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Canadian actor-sibling duo Stephan James and Shamier Anderson recently launched their own organization to amplify opportunities for Black talent in their home country. Now they’ve co-launched an impressive initiative on behalf of Canada’s BIPOC entrepreneurs. According to a press release shared with AfroTech, Anderson and James, alongside their youngest brother Sheldon James, have all banded together to co-found the Bay Mills Investment Group — Canada’s first-ever, Black-owned venture capital firm that’s dedicated to supporting BIPOC entrepreneurs based in Canada. “As a serial entrepreneur and a Black Canadian, I’ve seen first-hand the stark disparities in adequate support for minority business owners not unlike myself,” co-founder and CEO Sheldon James shared in a statement. “This glaring gap has driven me to partner with my brothers to form this fund.” Alongside the VC firm, the trio of brothers have also launched The Bay Mills Diversity Fund, which will support and mentor young...
In the face of the world’s most devastating health crisis, millions of people and businesses crumbled under the detrimental hits from the economy. To top it off, racial and gender inequality issues have surfaced at the forefront of world issues increasing the pressure of our social responsibilities. To help mend the damage done to American citizens and small businesses, Base10 Partners — the world’s largest Black-led VC firm — has announced that they’ve just raised $250 million to commit their efforts to promote more Black representation in the corporate world, The Moguldom Nation reports . The Base10 Fund II supports the firm’s initiative to invest in tech companies who are committed to working with underserved communities, governments, and real economy companies, according to Managing Partner, Adeyemi Ajao. In a Medium post, Ajao stated that the increased fund brought their attention to two things. One of those things involves what “Automation for the Real Economy” really means....
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...
Rumors swirled last year that Jay-Z and Roc Nation CEO Jay Brown were looking to launch a venture capital firm. A report in TechCrunch last February claimed they would focus on seed investments in young startups. The firm appears to be in the works this month, as regulatory filings were made in California from Larry Marcus (of Walden Venture Capital in San Francisco, who has invested in companies such as Pandora) for a firm called Marcy Venture Partners. This wouldn’t be the first time Jay-Z was involved in backing startups, as he’s already created the RocNation platform Arrive and invested in startups such as private plane company JetSmarter and even the luggage brand Away .