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noIn the year In the summer of 2020, businessman David Motley received a call from his friend Sean Sebastian, a Pittsburgh investor and financial advisor. Sebastian, like many others, was responding to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the spotlight it shone on persistent racial inequality. He asked Motley to join him and tech innovator Kelauni Jasmyn to start a black-led venture to create change.
In addition to their concerns about race and social issues, all three have come together for another initiative – Jasmin, which started in 2016.
Jasmine is the founder and CEO of Black Tech Nation, a Pittsburgh-based education and advocacy group working to bring black people into the tech industry. Originally, according to Saturday Morning Meet Tech Nerds, once Jasmine joined Motley and Sebastian, the group eventually formed Black Tech Nation Ventures, a $50 million venture capital fund focused on African American and diverse technology startups.
“We know that ideas don’t have color, so the goal is to open the technology gap and create more opportunities for black people and the black community,” Jasmine said.
In its first year, Black Tech Nation Ventures attracted investors that included Carnegie Mellon University, Bank of America, First National Bank, MasterCard, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Mark Cuban, looking to find and fund emerging black tech talent. Recruit other black professionals and grow them into venture capital funding positions. It also seeks to expand the landscape of venture capital influence, and not all of it is concentrated in Silicon Valley.
Essentially, the trio envisions Black Tech Nation Ventures as an engine of black and diverse generational wealth creation, an opportunity to invest in underrepresented and underrepresented communities.
Much of this was initiated by Jasmine. She graduated from Howard University with a pre-med degree and then decided she didn’t want to be a doctor. She worked as a teacher and lived for some time in Los Angeles, New York, Spain and parts of Africa.
As she contemplated the next step in building a business, a colleague of mine suggested she try out technology. “Being a black woman in tech and having the opportunity to put out six figures in your first career was great for me,” she says.
In 2016, the Pittsburgh Academy brought her to the city to train at a three-month tech bootcamp. Her plan was to learn to code and find her way to Google.
However, her immersion in technology exposed Jasmine to the digital divide, a racial and economic divide that limits access to computing and technology jobs. She says she was the only black person in the room when she traveled to events and programs in the city.
“We are only as strong as our weakest connections, so the goal is to work hard to create better places for everyone, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.” – Kelauni Jasmine
Wealth of change
In search of community, she founded the nonprofit Black Tech Nation. It grew rapidly, reaching people in Denver, Seattle, South Africa, etc. Parents want their kids involved, tech veterans want a home, and tech newbies want a safe place to network and work.
Black Tech Nation, which now has over 2,000 members, positioned itself as “Digital Wakanda” and started creating platforms for black professionals to create awareness and address the digital divide.
The lawyer’s energy caught the attention of Sebastian, who moved to Pittsburgh 25 years ago and founded Birchmere Ventures here. Since then, he has invested in more than 100 companies, a quarter of which have significant diversity in their management teams. I became the first to invest in Black Tech Nation because I believe that the work is important for now – and supporting it is a way to expand the industry and create “transformational wealth” for different communities.
Sebastian, like Jasmine, knew that they had to weigh the limitations of nonprofits when trying to raise capital and reach out to African Americans. Using his business “muscle memory” and experience working with a diverse portfolio, Sebastian shows Jasmine how to start a fund.
In the year In the spring of 2021, they co-founded Black Tech Nation Ventures with Motley.
The triad of diversity – racial, gender, generational and professional experiences – and their diverse interests are large parts of what fuels the venture.
“We’re the most unpredictable group ever,” Jasmine said. “We laugh about it, but that’s what makes it work.”
Jasymn is an African American millennial who grew up in an underserved community on the outskirts of Chicago. Although she was a stranger to Pittsburgh, she encouraged the Black Tech community here.
Motley said he immediately came on board. He is a Pittsburgh native who grew up in the city’s East End. After earning an engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh, he earned an MBA from Harvard and founded the African American Directors Forum, a national project to increase black representation on public company boards. He was able to use the talents and resources of a wide range of black professionals to aid his efforts.
Sebastian is from Washington, DC, and has lived here for decades. Although he is white, he recognizes the lack of diversity in technology and is an ally who seeks to be inclusive and progressive beyond being “yale, pale, male, and old.”
“Pittsburgh’s relatively small size and talent pool allows for strong connections that may not occur in larger cities.” – David Mottoli
The right time
As Pittsburgh’s new economy was heralded as medicine, commerce, and education, technology became increasingly part of the conversation.
Jasmyn says: “I came at the right time, making the right voice, where the city, the foundation and others are able and willing to invest in making the city inclusive for all.
“It doesn’t hurt that Pittsburgh’s relatively small size and talent enables strong connections that might not happen in larger cities,” Metley said.
As it strives to become a top-tier organization, BlackTech Nation Ventures has a portfolio so far that includes the backing of three startups in the financial tech and education tech space. These include Boston-based BrightUp and Hive Wealth, in Washington, DC; Both were founded by African American women and focused on closing racial wealth gaps. There’s also BlendEd, a black-owned company in Cleveland. It is developing an open source educational platform to help develop world-class education at community colleges.
Black Tech Nation Ventures is working to close its first deal with a Pittsburgh business with a Latina founder. He also made an undisclosed investment in a Pittsburgh-based company he led.
Although a national fund, the founders hope to invest about 25% of the portfolio in Pittsburgh-based companies, with investments ranging from $250,000 to $1 million.
“There’s a deep sense of satisfaction in knowing that you’ve created opportunities for people who might not have had a fair shot, who might not have been able to get into the classroom. And it feels good. – Sean Sebastian
Psychological reward
While building a portfolio of about 30 investments, the trio evaluate strategies that support healthcare technology and culture-based markets, targeting tech-enabled businesses that offer solutions to specific demographic groups, such as black women and blondes. Care. It is also fulfilling its mission of seeking diversity at every level.
Supported by an all-female legal team and a black accounting firm, it uses a variety of other providers. The fund was founded in Emerald City, a co-working space downtown owned and operated by African American women.
According to Jasmin, Black Tech Nation Ventures is a $50 million black-owned fund in Pittsburgh.
All in all, Jasmine and her companions are doing well. Other black venture capitalists have recently launched new firms: In 2018, Adeyemi Ajo raised $137 million to launch the firm Base10 Partners, making it the most well-funded venture capital account led by a black founder. That same year, Sarah Kunst raised $3.5 million to launch Chloe Capital, which at the time was the second-largest venture capital fund led by a black woman, according to The Plug, a Black Tech news and insights platform on Bloomberg.
In the year In 2014, tennis champion Serena Williams founded Serena Ventures, a project that reportedly raised $111 million. According to an analysis by The Plug, the average investment size of venture capital funds led by black women is $3.3 million.
Moving forward, according to Sebastian, the money is striving to be financially successful, and then the three can achieve what he calls a “psychic reward,” a deep satisfaction that “knowing that they’ve created as many opportunities as possible for the people who were there” had a fair shot at failing to make it into the department. And that feels good. “
The three believe the city has a ways to go to address some structural issues, but Black Tech Nation and the Venture Capital Fund will help bring some national attention to Pittsburgh and the contributions of people of color.
“We are only as strong as our weakest link, so the goal is to work hard to create better places where everyone wins, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation,” he said.
Ervin Dyer is a Pittsburgh-based writer covering African life and culture.
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