Black Founders Using AI to Disrupt Industries

Business Featured Lists

Published by Stephen Oluwadara at November 4, 2025

Candace Mitchell: Co-founder and CEO, MyAvana

Candace Mitchell’s MyAvana is changing the face of the hair beauty industry. Her

technology company specializes in analyzing, researching and recommending personalized hair care solutions. The Atlanta-based startup is made up of a team of computer scientists, chemical engineers, cosmetologists, content creators, business analysts, and hair enthusiasts. They work together to recommend the best products, services, and hairstyles for women’s hair texture, type, and condition.

Founded in 2012, MyAvana is backed by investors such as Prisma Ventures (the innovation fund of Ulta), H/L Ventures, and Amazon. Its valuation is reportedly up to $50 million with over 50,000 subscribers.

Alongside her entrepreneurial pursuits, Mitchell leads the program development for Ascend Atlanta, a small business support ecosystem for minority-led companies. She leads Ascend National in access to markets and alumni engagement.

Mitchell has been recognized on Forbes 30 Under 30, WWD’s Top 50 Beauty Innovators, and BET Honors STEM Award, among others. She’s also a Sephora Accelerate Fellow, featured on CNN and in Marie Claire, ESSENCE, Inc., and Black Enterprise. She was initiated into Georgia Tech’s ANAK Society and named on their Top 40 Alumni list.

Guy Assad: CEO and Co-founder, Clerkie

Clerkie help borrowers by providing personalized debt guidance and workout options to avoid delinquency and build their credit scores. The AI-powered financial automation platform helps Americans to ease their debt burden.

San Francisco-based Clerkie was founded in 2018 by Guy Assad, a former Manager at McKinsey with colleagues Sebastian Wigstrom and Gray Hoffman. The startup has raised a total of $41 million in funding with investors such as Left Lane Capital, Wellington Management Company, Flourish Ventures, Citi Impact Fund, CMFG Ventures, Vestigo Ventures, David Velez the founder of Nubank, and Tom Proulx, founder of Intuit.

Guy holds an MBA from Stanford University and has a strong finance background, having worked as a Manager at McKinsey. With over 15 years of experience in deep tech, investing, and consulting, Guy is passionate about making finance more accessible and equitable. His dedication stems from witnessing financial stress within his family and community, fueling his resolve to create impactful financial solutions that drive real change.

Sam Udotong: CEO and CTO, FireFlies

One of the most tedious challenges of corporate meetings is taking notes and paying attention simultaneously. For journalists, it’s a bigger issue as they have to transcribe manually. However, AI innovations like Fireflies are changing all that.

The AI unicorn startup was founded by Sam Udotong and Krish Ramineni. Udotong is an MIT alum with a strong foundation in computer science and aerospace engineering and has consistently pushed the boundaries of technology. He developed his expertise through roles at leading aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, where he worked on advanced projects such as optimizing satellite systems and deploying deep learning.

After graduating, he decided to forgo a traditional career path and instead ventured into the startup world, moving to San Francisco with only $100 to his name. His journey with Fireflies.ai has been one of persistence and innovation, involving multipJasmine Crowe-Houstole pivots before finding success in the AI-powered meeting transcription space.

Eno Oduok: CEO, El Powr

Eno Oduok is the founder of El Powr, an AI-powered energy management platform designed to optimize energy consumption, reduce costs, and lower carbon emissions for commercial buildings and school systems. The startup, which Oduok describes as the “Fitbit for commercial buildings,” secured third place in the HBCU Founders Initiative’s (HBCUFI) 2025 Better Futures Competition.

As a Prairie View A&M University MBA student (Class of 2025), Oduok credits her experience at Techstars Alabama with shaping the concept for El Powr, where she gained insights into energy and climate challenges from her team, corporate partner Alabama Power, and investors.

With funding from the HBCUFI competition, El Powr is now focused on securing clients and partners in the real estate, education, and sustainability sectors while building its minimum viable product. The startup was also accepted into Pharrell Williams’ “So Ambitious Pre-Accelerator Program,” further supporting its growth. Oduok’s vision for El Powr is part of a broader mission to drive sustainability and innovation, stating, “We’re on a mission to save the world one building at a time.”

