Toronto’s Collision conference claims to be the fastest growing tech, innovation, and entrepreneurial conference of its kind in North America. Though, the entrepreneurial and innovation space is not the most equitable, especially when it comes to Black entrepreneurs. Kelly Burton, executive director of the Black Innovators Alliance and U.S. Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett held a press briefing at the conference to discuss ways that the public and private sector can partner together to support Black innovators.
“We all know the statistics, all of us here,” said Plaskett. “There was a record $137 billion in venture capital investment in 2021, but only 1.2 per cent of all of venture capital funding in the United States went to Black founders in the first quarter last year. Only 4 per cent of Black businesses are still operational after 3.5 years, compared to the average 55 per cent of all other businesses.”
Burton emphasized in her opening remarks that this inequity represents the larger economic oppression that Black Americans have experienced since the founding of the nation, and that it will take drastic systemic change to solve.
“We can’t forget the role of the public sector and help them to update our systems and our public policies because at the end of the day, the sort of change that we’re trying to affect through this work, which is closing a 244 year long racial wealth gap between white families and black families, that is going to take major systemic change, not individual episodic programmatic investments,” she said.
New caucus focused on Black innovators
Earlier this year, Plaskett was one of the founding Representatives to join the new Caucus on Black Innovation in the U.S House of Representatives.
“We are advocating and supporting individuals like Dr. Burton and her team at the Black Innovation Alliance and many others to spotlight inequitable practices and streamline resources to support Black innovation,” Congresswoman Plaskett said. “We can’t deny the indispensable role that Black founders, innovators and creators have in advancing American economic growth historically.”
Plaskett went on to say that members of the caucus could use their “bully pulpit” to call venture capitalists into hearings to explain their investment strategies and ask them why so many Black innovators get passed over.
Burton said that this support from the public sector was just one part of a decade-long campaign that the Black Innovation Alliance has pledged to undertake to get more resources to Black entrepreneurs.
Her organization has pledged to funnel $1 billion in investment into the Black entrepreneurial space.
Burton explained that they chose to run this campaign over the course of a decade, because while that might seem like a long time, in reality, people of colour see initiatives that support diversity as a rapidly closing window of opportunity.
“The beauty of the decade is that it helps to create a sense of urgency because we know that this window is closing. We all have these conversations among people of colour. How long are people going to be interested in diversity, equity, inclusion? We probably got another three-to-five years, if that,” she said.
Addressing additional barriers
A lack of adequate venture capitalist (VC) funding is just one barrier that Black innovators face.
“VC is just one type of funding and a very small percentage of businesses are even qualified to go after venture capital, but because it’s the big dollars and it’s the safety conversation, it takes up a lot of the oxygen in the room,” said Burton. “Once you do access that VC funding to be able to make that system work for you is difficult because it was not built for people of color and women. It was built for white men.”
Burton said that for her organization, it was more important to build a network for Black innovators so that no entrepreneur has to navigate that system alone. Furthermore, she said that it was important to take a broader approach to growing a start-up than to simply focus on VCs.
“For me, my favorite capital is revenue and I would love to have more conversations about how we help Black-owned businesses drive revenue, because that’s where a lot of these corporations are not being held accountable when it comes to supplier diversity and who they contract with,” she said.
Burton claimed that white men still receive 95 per cent of all government contracts in the U.S. Plaskett commented that her government colleagues were working to break down these systemic barriers that exclude Black and other entrepreneurs who are not white men.
An example that Plaskett gave was the ongoing litigation over a debt relief program that Black farmers in the U.S. are being blocked from accessing due to a lawsuit from white farmers.
“We’re in court right now fighting individuals because we were trying to just create equity among Black farmers,” she said. “And there’s now lawsuits against us trying to bring some equitable justice to Black farmers in this country who have systematically been removed from being part of the lexicon of the discussion about farming.”
Supporting innovators a part of larger struggle for equity
Also in attendance of this panel was rabble staff writer, Stephen Wentzell. Wentzell asked Plaskett about the larger role that race is playing in the fight for equity – not just in the business world – pointing to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and how the majority of the attackers on the U.S. Capitol were white.
“One of the things that I think the January 6 insurrection was an outgrowth of was the harnessing of Black voter power,” she said. “You see it in places like Pennsylvania, the Hispanic vote in Arizona, the Black vote in Georgia of course, which was something that people were not thinking was going to happen, but really pulled the tide in terms of those individuals and who they wanted in Congress. And I think that, you know, there is a fear among a certain sector of Americans [that] they’re not going to have the privilege that they had before.”
Plaskett explained that due to America’s history there has been a historical edge for white people, specifically white men. She said that voting, as well as economic support will help close that historic gap for the benefit of all U.S. citizens.
“I’m hopeful that in the space that we’re looking at right now, which is technology Fintech, that all Americans will see that if some of us do well, all of us are going to do well. There’s an opportunity cost lost on all Americans when Black people are not ahead. That just because some may be making more money than you doesn’t mean that it doesn’t support our economy as a whole,” she said.
The Black Innovation Alliance supports over 300,000 Black entrepreneurs across North America.
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