'The city is exploding with black computer programmers, information security analysts and database administrators, as well as math scientists and statisticians...'
Many also pointed to Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines and the city’s other Fortune 500 companies that have track records of financially supporting black entrepreneurs. And there’s Atlanta’s cheaper cost of living, a draw for technology workers residing in more expensive areas of the country.
Despite that gravitational pull, there are challenges for black tech entrepreneurs. Since 2000, Georgia startups have raised billions in angel funding and venture capital — about $1.15 billion alone last year. However, black-owned or co-founded startups have pulled in only about $300 million of that investment, said Rodney Sampson, chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Opportunity Hub, which focuses specifically on diversity and inclusion in the industry.
Doll Avant, who developed the Aquagenuity water monitoring tool in response to the water contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., said Atlanta could become synonymous with black tech with some branding. More often than not, funding from friends and family — the first source of revenue for many startups — is nonexistent for young black companies because of a lack of generational wealth among African American families, Opportunity Hub’s Sampson said. Instead of investing, parents and friends of black tech entrepreneurs try to steer their loved ones to traditional work paths, such as jobs at tech companies, he added.
Sig Mosley, founder of Mosley Ventures and known as the “godfather” of angel investing, told the online tech news site Atlanta Inno that he plans to step in to help, joining Zane Ventures Fund in its efforts to beef up funding. Zane Ventures was created in 2018 by businesswoman and former Atlanta Journal-Constitution employee Shila Nieves Burney.
Atlanta has risen because its black tech infrastructure is further along, black tech leaders said. There are minority tech programs at Morehouse University and Spelman College. Herman J. Russell & Co., one of the city’s biggest black-owned construction firms, recently launched a center for innovation to help grow the city’s tech talent.
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