diverse entrepreneurs. He has also been a managing director at startup accelerator DreamIt Ventures, where he advised, coached and helped develop early-stage startups. Crowder earned a couple of degrees at North Carolina State before earning his MBA at Duke.

Kathryn Finney is the founder of digitalundivided, an organization that develops programs to increase the active participation of urban communities, especially women, in the digital space. The social enterprise was founded in 2013 and operates a variety of programs, such as its BIG innovation center and the BIG incubator, which assist black and Latina founders in building sustainable businesses via mentorship and access to investors. Finney is also a co-founder and general partner at Maya Venture Partners.

Marlon Nichols co-founded and is a managing partner at Cross Culture Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that looks to back tech and consumer products startups. Nichols has invested in companies including live event ecommerce platform Sidestep App and LendStreet Financial, a fintech startup that aims to help people get out of debt and rebuild their credit. He previously worked at Intel Capital and earned his MBA at Cornell University.

Trevor Thomas is a general partner at Cross Culture Ventures. Previously he was a vice president at consumer-focused fund Gastronome Ventures, and before his career in VC, Thomas was CEO of The Third Space, an airport lounge experience startup. Trevor has an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, a MEng in logistics from MIT, and a BS in industrial engineering from Morgan State University.

Kesha Cash founded Impact America Fund and co-founded Jalia Ventures with the notion of identifying market opportunities often overlooked by traditional investors, including the backing of entrepreneurs of color. Prior to founding Jalia Ventures, Cash was a summer associate at Bridges Ventures, a fund manager that focuses on investment opportunities that can generate investor returns while also meeting a social or environmental challenge.

Anthony Heckman is an associate at Kapor Capital, where he focuses on sourcing and evaluating early-stage investments in addition to helping portfolio companies grow. Heckman joined the firm in 2015 after spending two years working at law firm Cooley advising startups and their investors on operational matters, mergers and acquisitions, entity formation and venture financings.

Peter Boyce has worked for over three years as a venture capitalist at General Catalyst Partners, a firm that has backed the likes of Airbnb, ClassPass and Gusto. Boyce also is a co-founder of Rough Draft Ventures, a student team powered by General Catalyst that supports university students by investing up to $25,000 in startups at their earliest stage. Boyce graduated from Harvard with a degree in applied mathematics.

 

[mson]

Eghosa Omoigui is a managing partner at EchoVC Partners, a firm that looks to back leading technologies, teams and business models in sub-Saharan Africa, North America and Southeast Asia. Although EchoVC has experience investing in seed and early-stage rounds, it's actually stage agnostic. Investments can range from $25,000 to several million dollars. Omoigui was previously at Intel for nearly 10 years.

Olawale Ayeni is a senior investment officer at the IFC, leading venture capital efforts in emerging markets, with a particular focus on Africa. Prior to joining IFC, Ayeni led early-stage VC investments for telecommunications company Orange, backing startups such as PayJoy, Veniam, Chain and WEVR. He also led transactions on behalf of EchoVC in Hotels.ng, and Printivo. Ayeni has an MBA from Dartmouth.

Gayle Jennings O'Byrne is a co-founder and general partner at Maya Ventures Partners, an early-stage VC firm that focuses on investing in black and Latina women founding tech startups. The goal of MVP is to create a diversity venture ecosystem that finds and creates value in untapped markets, as well as to increase investments and the number of people investing in women of color.

Craig Vaughan is a general partner at Queensbridge Venture Partners, an LA-based firm that makes early-stage investments in technology startups. Prior to joining QBVP in 2014, Vaughan founded Vaughan Capital Advisors, which provides M&A, capital formation and market assessment advisory services to media and technology companies. Vaughan earned is MBA from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan following undergraduate studies at Texas.

Rodney Sampson is a partner at TechSquare Labs, which operates an incubator, seed fund and 25,000-square-foot co-working space in Atlanta. Sampson is also a chairman at The Opportunity Hub, an organization that manages a multi-campus entrepreneurial center. An angel investor and veteran entrepreneur, Sampson co-founded Kingonomics in 2013, and advocacy and learning platform for capital formation and wealth creation for people of color.

Troy Carter is a founder and managing partner at Cross Culture Ventures, an early stage venture fund that has backed Mayvenn, Gimlet Media and Thrive Market. He is also the CEO of Atom Factory, an entertainment management company with roots in music, technology and media with angel investments in startups including Uber, Spotify, Dropbox and Warby Parker. You also might have seen him on ABC's venture-inspired hit show "Shark Tank."

