Season Two of the streaming docuseries “Founding in Color,” which chronicles the journeys of Black and Latino entrepreneurs, will feature the founders of two D.C. startups.
Folasadé Ogunmokun, the founder of media company Unskrypted TV, and Maisha Burt, co-founder of workspace startup WorkChew, will be among the 11 Black and Latino entrepreneurs
The series was created as part of Comcast NBCUniversal's broader promise to tell more diverse stories and support entrepreneurs of color following the 2020 summer of unrest triggered by the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. It portrays the struggles these entrepreneurs often face in trying to obtain funding and pursuing their dreams of running their own companies.
“I hope that other founders will be inspired to keep going," Ogunmokun said about why she agreed to participate in the series. "To be honest with you, there were so many times where I wanted to hang this up."
Ogunmokun launched her streaming network featuring works by and starring Black artists using her personal funds and the wealth of grants made available to entrepreneurs in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, but says funding has been harder to come by as she moves to the seed round. She wants to raise additional funding to add an interactive shopping component to her streaming service in which viewers can buy a product an actor is wearing or using within an app without ever having to stop viewing the program.
A lack of funding is often the main reason why a founder calls it quits. According to data from Crunchbase, Black founders will typically receive less than 2% of total venture capital funding each year.
In 2021, U.S. venture funds doled out a record $329.9 billion in more than 17,000 deals, according to a recent report from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association. Amid an outpouring of support for entrepreneurs of color, Black founders received 1.3% of that venture capital investment, or $4.34 billion, according to Crunchbase.
WorkChew's Burt was among the recipients in that historic year. She raised $2.5 million in 2021 to continue to grow her workspace startup that turns hotels and restaurants into pop-up coworking spaces for remote workers.
"Raising capital was hard. It was one of the hardest things that I’ve done in my career," Burt said. "I met with over 70 investors over three months and dealt with lots of rejection. Even with that, I knew that I only needed one yes, so I was persistent and just believed in myself and the product I wanted to bring to the market."
But in 2022 the market shifted and funding began to dry up, particularly for Black entrepreneurs. Black founders founders raised $2.254 billion last year, or just 1% out of the U.S. venture capital allocated last year according to Crunchbase.
The docuseries will chronicle the efforts of Ogunmokun, Burt and other entrepreneurs of color in what has been an increasingly challenging fundraising environment. The series premieres Feb. 16 on Peacock and Black Experience on Xfinity.
"I don’t think we see nor hear our entrepreneurial stories enough," said Burt. "Each entrepreneur has a unique path they walk and lessons learned along the way. It’s crucial for founders to share and tell their stories so we can learn from each other and so the younger generations can see with their own eyes that successful black female founders exist."
