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will.i.am was an early investor in several tech companies, including OpenAI. In 2025, Fortune estimated his net worth at $50 million, attributing it to his music career and investments in early-stage companies such as Tesla, Pinterest, and OpenAI. “I did some pretty cool investments in the past,” will.i.am told Fortune. He described OpenAI as one of his smartest investments to date. OpenAI launched in 2015 with support from billionaires such as Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel, as well as Amazon Web Services and other industry giants. Hoffman played a significant part in will.i.am’s investment in AI, according to Forbes. Hoffman initially wanted the musician to invest in OpenAI’s rival, Inflection AI, which he co-founded with Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. “One day, Reid called me and said, ‘There’s this guy you should meet named Mustafa. I know you’re interested in AI, and there’s not that many people from the industry that have the vernacular and understanding of the...
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...
An NBA dinner led Tristan Thompson to invest in a major AI company. In an interview on “Market Bubble,” Thompson, a fourth overall draft pick in 2011 who last played during the 2024-25 season, reflected on a specific time in the league that led him to strengthen his investment portfolio. The unrestricted free agent recalled attending several dinners that gave him opportunities to sit down with individuals in Silicon Valley when playing against San Francisco’s Golden State Warriors. He heard discussions around the future of technology, particularly AI. That led him to invest early in Anthropic, an AI safety and research company that developed Claude and is currently in discussions to raise $30 billion at a $900 billion valuation , according to Bloomberg. “I was like, ‘Hey, man, I like what you’re, what you’re talking about. You sound like you’re cool. You sound, like, transparent.’ … I’m like, ‘All right, man, here’s a check. I wanna get in the game.’ And then from there, they just...
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...
5th Century Partners (5CP) has closed Fund II. 5CP is a private equity firm that invests in founders and management teams of lower-middle-market companies in healthcare and business services. According to its website, it aims to create lasting value and accelerate the success of its portfolio companies. The team brings together investors, strategic operators, and innovators with diverse experience, focused on driving scale and fostering innovation across its investments. Launched in 2020, 5CP announced the close of its oversubscribed debut fund in 2022. It closed with $144 million in capital commitments, according to a press release. Fund II Fast forward to 2026, and 5CP has announced the close of Fund II at $276 million, nearly doubling the size of its first fund, according to a May press release. New and existing investors, including endowments and foundations, corporate and public pension plans, insurance companies, and family offices, supported it. Fund II has already invested...
Brandon Hill has raised millions in funding guided by the mission of ensuring “every supermarket in America autonomous,” he said on LinkedIn. For many founders, their lived experiences help shape the ventures they go on to create. Hill is a third-generation grocer with grandparents who owned a small store in Oklahoma and parents who’ve had careers in the grocery industry , Fortune reports . In 2020, Hill first stumbled upon the grocery industry’s outdated administrative systems while visiting his parents in Minnesota. He found a stack of various paper invoices and wholesale catalogs. “I looked at these books, and I said, ‘Okay, what is this? A relic or a souvenir from you guys when you guys were my age?’ And they said, ‘No, this is how grocery stores operate here in 2020,’” Hill explained, according to Fortune. This informed Vori, an AI-powered grocery startup for independent grocers. It launched in 2019 in East Palo Alto with a team of Stanford engineers from SpaceX, Google, and...
Kwanza Jones is set to make history in the investment world. Jones is a Princeton University graduate who sits on various boards and has been investing for more than a decade, according to her LinkedIn profile. Since 2014, she has served as co-founder and CEO of the Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative, which is a philanthropic organization and private single-family office guided by pillars such as education, entrepreneurship, equity, and empowerment. According to information on its website, more than $250 million in funding has been directed to these areas. In the latest update, the Seidler family has agreed to transfer ownership of the San Diego Padres MLB franchise to Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano, according to a press release. The Seidler family has been considering selling the team — valued at $3.9 billion according to Sports Illustrated — since November. The agreement will require approval from the MLB and its customary closing conditions. If approved, Jones would...
Jamie Foxx is investing in AI. He has added ElevenLabs to his portfolio. ElevenLabs is a free AI voice generator and voice agents platform, as described on its website, on a mission “that redefines how businesses communicate with their audiences,” according to a blog post. Its mission, it says, will be aided by its investors, who are experts within their fields. Foxx joins a group that participated in the third close of ElevenLabs’ Series D funding round, following its crossing of $500 million in annual recurring revenue in 2026, per the blog. The funding will support research and the scaling of its platform both domestically and abroad. Planned updates include combining image and video generation with audio tools to support creatives and marketing teams, the source notes. Additionally, the company says it is developing agents that can better serve customers and employees across voice, chat, email, and other channels. New investors also include BlackRock, Wellington, NVIDIA (via...
Monica Cornitcher is keeping her late friend’s legacy alive through their cocktail brand, lighting up the market. Inga Dyer was Cornitcher’s close friend for more than 30 years. The pair met while attending Howard University in the 1990s, where they also pledged Delta Sigma Theta. In their respective careers, Dyer became an entertainment lawyer, and Cornitcher built expertise in mergers and acquisitions and business transformation while leading her own company for nearly 25 years. At the time, they did not realize their skills would eventually lead them to start a business together, though Cornitcher felt entrepreneurship was always her path and never worked in corporate again after turning 28. The progression of their entrepreneurship journey together was planted during the wake of COVID-19, Cornitcher shared in an interview with AFROTECH™. She had been in Atlanta but moved to California to be closer to family, and Dyer already lived in California . By default, the pair was hanging...