Jasmine Crowe-Houston: CEO, Goodr

Jasmine Crowe-Houston leads Goodr, a sustainable waste management and hunger relief company that leverages technology to combat food waste and reduce hunger. She launched Goodr in 2017 after years of personally feeding people experiencing homelessness from her kitchen in Atlanta, a practice she began in 2013.

The company uses its app to connect food industry businesses with non-profits, enabling businesses to track and reduce food waste while providing nutritious meals to communities in need. Goodr is a certified B-Corp, operating on the principle that food insecurity is a logistical issue, not one of scarcity. Under her leadership, Goodr has provided over 34 million meals to those in need and diverted more than 25 million pounds of food from landfills.

The company has expanded its services, including launching a mobile grocery store in 2021. Goodr has also established a network of free Goodr Grocery Stores in partnership with organizations like Chegg and the Atlanta Gas Light Foundation. In 2024, Goodr received the first refrigerated eSprinter Cargo Van in North America from Mercedes-Benz Vans USA. Crowe-Houston was also appointed the first eSprinter brand ambassador, highlighting the company’s commitment to sustainable transportation.

Crowe-Houston is also an award-winning social entrepreneur, children’s book author, and TED Speaker. She published the children’s book Everybody Eats in 2021 to teach children about hunger and how to reduce it in their communities. She has been featured on lists such as CNBC’s 100 Women Who Work in Innovative Ways to Improve the Future, Entrepreneur Magazine’s top 100 influential female founders, and Fortune’s list of world-changing companies.

Leroy Kerry: CEO, Filed

Accountancy can be time-consuming, and professionals are drowning in paperwork, spending nearly half their time on low-value tasks that could be automated. A Thomson Reuters study found accountants can save up to four hours weekly using AI for tasks like data entry and document summarisation. Leroy Kerry’s Filed is changing that.

The AI-powered platform automates tax return processes, including document reading, applying tax strategies, and data entry into existing systems. He co-founded the company with Atul Ramachandran, who serves as the CTO, and together they are addressing a critical talent shortage in the tax industry.

Kerry, originally from South London and raised by a single mother in low-income housing, did not initially see himself as a CEO but built a career in business and technology, including managing teams and working with startups before moving to the U.S. to launch Filed.

The company recently raised $17.2 million in a funding round led by Northzone, with the capital intended to expand the team and develop Filed into the foundational AI infrastructure for the entire tax industry, extending beyond return preparation to areas like client collaboration and audit preparation.

Nathaneo Johnson: CEO, Series

Today, social media is bedevilled by vanity metrics, such as likes and follower counts. Sadly they are becoming a barrier to connection on platforms such as LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. Two young Yale undergrads, Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow launched Series which is using AI to change that.

In 2024, Series was founded with a focus on student entrepreneurs. The platform allows people to chat with an “AI Friend,” whether they’re using an iPhone or Android, to gauge what kind of connections they’re looking for.

Series ignores likes, followers, and focuses on tangible achievements. The AI agent matches users with another Series user who fits targeted description, such as a mentor, investor, or co-founder.

Nathaneo Johnson, the Co-Founder and CEO of Series is a junior at Yale studying Computer Science and Economics. Johnson has raised $3.1 million for Series, and serves as President of BullMont Capital, a student-led fund backing undergrad founders.

Richard Robinson: Robin AI

For most lawyers the legal industry is full of repetitive tasks and drab work which is boring. In addition, most companies want to avoid legal problems because it slows down businesses. So here’s where Robin AI comes in.

Founded in 2019 by Richard Robinson, a black corporate lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, Robin AI was developed from his lived experience in the legal industry. Robinson is using AI to execute legal work at a cheaper, faster and more accurate rate.

The system helps businesses understand all of the laws and regulations that apply to them, and also all the commitments that they’ve made, their rights, their obligations, and their policies. Robin AI makes it easy to understand and use legal information using it to solve real problems.

The London-based company has raised $61.5 million so far with backers such as PayPal Ventures, AFG Partners, Willets, the University of Cambridge and billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s family office. Furthermore, Robin AI has an impressive list of clientele which include UBS, GE, Pfizer, Abbvie, PepsiCo, KPMG, PwC, and Blue Origin.