Burundi's president did everything to remain in power five years ago but is now stepping down - officially at least.
from BBC News - Africa https://ift.tt/2LDkcpw
via
Monday, May 18, 2020
Study finds that aging neurons accumulate DNA damage
MIT neuroscientists have discovered that an enzyme called HDAC1 is critical for repairing age-related DNA damage to genes involved in memory and other cognitive functions. This enzyme is often diminished in both Alzheimer’s patients and normally aging adults.
In a study of mice, the researchers showed that when HDAC1 is lost, a specific type of DNA damage builds up as the mice age. They also showed that they could reverse this damage and improve cognitive function with a drug that activates HDAC1.
The study suggests that restoring HDAC1 could have positive benefits for both Alzheimer’s patients and people who suffer from age-related cognitive decline, the researchers say.
“It seems that HDAC1 is really an anti-aging molecule,” says Li-Huei Tsai, the director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the senior author of the study. “I think this is a very broadly applicable basic biology finding, because nearly all of the human neurodegenerative diseases only happen during aging. I would speculate that activating HDAC1 is beneficial in many conditions.”
Picower Institute research scientist Ping-Chieh Pao is the lead author of the study, which appears today in Nature Communications.
DNA repair and aging
There are several members of the HDAC family of enzymes, and their primary function is to modify histones — proteins around which DNA is spooled. These modifications control gene expression by blocking genes in certain stretches of DNA from being copied into RNA.
In 2013, Tsai’s lab published two papers that linked HDAC1 to DNA repair in neurons. In the current paper, the researchers explored what happens when HDAC1-mediated repair fails to occur. To do that, they engineered mice in which they could knock out HDAC1 specifically in neurons and another type of brain cells called astrocytes.
For the first several months of the mice’s lives, there were no discernable differences in their DNA damage levels or behavior, compared to normal mice. However, as the mice aged, differences became more apparent. DNA damage began to accumulate in the HDAC1-deficient mice, and they also lost some of their ability to modulate synaptic plasticity — changes in the strength of the connections between neurons. The older mice lacking HCAC1 also showed impairments in tests of memory and spatial navigation.
The researchers found that HDAC1 loss led to a specific type of DNA damage called 8-oxo-guanine lesions, which are a signature of oxidative DNA damage. Studies of Alzheimer’s patients have also shown high levels of this type of DNA damage, which is often caused by accumulation of harmful metabolic byproducts. The brain’s ability to clear these byproducts often diminishes with age.
An enzyme called OGG1 is responsible for repairing this type of oxidative DNA damage, and the researchers found that HDAC1 is needed to activate OGG1. When HDAC1 is missing, OGG1 fails to turn on and DNA damage goes unrepaired. Many of the genes that the researchers found to be most susceptible to this type of damage encode ion channels, which are critical for the function of synapses.
Targeting neurodegeneration
Several years ago, Tsai and Stephen Haggarty of Harvard Medical School, who is also an author of the new study, screened libraries of small molecules in search of potential drug compounds that activate or inhibit members of the HDAC family. In the new paper, Tsai and Pao used one of these drugs, called exifone, to see if they could reverse the age-related DNA damage they saw in mice lacking HDAC1.
The researchers used exifone to treat two different mouse models of Alzheimer’s, as well as healthy older mice. In all cases, they found that the drug reduced the levels of oxidative DNA damage in the brain and improved the mice’s cognitive functions, including memory.
Exifone was approved in the 1980s in Europe to treat dementia but was later taken off the market because it caused liver damage in some patients. Tsai says she is optimistic that other, safer HDAC1-activating drugs could be worth pursuing as potential treatments for both age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.
“This study really positions HDAC1 as a potential new drug target for age-related phenotypes, as well as neurodegeneration-associated pathology and phenotypes,” she says.
Tsai’s lab is now exploring whether DNA damage and HDAC1 also play a role in the formation of Tau tangles — misfolded proteins in the brain that are a signature of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
The research was funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and a Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging.
from MIT News https://ift.tt/2X6rojw
via
The changing world of work
With 20.5 million jobs slashed from U.S. payrolls in April and a 14.7 percent unemployment rate, the Covid-19 pandemic has created workforce problems unseen since the Great Depression. These dynamics are being closely observed by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future, which released a high-profile interim report last September, with a nuanced set of findings: Automation is unlikely to eliminate millions of U.S. jobs soon, but improved policies are needed to support many workers, who have been suffering from a lack of quality jobs and viable careers. The task force will issue its final report this fall.
