Meet 30 Black Founded Startups Selected By Google For Their New $2 Million (£1.5 Million) Black Founders Fund
Summary
Yesterday, Google for Startups announced the 30 tech businesses receiving grants from its $2million (approximately \xa31.5million) Black Founders Fund for Black-led tech startups across Europe.With less than 0.25% of venture capital (VC) funding going to Black-led startups in the U.K., and only 38 Black founders receiving venture capital funding in the last 10 years, Google for Startups is helping to level the playing field by helping Black founders who are disproportionately locked out of access to capital.The Fund received close to 800 applications from Europe (of which almost 600 came from the U.K.) and the 30 tech startups from six countries selected to receive the Fund are set to transform a diverse range of industries including healthcare, gaming, food, education and fitness.The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund provides each business with up to $100,000 in non-dilutive cash awardsmeaning that unlike most investments, founders are not giving up any ownership in their company. The funds will be distributed by OneTech, a London based organisation supporting underrepresented founders.Each of the selected startups also receive up to $220,000 in Google Ad Grants and Cloud credits; as well as an acceleration programme that includes leadership training, workshops, mentoring and access to a community of fellow founders with an Ask me anything support network.To be eligible for application, all startups were required to have one or more founders that self-identify as Black and the startup must already have a product in the market.The 30 startups to receive the Fund are as follows: Kenny Alegbe, HomeHero (U.K.): an operating system for the home Michael Musandu, Lalaland (Netherlands): using AI to create synthetic humans for fashion ecommerce brandsRachael Palmer, Head of VC and Startup Partnerships in EMEA at Google said: We received an incredible amount of high-calibre applications. The recipients are all leaders in their fields and represent an exciting, diverse future of European tech.To receive close to 800 quality applications proves there is not a pipeline problem in tech. There are many innovative Black-led businesses that would significantly benefit from better access to early-stage funding. I really hope that the rest of the ecosystem will take note of these excellent founders and follow suit.This article is part of a series featuring underrepresented people making a difference.
