Steps to Close the Gap in Funding for Black Female Founders

It's a tough ring for female investors, especially women of color. Less than 3 percent of the $100 billion in venture funding given to American entrepreneurs goes to female founders, and of that, only 0.2 percent goes to black female founders. On Friday at the inaugural Black Women Raise conference, 80 black female founders convened to voice their concerns and give advice going forward to change the trend. There's a long road ahead of us, but several of the badass founders had some great tips. They said black female founders should seek out investors who have historically invested in minority entrepreneurs, investors should self-monitor their portfolio’s ratio of diverse founders, and founders should never hold back on sharing their story and how many long nights they worked. Sutian Dong, a partner at Female Founders Fund, wrapped it up perfectly: “More black women need to be controlling capital to put that into companies run by black female founders.” Clearly there’s no be-all-end-all solution, but these tips could help bring us another step closer to closing the gap.