Dominic-Madori Davis

Creative ad agency McKinney developed a quiz game called “Are You Blacker than ChatGPT?” to shine a light on AI bias. The game tests a person’s knowledge of Black culture against what ChatGPT has been trained to know about the Black community. It asks questions like, “What does it mean...

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have written to the United States’ Acting Secretary of Labor, Julie Su, expressing concerns over the disproportionate impact tech layoffs could have on Black workers, according to a letter seen by TechCrunch. First reported by The Grio, the letter contains a list of questions...

SoftBank is selling its Open Opportunity Fund to its chairman and managing partner, Paul Judge, and Marcelo Claure, who is being appointed the fund’s vice chairman and general partner. Judge and Claure will fully own the firm’s $100 million Open Opportunity Fund 1, the $150 million Fund 2, as well...

Emerging fund managers have had a tough time these past few years, and there is no telling when it will get better. Still, some were able to brace the market’s winter. One of those was Gale Wilkinson, a managing partner at the early-stage fund Vitalize. Her firm just closed a...

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch. A source sent me a photo of a peculiar notebook received by someone who attended Google’s K&I Black Summit in August but only recently looked through the merchandise from the event. On the front of the Google-branded notebook given to its Black attendees is the...

Black founders raised 0.13% of all capital allocated to U.S. startups in Q3, according to Crunchbase. That’s about $39.7 million out of $29.9 billion. This number is a massive year-over-year drop. In Q3 2022, Black founders raised $1 billion out of around $81.7 billion in venture dollars, around 1.2%. Actually,...

The Fifteen Percent pledge has boosted opportunities for Black entrepreneurs Dominic-Madori Davis 8 hours Fashion: a sector known for influencing trends, creatives and perhaps the future of equity for Black entrepreneurs. Last week was the second Fifteen Percent Pledge gala, hosted by the nonprofit of the same name, to honor Black entrepreneurship...

Spatial Labs, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, announced today the closing of a $10 million seed round led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Marcy Venture Partners, the firm co-founded by Jay-Z. Iddris Sandu founded Spatial Labs in 2020, seeking to create products and shopping experiences using...

Let’s be honest: The problem was never that the money wasn’t there. Dominic-Madori Davis 8 hours Last week, TechCrunch reported that Black founders in the United States raised 1% of the $215.9 billion in venture capital allocated last year. That is not to be confused with the 1.3% raised in 2021,...

Failing to address climate change via investments endangers constituents (and the economy) Dominic-Madori Davis 9 hours Less than two months before Hurricane Ian swept across Florida, its governor, Ron DeSantis, referred to ESG investing as a danger to economic freedom. His office even released a statement saying the practice sought to “advance...