From first-time founders to accomplished entrepreneurs, these creative innovators are building companies from the scratch.
They are reinventing solutions that address daily challenges while ensuring a better future for the young generation of black founders.
This list of black founders aims to highlight the impact they are making not just in their base of operation but across the world.
Considering this list, we looked at three major factors:
- The relevance and timeliness of their contributions
- The potential growth of their companies
- Their advocacy for the black community
The list of black founders is definitely inexhaustive, however, we have come up with these four in no particular order
Ade Adesanya (Healthtech)
Ade is the Co-founder and President of Moving Analytics Inc, a telehealth firm that supports individuals to thrive after suffering from heart diseases.
The platform offers them a suite of virtual cardiac rehab and comprehensive prevention programs to improve healthcare delivery
Before he began his Moving Analytics Inc journey, Ade has previously worked at the University of Southern California to help commercialize the institution’s patents into startup ventures.
Ade’s portfolios include alternative energy, biotech and ed-tech patents. In his free time, Ade runs the Multicultural Angel Investor Network that has a mission to create a culture of angel investing amongst multicultural professionals.
Ama Marfo (Travel and leisure)
Ama alongside Emmanual Buah co-founded Airfordable to make travel budget-friendly via a payment system with zero interest.
As the travel industry was struck by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, getting to book travel ticket asides from becoming difficult saw a decline in purchase.
However, Ama who is the CEO alongside her co-founder is deploying technology to facilitate a convenient travel experience.
Ama started the company, which according to her was inspired by a personal frustration she experienced while in college.
She couldn’t afford the cost of the flight back to Ghana for a family visit during the school breaks.
With restrictions on finances and credits, Ama set to discover how to make travel low-cost knowing she had these two restrictions.
Before Airfordable, Ama has worked as a Financial Technology Consultant where she drove innovative fintech solutions for Fortune 500 companies.
Makinde Adeagbo (Non-profits)
Makinde is a software engineer and the founder of dev/color a nonprofit community for talented Black software engineers.
The community supports software engineers to grow into leaders in the industry.
His passion for computer science got ignited when he started using a graphing calculator to program games while in middle school.
During his high school days, his interest in mathematics and science peaked as he enrolled in many summer programs.
He has worked at Facebook, Pinterest and Dropbox as a software engineer before he finally founded his own tech company.
Makinde isn’t directly in the venture capital ecosystem, however, his community is aimed at opening doors of opportunities for more BIPOC leaders.
Ablorde Ashigbi (Business and productivity)
Ablorde is the founder and CEO of 4Degrees, a firm that helps individuals track their deals through actionable intelligence.
Ablordea a graduate of Harvard University had previously been a venture capitalist with Pritzker Group.
He kick-started his career as a consultant at Bain & Company where he learned about strategy for growth, performance improvement, communicative and analytical capabilities.
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