Eventnoire, an event management platform geared toward Black culture, has now raised more than $1 million and is looking to expand its platform.
This time, however, the Chicago startup is opening its crowdfunding campaign to the public and its loyal supporters over the years.
A 2022 Google Black Founders Fund recipient and previous winner of Mountain Dew's Real Change Opportunity Fund Competition, Eventnoire wants to prioritize the Black community and its social events, thereby empowering creators of color.
While platforms like Eventbrite and Ticketmaster made it easy for general consumers to find events, finding culturally relevant events for Black consumers can be more challenging, according to founder Jeff Osuji.
So he and Femi Masha launched Eventnoire in 2018 to better prioritize the Black community and their social events. The app will be launching its mobile event discovery app next month, leveraging all the information data Eventnoire has collected from its audience of more than 250,000 event lovers to help them better discover events near them.
To date, Eventnoire has served more than 3,000 event curators, helping to put more than $5 million dollars back into the community.
Moreover, the platform looks to share ticketing fees by rewarding loyal event hosts and community organizations with a percentage of ticket fees at a time when other platforms such as Ticketmaster have faced public scrutiny over their high fees.
"A lot of people are showing frustration over these high ticket fees. We saw it with the Taylor Swift debacle," Osuji told Chicago Inno. "Part of our business is that we actually recycle a percentage of the service fees that we offer up to curators."
He said that with Eventnoire, people know where their fees are going.
After receiving funding from funds like Fifth Star Funds, Osuji decided that he didn't want to leave Eventnoire's community out of the opportunity to invest in the company.
"Eventnoire is about community first, and we've been able to raise institutional capital," he said. "The people that have been supporting us since day one aren't necessarily able to write $5,000 checks, but they would write $500 or $100 checks. We are about democratizing the opportunity for people to invest in the tech ecosystem."
Osuji said Eventnoire started fundraising during the pandemic, raising $5,000 at a time. While he has seen a slowdown in venture funding, the growth of the entertainment industry and "record-breaking profits" from other ticketing platforms makes him think that crowdfunding could be a great equalizer for the platform.
"It's a $94 billion industry and there was no representation from the Black community," he said.