To look at the current crisis, MIT News recently had a conversation with the three task force leaders: executive director Elisabeth B. Reynolds, who is also executive director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center; co-chair David Autor, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT and associate head of MIT’s Department of Economics; and co-chair David A. Mindell, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, the Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT, and founder and CEO of the Humatics Corporation.
Q: How is the MIT task force reacting to the rapid workplace changes of the last two months?
Reynolds: The issues the task force has been taking on are more important, not less important, in this crisis. A lot of trends may be accelerated, and a lot of weaknesses in institutions have been exposed. We’re going to be in a place of rebuilding and recovery for several years to come. That’s going to involve investments in both institutions and technology. Now is the time for us to be weighing in on that.
Q: The task force interim report emphasized that institutions and policy choices matter greatly for workers. What is your view of the government’s response in the U.S.? How does it compare to the interventions in other countries?
Autor: What Congress did to allocate 10 percent of U.S. GDP in one bill, the CARES act, was significant — there’s no private corporation or philanthropic organization that could allocate those kinds of resources and change laws bringing people into the the unemployment system. On the one hand, we see the incredible power and relevance of our systems of governance at a time of crisis.
[However], the U.S. institutional capacity for dealing with such things has really atrophied. Other countries have been able to quickly dispense resources to employers to maintain employment, through short-time work arrangements. The U.S. doesn’t have the governance or the technological infrastructure to do that well. To the extent we wanted to pay employers to keep workers on the books, we had to basically set up an ad-hoc system of forgivable loans. And the U.S. institutional response has maximized unemployment to a much larger extent than any other country, because we’ve made unemployment more attractive than work. But I don’t think any country has spent more as a percentage of GDP than the U.S. It doesn’t mean there isn’t more that can be done. But the U.S. has not been timid.
The meta-lessons are: One, institutions are pivotal in a situation like this. Two, they can respond very quickly. Three, there’s a difference between intention and capacity, and the U.S., through decades of starve-the-beast governance, weakened its capacity to act in a coordinated, large-scale fashion.
Reynolds: A fourth would be: The crisis has exposed the shadow labor market that exists in this country. The independent contractor has no access to benefits, the gig worker has no access to benefits. The response has extended for the first time these benefits, but it raises important questions: Going forward, can we create a social insurance system in which these workers are supported?
Q: How might the pandemic change trends in automation and robotics? The interim report noted that the “low-hanging fruit” in robotics has already been discovered. What forms might technological innovation take now?
Mindell: The question is: Is this event an automation-forcing event? The jury is very much still out on that. On the one hand, it may be appealing to imagine a worker-free system where things can still get delivered without humans. On the other hand, that’s going to take some time. As we understand better how supply chains have adapted in the last month or so, it’s in no small part because there were a lot of people in those supply chains who could change the way they work very quickly.
Everything we [the MIT task force] looked at last year was under a labor market that was basically at full employment. And even under those conditions [where wages rise], robots have a tough time competing with a $20-to-$30-an hour forklift operator. Now you are trying to make a supply chain that’s resilient to Covid-19, but you have 20 million people unemployed and a very different labor market for robots and automation to compete with. Whether this is an automation-forcing event or not, or to what degree, depends on the policies we adopt and the technologies we create.
Reynolds: There will be significant opportunities to shape technological trajectories in a number of fields. For example, we imagine we’re going to see changes around online education, with opportunities there for innovation and expanding access; likewise, digital manufacturing may be more of a priority, to improve flexibility and responsiveness. Every hospital should potentially have its own 3-D printing capability for PPE. In some areas it will be more challenging. For example, in meat packing, where there have been such terrible risks for workers, the reality is that robotics aren’t advanced enough right now to replace many of the tasks workers are doing in a meat-packing plant.
Autor: If we had been forced 20 years ago to ditch our offices and shelter in place, much of the work of business, government, and education would have come to a screeching halt. I have to believe we’re going to come away from this thinking there are more things we can do through digital infrastructure than we had recognized.
Mindell: The world is changing, and there are always opportunities for people who see the ways the world is changing. There are hospital-disinfecting robots out there, there are all kinds of new medical technologies, and of course what’s going to happen in the life sciences and biotech sectors. I think the public health field is about to get high-tech. The biggest changes are often the smart applications of relatively ordinary technologies, as much as the dazzlingly new.
