Resilient

6I Hear You, But I Need Capital

When you fund Black founders, you help create systemic, generational change.

—Jewel Burks Solomon

More and more founders and entrepreneurs seem to be raising money from investors today than even when I first started raising capital back in 2015, especially Black, Latinx, and Women founders who have historically been underrepresented. We've seen a slight increase in the number of these founders who are successful in their pursuits, but that's still a far cry from what white male founders raise. In a recent report from Project Diane it found the Black women only received 0.27% of total venture capital investment between 2018 and 2019. One of the core reasons why people go out to fundraise is to bring big ideas to life faster and at scale. Yet, money isn't the only reason to raise capital; it's also about accessing people and resources from those that bring capital into your startup. Investors bring their networks and the introductions that you receive via these networks can help scale your company.

The first route most take (and try to omit) is a friends-and-family round. When we look at the disparity of funding, it makes perfect sense why people would try and skip this round. A lot of people don't have friends and family who can fork over $10,000 or more to help you with your idea, even if they think you're great and might succeed. In the next few chapters, I'll discuss how I went about raising each of my rounds. From my friends-and-family round ...