Series has officially opened its seed round after the close of its pre-seed round at $5.1 million, TechCrunch reports. Series is a professional network for Gen Z and the first AI social platform on iMessage, according to its founders, Nathaneo Johnson and Sean Hargrow, who launched the venture in 2024. Users are highly engaged on the platform. In 2025, Johnson noted more than 20,000 messages had been sent and received within a week, as AFROTECH™ previously reported. More recent data from Johnson reveals Series has more than 750 active campuses using the platform, and it is retaining more than 83% of active users. “Higher than Facebook during their early days,” Johnson said on LinkedIn, referring to the retention rate. Series announced its pre-seed round had reached $3.1 million in 2025, with the close on April 24, 2026. This was the most VC raised by Ivy League students, according to a separate AFROTECH™ article. TechCrunch reports the pre-seed round closed at $5.1 million, with...
A new bank has opened in Indianapolis that will center on underserved communities. Generations Community Bank, an effort led by Evansville, IN-based Old National Bank, has opened its doors in Indianapolis, specifically in the Indy Health District, at 2110 N. Illinois St., after four years. According to BizVoice Magazine, the startup bank aims to close longstanding gaps in access to capital for minority, low-income, and underserved communities. Its offerings will include small-business lending, home financing, and community-focused development designed to support financial stability and wealth. “At Generations Community Bank, we want to listen to our customers, explain things, educate and collaborate, so the people we’re serving have the resources they haven’t had before. That’s how we plan to stay proximate to the communities we serve,” Generations Community Bank President and CEO Al London told the outlet. The bank marks Indiana’s first Minority Depository Institution (MDI), giving...
Harbinger Sports Partners has secured a new investment in its quest to acquire professional sports teams in North America. The Atlanta-based private equity firm is targeting minority stakes in “mature” and “profitable” U.S. sports franchises, according to a press release. The firm was founded in March 2025 by Rashaun L. Williams, Steve Cannon, Mark Cuban, and Jonathan Mariner. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, it launched with a target of investing $50 million to $150 million while using secondary offerings to exit within seven to 10 years. The firm’s strategy includes targeting the blue-chip segment, according to the press release. Blue-chip stocks are large companies with stable earnings and strong financials, per Yahoo Finance Singapore. Harbinger Sports Partners says investing in this area will ensure it can “move with speed, precision, and professional rigor.” Additionally, the firm seeks to deliver attractive, risk-adjusted returns through long-term partnerships with the...
Happenstance led functional non-alcoholic beverage startup, Sensori, to pursue a strategic hire. Shanna Pearre (CEO), Darean Rhodes (COO), and Ashlyn Knox (CMO) are three best friends who cofounded the startup in 2024. Sensori beverages are powered by mushrooms, adaptogens, nootropics, and botanics, with the goal of replacing alcohol during modern social and self-care rituals, Pearre explained to AFROTECH™. Wellness had long been important to the friend group, and they had a yearly tradition of participating in Dry January, an alcohol-abstinence challenge. It was during one of those Dry January periods that Pearre began seeking a way to recreate the feeling often associated with drinking without the alcohol. She created various concoctions in January 2024, offering Rhodes and Knox samples along the way. “She calls me after … that Julion had told her, her husband, ‘Why don’t you all just make this into a product, the concoctions,'” Rhodes said on the “She’s So Lucky” podcast, hosted...
Unconventional Ventures has announced the second close of its Fund II. The Nordic impact venture capital firm is led by a group of European founders and was launched to “unlock the potential of diverse founders building impact tech companies,” according to its website. Nora Bavey (general partner) and Thea Messel (general partner) serve as founders of the firm, which has raised funding to address biases in venture capital, according to Tech Funding News. Unconventional Ventures’ investments are geared toward women founders and founders of color. Among these groups, all-women founding teams have historically received just 1% to 2% of funding, and f ounders-of-color-led startups have received less than 0.5%, per the outlet. The firm invests in pre-seed and seed-stage companies with scalable tech that center on environmental or social impact and are based in The Nordics and Europe, according to its website. Its target sectors are climate and environment, health and femtech, education,...
Crowned Skin founder Darrell Spencer and investor Rashaun Williams are now united in business. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, Spencer launched the science-backed skincare and grooming company in 2024, bringing experience from customer sales and advertising departments at tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. He helped “generate millions of dollars in revenue” for these companies, he said at the time. That success was the light bulb that signaled he could use his skills to benefit himself, taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Now, Crowned Skin is reaching revenue milestones such as hitting $2 million in a single month while selling strictly direct-to-consumer and surpassing more than $10 million in sales, he revealed on a recent episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” It was also noted that the company is “very profitable,” with projected sales of $14 million to $15 million, and recently landed the No. 2 brand on TikTok Shop. The venture has also remained...