Celebrating Black Founders and Investors
“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.” ― Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
My role at Prime Movers Lab provides my first opportunity to venture into blogging, and this post is my first public writing on race, so I hope my friends and readers will grant me grace here and in my upcoming writings.
On the eve of Black History Month, and having just finished celebrating Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, I’ve been reflecting on the extraordinary blessings in my life and considering additional ways I can serve others.
My parents are a mixed race couple — Mom mainly Danish and Dad Black. Like many Black Americans, Dad did not reminisce about past generations. When cancer took him a few years ago, we were left with only a handful of clues of what his life was like in Texas before leaving for California as part of the Great Migration. With the help of Ancestry.com, I recently traced our people to a plantation in southeast Texas where my great-great-grandfather was enslaved. His son, my great-grandfather, was born in 1865 just after Juneteenth. Despite living in rural poverty not far from the old plantation, this man later took responsibility for raising his grandson, who grew up to be my most important role model and one true hero: my Dad.
My skin is fairer than most Black people’s, and I haven’t personally had the criminal justice experiences highlighted in recent months. But I’ve long known this reality from darker-skinned relatives and friends. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, my partner Dakin shared his thoughts. I was surprised that Dakin stepped into that difficult conversation, but as his friend for many years, I know he lives for contribution. His action-oriented idea to elevate Black role models resonated with an idea I had been developing as a way to leverage impact from my own network.
We’re blessed to live in an era when entrepreneurs and investors are transforming billions of lives right before our eyes. The NVCA and others report that just ~2% of VC partners and ~1% of venture-backed founders are Black. I am fortunate to know some of the individuals within those small numbers, and to be one of them myself. I am early in my journey and am not holding myself out as a role model, but I can highlight some of the individuals who have inspired me and may inspire others as well. So I will use my next few posts to celebrate friends like Chuma Ogunwole (Founder and COO of PML company Pyka), Ken Denman (investor at Sway Ventures and Costco board member), Marcus Stroud and Brandon Allen (Founders of TXV Ventures), Joseph Heller (Founder and CEO of The/Studio), and many others, and will share these profiles to the younger generation via influencers in my network.
I recently located my grandfather’s grave in a historically Black cemetery not far from Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. It was unmarked; I remember Dad saying they hadn’t been able to afford a gravestone for his father. Sometimes I get lost in the feelings that come up from all this history I’m exploring. But one habit I took from our partner Tony is that when something feels big, I take a small step right now. To honor the past, that step was ordering a marker for my grandfather’s grave.
I’m thankful to my partners for the opportunity to use this space to take a small step for the future, as well.
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
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