Q: Are these economic changes going to favor big firms?
Autor: Unfortunately, yes. I think it’s going to cause a reallocation of the share of economic activity from small and midsize firms to large firms, and that will have an immediate consequence for the labor share of national income, because those firms are much more capital-intensive. [They have more equipment creating greater productivity.] There’s reason to think big firms are in much better shape to survive this — they have access to capital markets, they have deep pockets. It’s going to lead to us to more of an economic monoculture, where a larger and larger number of things are done by a smaller and smaller number of firms. And I’m not enthusiastic about that.
We’re not going to ever return to the trajectory we were on. There are many things about the world that will just be different. The structure of consumption will be different, the structure of business travel will be different, the structure of services. It’s not a matter of recovery to the previous trajectory.
Mindell: Some startups are going to go under, purely based on where they were in their life-cycle as of March 14. Some may get acquired into larger firms. Something like 13 percent of startups have more than three months of runway in the bank. That said, the labor market for startups has changed, and what it’s going to look like six months from now if some growth starts to happen is going to be very interesting. People are being forced to experiment and work in different ways. We’re just at the beginning of that. That question is nothing short of: How do we learn to live in this new world?
Q: What else should we consider about work right now?
Mindell: Now essential work is suddenly more visible to the broader public. That’s a good thing. And we’re also acutely aware we’ve been living in a system that makes that essential work invisible, and treats the people who do that essential work as disposable. Hopefully we are moving toward a world where those who are essential are treated as if they’re essential. And we recognize the resilience of the economy depends on them. We’ve seen how dangerous it is to pretend otherwise.
Reynolds: One of the big themes in our interim report was about improving job quality, and these are many of those same workers, whether it’s janitorial, retail, health care, food services. How do we improve their wages, their protection, how do we extend benefits? Those are, it seems to me, front and center questions.
from MIT News https://ift.tt/3bEFu0F
via
‘The Bachelorette’ star Hannah Brown says n-word while rapping song
“Rockstar” by Da Baby featuring Roddy Rich is a hit song. The guitar-heavy song entered the Billboard charts in early May at number 9 and is another Top 10 hit for the rapper.
The popular song has landed one TV star in hot water.
READ MORE: ABC’s First Black ‘Bachelorette’ ties the knot during in romantic ceremony in Cancun
Hannah Brown was rapping along to the song on Instagram Live and as she mouthed the lyrics, she said the n-word.
Initially, The Bachelorette star was defensive. She posted a video where she said, “I did?”
When it was shared with her that she did indeed say the racial slur, she continued to deny using the vulgarity:
“I don’t think I said that word, but now I’m like … Oh, God. I’ve never used that word. I’ve never called anybody that … You can think I’m something that I’m not, but I’m not that.”
As backlash intensified, Brown finally admitted that she said the word and issued an apology.
“I owe you all a major apology,” the reality TV personality said in a statement in an Instastory. “There is no excuse and I will not justify what I said. I have read your messages and seen the hurt I have caused.”
She continued, “I own it all. I am terribly sorry and know that whether in public or private, this language is unacceptable. I promise to do better.”
Another Bachelor star, Bekah Martinez slammed Brown for using the word. She wrote that “We’ve got to hold people accountable to do better otherwise we’re continuing to prioritize the feelings of white people (and someone we ‘stan’) over ending our country’s loooong history of casual racism and flippant anti-Blackness.”
Martinez claims that Brown used the n-word, but previously skipped over the f-word.
READ MORE: Lizzo wants to be the next ‘Bachelorette’ and has a NSFW hot girl request for the men
While she didn’t mention Brown by name, Martinez slammed celebs with “access to privilege, knowledge, and education.”
She said in an Instastory post, “You can’t say the n-word just because Black people say it. Black people reclaimed the use of a word that was used for centuries to oppress and dehumanize them.”
The post ‘The Bachelorette’ star Hannah Brown says n-word while rapping song appeared first on TheGrio.
from TheGrio https://ift.tt/3g0y0Zn
via
Tennessee man posts photo of Obama in noose, loses his job
Gary Casper was terminated after he posted an image of former president Barack Obama with a noose around his neck on Facebook. The meme was accompanied with the caption #PayPerView.
According to a report in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Casper was the vice president of information technology at a software company, Transcard.
