Black Investors Call On VCs to Fix Hiring and Funding
https://www.wired.com/story/black-investors-vc-funding-make-hire-send-wire/
When Monique Woodard started Black Founders in 2011, she wanted to help black entrepreneurs like herself find mentorship, community, and funding in a tech industry that was predominantly white. Career advice and networking opportunities became abundant, as Black Founders grew to include conferences, hackathons, and many warm introductions. Money, however, was another story. For years, Woodard watched as black-led startups struggled to get funding, much to her dismay. “If we weren’t touching capital, all of that support was for nothing,” she says.
Woodard eventually left entrepreneurship to become an investor, where she thought she could make more of an impact. (Right now, she’s starting a new fund called Cake Ventures.) But after spending more than a decade in Silicon Valley, she says little has changed. “We are still not equitably connecting to founders and writing checks into companies led by black entrepreneurs.”