Ruka Hair has raised new funding to scale its mission of ensuring hair and beauty solutions work for the textured-hair community. Ruka Hair Ruka Hair Co-Founder and CEO Tendai Moyo was 17 when she went to a corner shop in Swindon, England, on the hunt for hair extensions, she explained in an interview with Translate Culture. She recalled seeing inexpensive hair extensions and later realizing the industry had changed little over the years. “I was a strategy consultant prior to this, and the industry hasn’t changed very much. It’s still really hard to find high-quality hair extensions that work for Black women. Success for us is about creating a brand that brings Black women joy,” Moyo said in the video. “ For too long in this space, getting your hair done is painful. When you’re a kid, it comes with a lot of t ears. I t’s expensive, you’re spending money on products that don’t work, and oftentimes, you don’t really know what you’re doing because you haven’t had that expert access. So...

Josiah Faison is leveraging tech to help people preserve their stories. The Maryland native originally planned for a career in financial management. During his sophomore year at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), his grandmother became terminally ill with cancer. Faison wanted to ensure her lived experiences would continue to live on. This prompted him to search online for different ways to capture the family history. He was met with no luck. So, he planned to create a time capsule that would include letters and recordings detailing her life. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was unable to make it home, and his grandmother passed away. “All my family’s history was lost. All the stories that she’d been trying to preserve, all the stories she had done to me, were all just gone . That caused me to actually change gears,” Faison told AFROTECH™. Faison workshopped the idea, which centered on history preservation through photography, video, and audio. In the summer of his...

Rosarium Health, a Black-founded healthtech company supporting in-home care for aging populations, has secured new funding. Cameron Carter is the founder and CEO of the company, which was inspired by his years spent in value-based healthcare operations and business development roles at DaVita Inc., Bright Health, Evolent Health, and Truven Health Analytics, according to his LinkedIn profile. He told the American Family Insurance Institute that he observed how customers spent money on healthcare and how their health outcomes “often fall short.” He also mentioned to the outlet, “I repeatedly saw that people were ending up in hospitals or nursing facilities because their living situations and neighborhood environment were unsafe and unsupported, not because they needed more medicine.” Carter also has first-hand experience navigating at-home healthcare from when he assisted his aunt and grandmother. While they did not need “round-the-clock care,” they needed a safer bathroom, improved...

Pinky Coleman’s former CFO has been indicted. Aaron Mattison was a co-owner and chief financial officer of Bar Vegan with the restaurateur and Slutty Vegan founder. Mattison claims he worked on Wall Street after graduating from college, in both traditional investment banking and private equity , according to Restaurant Informer. After business school, his focus pivoted to strategy and consulting. “Bar Vegan started from conversations with Pinky once I joined the executive team of Slutty Vegan,” he told the outlet. Per a press release, Bar Vegan was described as an Atlanta-based “go-to dining destination for exceptional plant-based cuisine” and cocktails. The venture was launched in 2021 and operated at Ponce City Market. After four years, it closed, Rough Draft Atlanta reports. Bar Vegan had been tied to allegations that it withheld tips and paid unfair wages, according to a 2022 class action lawsuit initially brought by employee Morgan Georgia, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution...

Aaron Jordan wants to position vendors as headliners. The Louisville, KY native — who also splits his time between New York and Miami — is using technology to enhance the vendor experience at events. His approach is informed by both direct conversations with vendors and his own experience as the founder of the Louisville Juneteenth Festival, which launched in the wake of COVID-19 and was sunset in 2025. “I learned how to do corporate sponsorships and had a fundraiser, and we [reached] 10,000 attendees. It became the official Juneteenth celebration for the state of Kentucky,” Jordan told AFROTECH™. “And we received Governor acclamations and Kentucky state senate proclamations as the official celebration for Juneteenth. But hosting the festival, I realized I was losing out on revenue, and also I was burnt out all the time after the festival.” “We had over a hundred vendors. We’re supporting small businesses, and they’re making tons of money each year, and we had no insight [into] any...

Diarra Bousso said goodbye to Wall Street to find fulfillment as an entrepreneur. DIARRABLU Bousso is the founder of DIARRABLU, a conscious lifestyle brand that uses creative mathematics and AI to design collections that reduce textile waste by more than 60%, according to her LinkedIn profile. Before launching the brand, Bousso spent years in finance on Wall Street. She traded more than $1 billion in assets during that time, she wrote in a LinkedIn post. However, she walked away from it all to pursue her creative aspirations and passion for math. “If your heart is not happy, long term, you’re just destroying anything that could work for you,” Bousso told Essence in 2025. Journey To Entrepreneurship At 23, she became a painter and traveled the world, and later became a math teacher. Working with various Black and brown female students, she observed that they were not engaging in class but became energized when she introduced color, pattern, and textiles, Essence reports. This...

Dr. Ashandra Batiste is leading a dental practice embracing technology. At 11 years old, Batiste already knew she wanted to become a dentist. The decision stemmed from an accident in which she hit her two front permanent teeth while getting out of a pool. Her longtime dentist restored her smile and confidence. That moment was her career epiphany. In 1998, Batiste enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin and obtained a bachelor’s degree in human development and family sciences. She worked as a dental assistant while in undergrad, spending half days in the office three days a week. In 2003, she enrolled at Howard University College of Dentistry. Reflecting on her experience, she told AFROTECH™ that the program fostered a sense of collective ownership among peers that she said can’t be replicated at a predominantly white institution, and demanded high standards, required rigorous training, and had no room for cutting corners. Elite Dental Wellness Batiste credits the university’s...

Chris Gray is suing the company that acquired his college scholarship startup. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, Gray is the founder and was CEO of Scholly Inc., which was driven by a mission to help students eliminate their college debt. The organization helped deliver more than $100 million to students for their higher education. The startup also secured interest on “Shark Tank ” from Daymond John and Lori Greiner, who agreed to a $40,000 investment in exchange for a 15% equity stake . In 2023, Scholly was acquired by banker Sallie Mae. On the “Black Tech Green Money Podcast,” Gray said $400k had been raised leading up to that point, while he retained a majority equity stake in his company. He noted it was “ultimately my decision to sell.” “The Sharks and other people, when you take someone else’s money, they have to get it back,” he explained on the podcast at the time. “And nine times out of 10, they have to get that back through an exit. And that’s something that isn’t well...