According to PitchBook, women only raised 2.3% of VC money in 2018 and black women raised only .06% of VC funding, while women of color actually make up 89% of new business owners, according to Fast Company.
Black Women Making Impact
Mandy Price and Star Carter are among the .06% of Black female entrepreneurs who have raised outside funding. In fact, they have raised over $1 million – placing them in the company of less than 40 black women who have done so. The two Harvard-educated lawyers left their jobs as established attorneys to create a better workplace for all, creating the diversity and inclusion tech platform, Kanarys.
The platform allows employees, like us BOSS WOMEN, to anonymously rate and review their companies on diversity, equity and inclusion which then provides feedback for companies so we can improve workplaces together.
The two co-founders experienced the disparities and obstacles that Black women and other underrepresented employees typically feel in the workplace because of the lack of inclusion that exists in corporate workplaces as well as in the U.S. today. However, instead of staying silent about the issue Mandy left her role as partner in a law firm to take a stand and create real impact by founding Kanarys.
She recruited Star to join her as co-founder and together the women built the platform around the gaps they saw in current diversity and inclusion initiatives. The pair did countless hours of research and found that what companies really needed was data, transparency, and accountability so they built the platform around these three components and began pitching to investors.
The long-time friends pitched the idea to everyone they could. They networked and got in front of as many people as possible to share the Kanarys story. They armed themselves with data to back up their claims in pitch meetings, proving their credibility and reminding investors that this is an important issue that must be addressed.
The same diversity and inclusion issues that Kanarys seeks to solve in the workplace extends to entrepreneurship funding as well. Studies have shown that men receive more promotion-oriented questions when it comes to VC funding and women receive more prevention-oriented questions.
Put another way, men receive questions about hopes and achievements while women are asked about responsibility and security. Star and Mandy knew this and prepared themselves to flip the prevention questions with promotion answers , expressing their capabilities for growth and achievements and surprising investors.
Mandy and Star are on a mission to create real change and make the workplace better for women like us. Join their movement and work to improve your workplace today! Visit Kanarys and create your account today.