His employer, Transcard, sent an email to the newspaper stating that they do not allow their employees to post political statements.
“As soon as Transcard realized that an employee was utilizing social media to engage in political speech, it took immediate action to terminate its relationship with such person,” Transcard president Chris Fuller wrote in the email.
However, the Alabama NAACP posted on Facebook that Casper’s termination has not been verified.
“We demand a public explanation and formal apology from Transcard as well as confirmation that Casper’s employment has been terminated and that a full investigation is underway,” the organization posted.
The company posted a brief statement on their Facebook page stating, “The views reflected in posts made by individuals do not reflect the views or values of Transcard. This issue is being handled according to company policy. The individual of recent concern is no longer employed with the company. Thank you for your concern.”
Hundreds of comments on the post want quick and decisive action to be taken by Transcard.
The company is a third-party payment software company with approximately 100 employees.
READ MORE: Obama emerges as central figure in 2020 presidential race
According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, other employees’ social media accounts, including the Twitter pages of Transcard’s CEO and president, also appear to have been recently deleted. So has the company’s main Twitter account.
Barack Obama was the 44th President of the United States. Threatening or harassing a president is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. So far, no charges have been filed against Casper.
The post Tennessee man posts photo of Obama in noose, loses his job appeared first on TheGrio.
from TheGrio https://ift.tt/3fY9Yhz
via
Nick Cannon Graduates From Howard University With A Degree In Criminology
There’s more to Nick Cannon than “Wild ‘N Out.”
The host of multiple TV shows, Cannon, 39, has just graduated from Howard University and he proudly tweeted his accomplishment.
“I graduated from Howard University @howarduniversity1867 today! Received a degree in Criminology/Administration of Justice and a minor in Africana Studies! Had the opportunity to speak at the virtual ceremony, Masters and Ph.D. is next! #HU2020,” he tweeted along with a video of himself wearing his cap and gown.
He also spoke during a Howard University virtual graduation ceremony of his intentions to earn his master’s degree and Ph.D. next.
Back in 2016, the “Drumline” actor announced that he had enrolled at the HBCU. He tweeted at the time, “Nelson Mandela once said, ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,’ and with that said I have officially enrolled at Howard University.”
He continued, “I am always seeking new challenges and continual growth and decided to obtain my first college degree from an institution that had a proven legacy of producing great minds. I have friends, mentors and colleagues who attended Howard University. I look forward to this new journey in my life and am excited about the possibilities ahead.”
Cannon has a lot of things on his plate. Besides hosting “Wild ‘N Out,” “Lip Sync Battle Shorties,” and “The Masked Singer,” he is also gearing up for the release of his upcoming documentary.
Go head @NickCannon ! Congrats to THE Howard University 2020 graduates #HowardUniversity pic.twitter.com/b5tqV7lLAA
— Sira Jenay
(@Simply_Sira) May 8, 2020
“Strong Enemies: The Untold Case of Dr. Sebi” is about controversial natural healer Dr. Sebi who claimed to have the cure for AIDS, Revolt TV reported. Hip-hop artist and community activist Nipsey Hussle had started the documentary prior to his death. Cannon vowed to see the project to completion.
Cannon also has a nationally syndicated daytime talk show coming up in September. He recently signed on as the morning host at Power 106FM in L.A. as well as agreeing to the third season of “Caught on Camera with Nick Cannon,” Hip Hop Vibe reported. Cannon previously hosted “America’s Got Talent.”
On top of all of this, Cannon opened a vegan soul food restaurant in Los Angeles at the end of April. The VTree Hollywood is located inside the 100-year-old Japanese restaurant Yamashiro, according to Vegan News.
For the restaurant venture, Cannon partnered with acclaimed plant-based chef Chef Velvet. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, VTree Hollywood is only offering curbside orders and take-out for now, Black Enterprise reported. Chef Velvet has a popular vegan restaurant called Veltree in Charlotte, NC.
“My goal is to be the most powerful person in the media,” Cannon said in a statement announcing his new venture. “Being able to have a multi-platform empire is really what I have been focusing on. Create household legacies and brands, from radio to digital to daily television. I just feel like I can really do things (that) no one else has ever done before.”
This article was originally written by Ann Brown for The Moguldom Nation.
from Black Enterprise https://ift.tt/2zSJm0L
via
6 Tips to Get Your Pitch Noticed by VCs
Zooming in on possible VCs is only the tip of the iceberg. You’ll need to focus on creating a winning pitch to get your startup noticed by the right VC for your startup.
