Yelitsajean-Charles is the founder and CEO of Healthy Roots Dolls a toy business that empowers girls and celebrates diversity through its dolls, storybooks and dolls. She has been a very rare recipient of VC funding. “I was the first Black woman to raise $1 million venture capital and that’s a problem. She said that there is always a 5-week bootcamp and a start-up programme, but no one cuts the check.
World Economic Forum claims that George Floyd’s death brought attention to Black startups, at least for a short time. In 2020, VC financing of Black businesses soared to between $850 and $1.2 billion. By 2022, however, the overall VC funding had fallen, and money allocated to Black start ups had dropped even more dramatically – by 45%.
