[Chris Metinko at Crunchbase News]

"Last year, venture funding to Black-founded U.S. startups cratered — totaling only $699 million and marking the first time since 2016 that the figure failed to even reach $1 billion, Crunchbase data shows."

And:

"While last year did not see Black founders raise $1 billion in total, this year such founders and startups are on pace to raise less than even half-a-billion dollars. In fact, the combined total of funding to Black founders in the second half of last year and the first half this year is only $351 million."

While some of this is a reflection of the ongoing tightening in VC overall, that certainly doesn't account for a pull-back of this magnitude.

VC is often a connections-based business: investors like to have warm introductions from people they trust. It helps to be part of the in-group, and given the demographics and backgrounds of most investors, Black founders may be excluded. Open calls for pitches help, but the single biggest thing venture teams could to do widen their net and make sure they don't miss out on talented Black founders is for their own teams to be more representative. This article doesn't directly mention whether there's been progress on that front - but the numbers suggest maybe not.

#Business

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