Here are six tips you can follow to make sure you’re as ready as you can be to face those investors.
Make sure your startup has what VCs are looking for
Some VCs will tell you on their website what they’re looking for in your investment pitch, but as a general minimum, you’ll need to know at least the following:
First, customers. Depending on the nature of your startup, your customer base can be very broad or very niche. This matters to VCs because they want to see what the market potential for your business might be.
Don’t worry if you have a niche market—many businesses thrive and dominate their niches. Let VCs see that your startup can do just that and even has the capacity to expand into future markets if applicable.
Next, VCs will be looking for your Minimum Viable Offer (MVO). This is an offer, many times a prototype or beta version, that provides the least amount of benefits to merit a sale from your target customers. This doesn’t have to be perfect—it only has to show VCs that you can solve a very specific problem for customers extremely well.
Yet another thing you’ll want to iron out is your founding team. Knowing your founding team also helps you craft your startup’s story. Why were you founded? What made all of you come together? What makes this team potential leaders for a growing business?
Last but not least, if applicable, talk about any existing employees you already have or plans for the kinds of employees you want to hire once fully funded.
If you’re on a tight budget, you might be able to save money by working with remote workers around the world—just figure out the logistics of how to work with them and pay them accordingly through different payment sending platforms.
Include details like this in your pitch to show prospects how much you’ve thought out your startup operations.
Build a pitch deck and presentation
You’ll need to design a beautiful and clear pitch deck to help you illustrate compelling points, data, and numbers that VCs have to pay attention to. Refer to this post to see what information you can use to help you build out your pitch deck.
As a general rule of thumb, remember these tips:
- Start your pitch by illustrating a problem, then introduce your startup as the solution.
- Use charts and graphs to highlight statistics and data best.
- Include projections visually and be sure to know how you came up with those numbers.
- Keep the deck branded. As early as now, you can show VCs that you’ve got a brand that’s waiting to reach the hands of your customers.
Perfect your elevator pitch
Your elevator pitch is the one-liner explanation of what unmet need your startup aims to solve in the world. This is a statement you’ll want to have when you introduce your startup as a solution to the problems you’ve enumerated in your pitch.
This helps VCs understand in a very succinct way what it is your startup does. But it also holds another use: in case your meeting or pitch is cut short, an elevator pitch makes sure you can relay your startup’s purpose in as little time as possible.
Look into the right VC
Getting the right VC is often like getting a role at a TV audition; sometimes it’s just about the right fit.
Don’t take it too personally if you get a rejection from what you thought was a promising VC. Many times, investors are looking for specific startups, either in a certain industry or with certain values.
Consider this an opportunity: if you find the perfect VC, you’ll also benefit from their ability to meet your startup’s specific needs.
Send proposals to a few prospects at a time
As a rule of thumb, treat your startup proposal like a job application. You don’t want to keep all your eggs in the same basket, so send out proposals to a few prospective investors at a time.
Only move on to new VCs once you’ve heard from all your prospects.
Trust the process
In this interview with Rand Fishkin, founder of software companies Moz and SparkToro, he mentions that early-stage failure in his first startup helped him to get monumental success in his business later on.
We can learn from Fishkin’s experience, and treat the VC pitching process as feedback. If your proposal is rejected right from the onset, try to gather why you didn’t even make it to the pitching stage. If your pitch is turned down, try to ask prospects what they were looking for that you simply didn’t provide.
All these can only strengthen your future pitches to future VCs. So trust the process.
Key Takeaways
Getting your pitch accepted by investors can be a difficult process, but if you’re equipped with the right tools, mindset, and information, it doesn’t have to be. Follow the tips above to boost your chances of getting your pitch noticed by VCs.
from Black Enterprise https://ift.tt/2ThDyVB
via
AARP New York Provides Resources to Aid Veterans And Military Families Amid COVID-19
The COVID-19, or novel coronavirus, pandemic has hit marginalized communities, particularly military families and veterans who have experienced an increase in scams relating to relief efforts. These schemes can be used to steal personal information and money. AARP’s Fraud Watch Network has reported that these elaborate plans can range from bogus COVID-19 test kits and fake veterans charities to fight the coronavirus to fraudulent stimulus checks.
Now AARP New York is working on new initiatives aimed to help these families and servicemen amid the viral outbreak.
