Esosa Ighodaro and Regina Gwynn are co-founders of Black Women Talk Tech, a worldwide collective of Black female tech founders. The organization on Wednesday announced that it had acquired the assets of Black Female Founders (#BFF).
By Megan Sayles, AFRO Business Writer
Report for America Corps Member
msayles@afro.com
Black Women Talk Tech, a global collective of Black women tech founders, announced Wednesday that it acquired the assets of Black Female Founders (#BFF), a social impact platform designed to increase exposure for Black female founders and their ventures, for an undisclosed amount.
“The acquisition of an organization built by a group of Black women to another group of Black women is significant because we are building each other up instead of tearing each other down,” said the founders of Black Women Talk Tech. “We believe in working together with those who the public may see as competitors to collectively benefit the culture and Black women.”
According to the Brookings Institution, roughly 96% of Black-owned businesses are sole proprietorships, unincorporated companies owned and operated by one person. These Black sole proprietorships comprise 11.7% of all such businesses in the U.S.
Only 2.2% are Black-owned employer businesses. Through sharing resources and working together, Esosa Ighodaro and Regina Gwynn, co-founders of Black Women Tech, hope that their merger with #BFF generates more opportunities for Black women to secure investments for the building of the next billion-dollar tech or scalable business.
#BFF, which was founded in 2015, is a platform that provides awareness, promotion, support and resources for Black women-led tech-based and tech-enabled startups throughout the U.S. and Black diaspora. Its flagship program, the #BFF Labs pre-accelerator, provides crucial industry knowledge, mentorship and business development tools to help emerging startups succeed.
The founders of Black Women Talk Tech have been acquainted with Erin Horne McKinney, founder and CEO of #BFF, for years and have collaborated with her in the past.
This merger will allow Black Women Talk Tech to grow its reach and audience. Current #BFF members will be able to join the collective’s membership platform, which features over 150 hours of business video content, for free and will get a six-month complimentary membership.
Black Women Talk Tech will also use some of #BFF’s content for its Black Students Talk Tech program, which helps historically Black college and university (HBCU) students develop tangible skills to launch their technology career or business.
“We are proud of this acquisition and look forward to meeting our new members,” said the founders of Black Women Talk Tech. “Going into our sixth year, we have come a long way, and acquiring another organization is definitely a large milestone that we are excited about accomplishing. We are looking forward to the future of Black Women Talk Tech and where we will be in another six years.”
Update: Feminist activist, Allison Dretzin, who focuses on the contributions that women make to the technology industry suggests for further study on data on gender differences to read this article. The article offers a lot of achievable solutions so that women may be represented equally.
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