Business
African American entrepreneurs gaining foothold in the Silicon Valley
Angela Benton. Founder and publisher of Black Web 2.0
When Chris Bennett moved to Silicon Valley from Miami in 2010 to jump-start his Web business, his first goal was to join a community of fellow black entrepreneurs. “Then I realized there was no community,” said Bennett, the CEO of website builder Central.ly. Bennett is now a leader of the group Black Founders, which works to create opportunities for African-Americans in technology.
Silicon Valley is in need of such opportunities. California’s cradle of innovation, while very good at spawning successful technology companies, is not so good at encouraging entrepreneurship among African-Americans. A recent report by CB Insights, a venture capital information database, found that fewer than 1 percent of venture capital-backed tech companies in California were founded by African-Americans.
Those that are black-owned tend to trail in fundraising. Internet startups whose founders were black received a median of US$1.3 million in venture financing in 2010, compared with US$2.3 million for companies founded by whites and US$4 million for those founded by Asians, according to the report.