Erik Moore is the founder and managing director at seed-stage investor Base Ventures. The firm looks to back technology companies and has invested in startups such as InDinero, Virool, Dekko and MightyText. Moore previously spent 15 years in investment banking at Merrill Lynch, leaving in 2011 and founding Base the next year. As an angel investor, he was among the first to invest in Zappos in 1999.

Jon Gosier has a foot in both camps, having founded both a startup and a firm. He first started Cross Valley Capital in 2014, a seed and Series A investor where he still works as a general partner. More recently, Gosier founded and currently is COO of WoundMetrics, the provider of a cognitive computing and medical image analysis system. He previously founded audience measurement and monetization company AuDigent and is also a venture partner at Social Starts.

28 black founders and investors making an impact in tech | PitchBook News

 

[Bawon Samedi]

 

[FSP]

Pretty good stuff. Tristan Walker should definitely be on that list

 

[LV Koopa]

"Not one of those faces represent me" - Charles Barkley

 

[Higher Tech]

Pretty good stuff. Tristan Walker should definitely be on that list

Is that the brother from Bevel?

 

[mson]

Pretty good stuff. Tristan Walker should definitely be on that list

He's at the top of last years list.

These 18 black founders and investors are leaving their mark on venture capital
Mikey Tom March 04, 2016

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In honor of Black History Month, we're spotlighting some of the African American entrepreneurs and investors within the venture capital industry. Check out these leaders, technologists and VCs below:

Founders

Tristan Walker is the CEO and co-founder of Walker and Co Brands, a company that designs and develops products and services specifically for people of color. Its flagship product, the Bevel shaving system, features a single blade razor and accessories designed to decrease the discomfort many experience while shaving. The company most recently raised a $24 million Series B round in September 2015. Existing investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Collaborative Fund and Felicis Ventures.

Bea Arthur founded and serves as the CEO of In Your Corner, a tele-health platform that counts firms such as Excell Partners and Startup Labs among its investors. She also was the first African American woman to be accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator program, which her company graduated from in summer 2014.

Chris Bennett founded Soldsie in 2012 and has since raised money from the likes of Correlation Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, and SoftTech VC, among others. His company aims to help retailers increase their sales by enabling them to sell their goods directly through Instagram and Facebook; shoppers comment “sold” and Soldsie handles everything from the inventory management to payment processing.

Diishan Imira is the founder and CEO of Mayvenn, a company that

provides web and mobile point-of-sale applications designed to enable salons and stylists to retail products without having to buy or hold inventory. The company is backed by 500 Startups, Andreessen Horowitz and Base Ventures, among others, and recently raised a $10 million Series A round at a valuation of $39 million.

Kellee James serves as CEO at Mercaris, a market data service and trading platform for organic and non-GMO agricultural commodities. The company has raised $2.5 million in VC funding and counts firms such as Middleland Capital and New Ground Ventures among its investors.

Nicole Sanchez has founded three companies: TenderCaring, a platform providing seniors

access to caregiving and task assistance services; VIXXENN, a B2B direct sales platform for beauty professionals; and eCreditHero, a company that aims to help consumers repair their credit and restore their finances. In the process she has raised money from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures and Corigin Ventures, among others.

Sarah Kunst is the CEO and founder of Proday, a mobile app that offers its users access to workout routines led by fitness celebrities and renowned athletes. The company was a participant in the LA Dodgers accelerator program alongside nine other sports-centric startups. Kunst also is an investor Board member for Venture for America, a program that places recent college graduates at startups in an effort to have them learn how to contribute to a high-growth business.

Venture Capitalists

Laurence (Lo) Toney serves as a partner at Google Ventures where he focuses on marketplaces and mobile messaging, among other things. Prior to joining GV, Toney served as a partner at Comcast Ventures, specifically on the Catalyst Fund, which focuses on making seed-stage investments in companies led by entrepreneurs of color.

Kanyi Maqubela is a partner at Collaborative Fund, a firm that aims to invest in two macro

themes: the growth of the creative class and the concept of collaborative consumption. Maqubela served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the firm before joining as a partner in October 2012. His twitter account is a must follow if you are interested in venture capital, startups and everything in between.

