Venture funding remains elusive for Black tech entrepreneurs

An earlier version of this article had a typo in the spelling of Sarah Kunst, founding managing partner of Cleo Capital. It has been corrected.

Nihal Mehta, co-founder of Eniac Ventures in New York, announced on Twitter TWTR, +0.87% that he was taking no-charge appointments with Black founders via Superpeer, which sells one-to-one video calls. Within 24 hours of Mehta’s tweet, he booked more than 100 meetings with Black founders for the summer.

Meanwhile, VC firms have exhibited no hesitation in making a “ton of investments” in emerging technologies like cryptocurrency, virtual reality, augmented reality and potential COVID-19 cures when it wants, Kunst said. Lo Toney, who left Alphabet’s GV to start Plexo Capital in 2018, said he is “pragmatically optimistic.”

There have been other positive signs, said Toney. Sequoia hired at least one female partner, though not Black or Latina. There have been high-profile pledges, like the $100 million pledge Netflix Inc. NFLX, +0.99% has made to the Black community. And there is the ongoing success of AfroTech, a conference for Black business leaders, that is again scheduled for November in Oakland, Calif.

Toney is part of a growing community of investors who are breaking from the old norms and narratives of classic VC firms. “In venture, women and minorities are conspicuously absent,” said Chenxi Wang, general partner at Rain Capital in Silicon Valley, an investor in cybersecurity startups, one-third of which are run by women. “We are part of a new approach.”

👍

Media is racist and this article is very racist. The writer is very racist.

What about Asian?

OK, but why? Where are the case studies? The interviews with VC? The statistics on VC applications broken down by race? It’s not enough to just say the percentage is small.

So you're saying money managers base their investment decisions in racial indicators, not profitability, valuation, multiples and all those stuff they are paid to do?

yahhhh it should be 30% no matter what 🥌

Unfollowing, you guys just love to race bait about shit that has nothing to do with the market.

Stupid idea

Being treated unfairly by the Whiteys American!

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