AARP New York announced they are working to help army veterans and military families by providing free resources in addition to important information about scams targeting veterans, and timely programming to meet their caregiving needs. The organization will also assist small businesses operated by veterans to find and obtain information to protect their businesses.
The organization has also teamed up with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation to create the Military Caregiving Guide, a veteran-specific guide to help military and veteran caregivers tackle some of the most critical issues they’re facing because of COVID-19, and Five Ways to Update Your Caregiving Journey, a list of practical steps caregivers can take amid the coronavirus outbreak to better protect themselves and their loved ones.
“AARP has a long legacy of outreach to Military Veterans, and we are seeking to expand our efforts to meet the needs of Veterans, members of the Military and their families who may be at particular risk during this public health emergency,” said AARP New York State Director Beth Finkel in a press statement.
“While all Americans are making changes to their daily lives, we know that older adults and those with chronic health conditions, many of whom are wounded, ill, or injured service members and Veterans, are at higher risk for serious illness and complications from coronavirus. AARP is continuing to step up our efforts to better serve family caregivers and their loved ones.”
from Black Enterprise https://ift.tt/2WELkuE
via
5 VCs That Support Black Startup Founders
Many startups need to rely on external funding in order to get off the ground and eventually scale. For black startup founders, that can be particularly challenging.
After all, this report revealed that 80% of black business owners claimed capital was the most challenging aspect of running their business. The majority would often resort to using cash or credit cards (which can take a toll on your personal finances or even affect your credit score), taking out loans, or borrowing money.
While searching for the right venture capitalist (VC) can be a monumental task in itself for any startup, we can’t deny that the opportunity for investors to come aboard is even harder for minority and black founders. In fact, this finding by ProjectDiane showed that, as of 2016, only 0.2% of all VC capital went to startups founded by black women.
In this post, we want to make the hunt for the right VC easier. Read on to find out 5 VCs that support black startup founders. And keep reading because later, we’ll be dropping some tips to help you get your startup pitch noticed by the right VC.
5 VCs That Support Black Startup Founders
Take a look at these 5 VCs that have been known to fund black-led startups.
Black Angel Tech Fund
Black Angel Tech Fund is the brainchild of a group of black entrepreneurs who saw the opportunity to become angel investors and VCs to promising young black talent. They noticed a severe lack of black representation in technopreneurship, yet they found many black entrepreneurs were willing to reach out and fund minority-led groups themselves.
Startups in Black Angel Tech Fund’s portfolio include Ceek VR, On Second Thought, Kit, Bandwagon, and Omnispeech.
New Voices Fund
New Voices Fund boasts of a unique ACE model that’s meant to fund and grow startups led by women of color (WOC) entrepreneurs—Access to their global network, Capital and financial support, and Expertise including education and resources to help WOC founders lead their companies to success.
Their focus is to help startup founders build and grow their companies from the ground up, with dedicated training, seminars, and support that works to improve founders’ leadership and management skills.
Harlem Capital Partners
Harlem Capital Partners (popularly referred to as HCP) is a New York-based VC firm that focuses on diversity founders and their budding ideas. Their goal is to fund 1,000 diverse founders over the next 20 years, focusing on ideas that solve real needs in the market and can be turned into sustainable business ventures.
They’ve been able to fund 19 startups across 10 industries, with companies like Blavity, Shine Text, Pangaea as part of their portfolio, among others.
digitalundivided
With a mission rooted in making entrepreneurship and innovation more inclusive, digitalundivided invests in women-led startups, including women of color. They found that only 0.06% of all VC capital has gone to black female entrepreneurs since 2009 and sought to change that statistic.
A few women-founded startups already in digitalundivided’s portfolio include Lifesaver, SpiritList, and Pressed Roots.
Fearless Fund
Fearless Fund is another VC firm whose main prospects include women of color. The firm began as a dream by fellow WOC who wanted to make funding more accessible to entrepreneurs like them. They invest in WOC-led startups who are looking for pre-seed, seed level, and Series A financing.
Some startups included in Fearless Fund’s portfolio include 100 Black Angels Fund, EnrichHER, and Ellis Island Tea.
Key Takeaways
Are you ready to get your business the funding it deserves? Look no further than this post that shows you different VCs that help black-led startups, and start pitching.
from Black Enterprise https://ift.tt/2WJ89O6
via
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)