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For a second year, private debt firm Antares Capital is issuing $1 million in grants to underrepresented founders, including Black women business owners. Antares is uniting with technology firm Hello Alice on the initiative.
“We launched the REACH program to expand the flow of capital to historically underrepresented groups to address these discrepancies at the root level,” said Mary Rose, head of Responsible Investment Strategy at Antares.
As part of REACH, Antares also backs grassroots community partners to help create a stronger support ecosystem for historically underrepresented small business owners. See more details here.
Further, financial backing fell 45% for those businesses last year, making it the largest year-over-year decline for Black entrepreneurs. The numbers offer a grim insight into how challenging VC funding can be for Black founders and business owners.
Simultaneously, roughly three years ago, many of the nation’s largest corporations vowed tens of billions of dollars to support economic growth and new opportunities for Black businesses and individuals. But a significant amount of that funding purportedly has not materialized.
Source: Black Enterprise
