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Black Tech Nation Ventures, a Pittsburgh-based venture firm, has announced the close of a $50 million inaugural fund.
BTN.vc launched in 2021 to address the funding gap for Black founders. This launch happened amid a wave of venture diversity initiatives following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
The trio of Seán Sebastian, Kelauni Jasmyn and David Motley founded the fund.
“We set up BTN.vc to equip and train a new generation of more diverse entrepreneurs and investors,” David Motley said to PR Newswire. “We are committed to providing intellectual and financial capital to help our founders navigate growing a successful company and opening up opportunities for future venture capitalists who are Black or diverse to participate in the industry.”
The Pittsburgh-based venture firm has finished raising its first $50 million for its debut fund. The fund will back pre-seed and seed-stage software startups. It targets founders who are Black, women, or members of the LGBTQ+ community, among other underrepresented groups.
The sectors it invests in include fintech, edtech, healthtech, climatetech, AI and machine learning. BTN.vc’s investments range from $250,000 to $1 million. Investors who back the firm include Alphabet, First National Bank, First Close Partners, Bank of America and billionaire Mark Cuban.
The firm has invested in 10 cities in Atlanta, Boston, the District of Columbia, Indianapolis, New York, and Pittsburgh. These include EMTECH, which focuses on fintech infrastructure. Another is Goodfynd, which provides enterprise solutions for food truckers and mobile vendors. The Folklore serves as an e-commerce platform connecting African brands to US retailers. Finally, Kloopify specializes in supply chain sustainability analytics.
With this new raise, BTN.vc plans to expand its investment from 10 companies to 20-30.
Funding Despite DEI Backlash
Black Tech Nation Ventures’s fundraising is coming at a growing backlash against diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), and diversity-focused investments.
“The pushback is real,” Motley said. “We have seen funding to diverse founders and Black-led venture funds decline rapidly. We saw the level of funding return to 2019 totals.”
While the diversity pushback isn’t venture-specific — states like Oklahoma have voted to defund DEI efforts at public colleges, and affirmative action was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last June — venture is impacted.
Atlanta-based venture firm Fearless Fund recently came under legal pressure from conservative activists who said their focus on grants and funding for diverse founders was discriminatory.
Venture Firms like BTN.vc could find themselves caught in the ripple effects of these recent events. But Motley said this change in the overall narrative around DEI doesn’t discourage the team but shows them why they should stick to their thesis.
“The industry is structured to do what it has historically done; 2021 and 2022 were in some ways an anomaly, and then you had a return to normalcy,” Motley said about the short-lived surge of support for diversity-focused VCs. “You have funds like ours that came out of that time frame now positioned to show that this shouldn’t be a moment or just an initiative. These investment opportunities should be looked at.”
Main Image: From left: Seán Sebastian, Kelauni Jasmyn and David Motley, General Partners at Black Tech Nation Ventures, which announced the close of its inaugural $50 million fund today.
