Tech startups led by Black women raised $289 million between 2009 and 2018: A mere 0.06 percent of total tech venture funding. Despite this, Black women continue to create and grow successful tech ventures.
As we reported earlier this year on International Women’s Day, Black women are an untapped market for investment. Now, the Black Women Talk Tech and the Talk Tech Association have released the largest published study to date that looks into who Black women tech founders are and the challenges they overcome to build viable businesses.
The report surveyed 671 self-identifying Black women and found that they were high academic achievers, with 39 percent holding a Bachelor’s degree and 46 percent with a professional degree (master’s, JD, MD, PhD). A majority, 76.1 percent, were self-funded, with 52 percent providing more than a fifth of their personal income to their business.
They’re concentrated in New York, California, Georgia, New Jersey, and Texas, with the largest industries of focus as education tech (9.9 percent), e-commerce/retail (8.5 percent), financial tech (6.7 percent), software as a service (5.2 percent), and health tech (4.7 percent).
Tech investors generally like companies with more than one founder, but 70 percent of Black women founders are solo founders. That could be one reason they’re denied funding.
However, Black women are launching startups in industries that make up 5 trillion dollars in global market value; the market opportunity is immense. They also experience growth without having seed funding for marketing: 40 percent of respondents said their business had paying customers.
They’re passionate about their business, seeing as a key indicator of success for 75 percent of Black women founders would be “impact.” And they know how to hustle: 91 percent are simultaneously working full-time and starting a business.
All of these indicators “are very tangible signs of how much harder Black women tech founders have to work to create thriving businesses—not for lack of effort or viability, but because the tech industry and investors are not investing in Black women,” the report reads.
The report has a simple call to action for the tech industry: Invest in Black women founders.
