8 days ago | By Essence

By Jasmine Browley · Updated January 25, 2023 As sweeping layoffs plague Big Tech, DEI jobs are taking the brunt of the blow. According to a Bloomberg report, listings for DEI roles were down 19% last year - a larger downtick than in legal or general human resources departments per data from Textio, a company helping businesses create unbiased job ads. “I'm cautiously concerned - not that these roles will go to zero but that there will be a spike in ‘Swiss army knife' type roles,” Textio Chief Executive Officer Kieran Snyder told Bloomberg. Other sectors besides have dramatically carved...
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This Black-Owned Startup Received Jay-Z's Support-Now It's Poised To Be The Next Unicorn

8 days ago | By Essence

By Jasmine Browley · Updated January 25, 2023 Leave it Jay-Z to spot emerging stars in music, sports and now...blockchain. The musician and prolific entrepreneur's VC firm Marcy Venture Partners recently invested in Spatial Labs , an infrastructure company aimed at revolutionizing consumer experiences, announced on January 25 the closing of a $10 million seed funding round led by Blockchain Capital, a leading venture firm in the blockchain industry. Spatial Labs' latest product, LNQ , is a state-of-the-art chip platform that uses blockchain technology to authenticate products and unlock...
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Black Founders Only Got 1% Of VC Funding In 2022-We Spoke To Tech Crunch's Dominic-Madori Davis About The Concerning Disinvestment Trend

8 days ago | By Essence

By Jasmine Browley · Updated January 25, 2023 Since June 2022, Tech Crunch reporter Dominic-Madori Davis has been stirring up robust conversations around the abysmal state of diverse venture capital investment in minority-founded startups, particularly Black ones. In a series of thoughtful reports , Davis offers a meditation on what it's really like to be a Black founder in pursuit of VC support, particularly in the age of corporate DEO over-promising and underdelivering following the social justice reckoning of June 2020. Earlier this month, Davis reported that Black founders in the...
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