“Unfortunately, the venture industry is moving in the wrong direction here,” Gené Teare, the senior data editor at Crunchbase, told TechCrunch.
A lot of the diversity, equity and inclusion promises made after 2020 were broken, and conservative activists have started attacking grant programs that seek to help marginalized communities.
Given that context, Teare said she wondered if there is now an abundance of caution in the ecosystem that is preventing investors from taking chances on first-time founders who are more likely to be diverse.
Yves Perez, the co-founder of Workbnb, called 2023 “the year of smoke and mirrors for Black founders raising.”
“I watched several Black founders suddenly adopt AI to help them raise or drop their valuations significantly so they could get fundraising over with,” he said.
Black founders have also spoken more and more of simply leaning into their own networks rather than seeking capital from the old guard players who have become more obvious in not supporting them.
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