Richard Kerby serves as a VP at Venrock, a firm he joined as a senior associate in August 2012. His areas of focus include consumer, mobile, SaaS and fintech; active investments include Luxe, Burner and Better Finance. Prior to joining Venrock, Kerby was an associate at Institutional Venture Partners.

Shauntel Poulson is a general partner at Reach Capital, a firm that provides capital to support companies focused on issues of access and opportunity in education. Poulson currently

sits on the Boards of Tales2Go, a company that focuses on improving literacy, and CodeNow, a nonprofit that teaches underrepresented high school students computer programming. She previously served as a partner at NewSchools Venture Fund.

Charles Hudson is a venture partner at SoftTech VC and serves as managing Partner at Precursor Ventures. Transitioning from GP to VP at SoftTech in October of last year, he no longer sponsors new investments but continues to work with select portfolio companies and provide support to the investment team. Precursor Ventures is a relatively new early-stage venture capital firm that focuses on pre-seed B2B and B2C software application investments in San Francisco, New York and Toronto.

Brian Aoaeh serves as a partner at early-stage VC firm KEC Ventures. Investments by Aoaeh include online floral delivery company The Bouqs, music API Feed.fm and Wedding Spot, an online site for searching, pricing out and comparing venues.

Michael Seibel is a partner at leading startup accelerator Y Combinator. Prior to hooking up with YC in January 2013, Seibel served as CEO at a couple of well-regarded startups. Most recently he led Socialcam, a web service that aimed to make capturing, editing and sharing videos easy; the company was acquired by Autodesk for roughly $60 million in 2012. Before Socialcam, Seibel served as CEO of Justin.tv for over five years, which was one of the first live streaming platforms.

Angela Benton is the founder and CEO of the NewME Accelerator, a program that aims to accelerate, educate and empower underrepresented tech entrepreneurs around the world. Over 200 startups have gone through the 12-week program since it launched in 2011.

Monique Woodard recently made headlines when she joined one of the most well-known startup accelerators, 500 Startups, as a venture partner, making her the first black female VP at the firm. She’s been working to advance diversity and inclusion in the industry for some time. Woodard is the founder and executive director of Black Founders, an organization that is dedicated to startups, entrepreneurship and diversity in tech. Featured programs include hackathons at historically black colleges and universities such as Morgan State, Howard University and Atlanta University Center Consortium

.

Brian Dixon serves as a partner at Kapor Capital, where he focuses on identifying and evaluating early-stage investments along with helping portfolio companies grow effectively. He’s been with the firm since 2011, joining after spending two summers as an MBA intern.

These 18 black founders and investors are leaving their mark on venture capital | PitchBook News

 

[Higher Tech]

Great to see this list. Let it spread.

 

[Vaulkner]

This list inspires me, i'm trying to get my first M before 2018 is over, renewing my real estate license now to catch the summer rental explosion and enrolling in code school after that and im gunna invest all the money i make from that into forex. Too much money to be made with computers to not get a piece of the pie.

 

[Cynic]

Lisa Dyson is the founder and CEO of Kiverdi, a chemicals company working to transform carbon-rich waste into high-value, lower cost oils and oil-derived chemicals used in everyday products like plastics, detergents and fuel additives. Kiverdi was founded in 2008 and has raised funding from firms including Kapor Capital. Dyson holds a PhD in physics from MIT and has done research in bioengineering, energy and physics at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Princeton and UC San Francisco.

Nnena Ukuku is a partner at Venture Gained Legal, a boutique law firm that provides a variety of transactional legal services to emerging tech companies and nonprofit tech-focused organizations. She is also a co-founder and CEO of Black Founders Startup Ventures, an


.

Chem and Law

 

[DrBanneker]

Good to see peeps doing stuff. Also remember back in the day one of the founders of Silicon Graphics was a Black guy (Marc Hannah).

On a more inappropriate note: I'd friggin wife most of those chicks in a heartbeat if I was still single. They are my nerd goddesses

 

[Momentum]

Never heard of any of them in the real tech world and doubt any of them will see an exit. Tech is not the space for us.

 

[Mr. 1nighter]

No Robert Smith?

Dude is the BIGGEST Black VC in the world... I believe his companies would rank as the 3rd largest IT company in America.

 

[Voice of Reason]

Never heard of any of them in the real tech world and doubt any of them will see an exit. Tech is not the space for us.

What is the space for us

 

[mson]

Never heard of any of them in the real tech world and doubt any of them will see an exit. Tech is not the space for us.

Check post above. There were also VC partners on those lists.