Accomplished entrepreneur Kathryn Finney established business creation platform to support Black entrepreneurs
ATLANTA, /PRNewswire/ — Kathryn Finney, tech entrepreneur and investor, today announced the advancement from stealth of Genius Guild, a business creation platform devoted to supporting market-driven innovations to end racism. Using a venture studio model, Genius Guild invests in Black entrepreneurs building scalable businesses that serve black communities and beyond.
The company has secured over $5MM from a number of investment partners including Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company founded by Melinda Gates, The Impact Seat, an investment company led by serial investor Barbara Clarke, First Close partners, led by former Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and Lowenstein Sadler partner Ed Zimmerman and individual investors such as Andrew Bosworth (Facebook).
Genius Guild is addressing the $16 trillion lost by the US economy due to anti-Black racism by concentrating investment dollars and leadership support in Black companies. The firm takes a three-pronged approach to investing in innovation:
- The Greenhouse Fund, a venture capital fund, that invests in black-founded companies in key areas including restructuring the flow of capital, healthy environments, and building connection and belonging;
- Genius Guild Labs which ideates, creates, and incubates market-driven innovations led by Black founders through a robust, active community of thousands of Black innovators that participate in innovation challenges focused on ending racism and;
- Genius Guild Studio which provides paradigm-shifting thought leadership on innovation, entrepreneurship, and access to capital for a global community of thinkers, through products like the narrative podcast “Build the Damn Thing”.
With this hybrid-model, Genius Guild creates:
- Black Dividends: Black-founded ventures are an underestimated, overlooked business opportunity that represents a prolific investment opportunity in both the short- and long-term.
- 360° Value: Meaning it invests in companies that create value for their community, for Genius Guild, and for the founders themselves. 360° Value combines Black Capitalism (building Black wealth through business ownership) with Stakeholder Capitalism (building value for employees, community, and shareholders alike) and Restorative Capitalism (distributing risk along the capital generation cycle) to generate sustainable community wealth.
- Regenerative Wealth: Genius Guild develops systems and solutions to remove the burden of the “Black Tax” on our investment by leveraging a framework that prioritizes generating community wealth with the equitable distribution of risk.
“Black business is viable, lucrative and beneficial to all but venture capitalists continue to leave a 14-figure sum of money on the table because of racist systems and practices,” said Finney. “Black entrepreneurs need more than just lip service – they need true supporters who will go beyond self-serving mentoring and nominal tokens of support. At Genius Guild, we’re challenging our stakeholders to use their money and, equally as important, their voices to call out prejudice and bias in their investment practices. Our partners are committed to enriching the community with sums that match the value of their ventures.”
To learn more about Genius Guild visit www.geniusguild.co.
About Genius Guild
Led by Kathryn Finney, one of Inc. Magazine’s “Most Influential Women in Tech” and the visionary founder of The Doonie Fund, The Budget Fashionista and digitalundivided, Genius Guild is a business creation platform that uses the venture studio model (Lab & Greenhouse Venture Fund) to invest in market-based innovations led by Black founders that end racism. We accomplish this by applying an investment lens that actively addresses the ways in which capitalism and capitalist markets have been manipulated to limit, exclude, and defraud black communities, creating 360 value for communities, investors and entrepreneurs. For more information, visit geniusguild.co.
Media Contact
Rozeta Andres|Clarity PR
geniusguild@clarity.pr
