Shelly Omílàdé Bell, Founder of Black Girl Ventures, joins ChedHER to discuss what impact the BGV pitch tour has had to date, challenges women of color face when raising capital, and what's next for Black Girl Ventures.

This Pitch Tour Empowers Black and Brown Women Entrepreneurs

Welcome back to chat her brought to you by Jpmorgan Chase. Female founders only get a fraction of the funding that their male counterparts make and that number is even smaller for women of color. Our next guest is a serial entrepreneur that's now also reimagining how black and brown women founders access financial and social capital. Black girl Ventures or B G V. Is currently on a pitch tour where women compete with their pitch decks for a chance to win up to $30,000. And joining us now is Shelley oh Milady Bell, founder of Black Girl Ventures and you also go by, oh me. So oh me. Thank you so much for joining us. What can founders expect during the competition. Thank you for having me, founders can expect to pitch for three minutes, get up, tell us about their business, they'll have three champions, they will ask them questions, we call our judges champions, we don't call them judges and and then be able to answer those questions about their business in order to help the audience understand who they are voting for. I'm also wondering how this experience differs from other pitch competitions out there for women and specifically black and brown women. One of the great things about the Black Revenges pitch competition is that it is community centered. I mean when I launched B G V I launched it in response to a black woman, I'm receiving less than 1% of venture capital and and wanted to do something about that. And so my thought was what could I do while we wait for the systems that be in place, the financial world to go more equitable, what could happen. And that was including the community. So the way our competition works is that women will pitch on stage and then the audience essentially will vote with their dollars to for the founder that they that they favor. And then we will grant that capital back out to the founder um that they chose, I built a proprietary software called raising five. So you can go and check it out on raising five dot C O R A I S I F Y dot C 02. Check out the pictures and vote for the founder that you favor. Something that really struck me was the fact that you said less than 1% of venture capital goes to black women. So talk a little bit more about more of these challenges that women of color face when it comes to accessing capital for businesses. I mean, you know, we're still seeing that problem exists. I mean, crunch basis put out a recent report detailing that the numbers are really not shifting when it comes to women. Women are still receiving somewhere around 2% when it comes to black and brown women, it's still less than 1%. So the needle is barely moving. I think it's going to take some time before we see some real change. Uh, there's three men challenges that is facing and its lack of access to financial capital, lack of access to people in power in those influential networks and then lack of access to ability to hire and all of those in my opinion comes from the lack of access to these influential networks. Um when your parents, your parents went to Harvard with the head of you know, ex bank or banking wealth management firm, it's a lot easier to get understanding of articulation to get understanding of how to navigate. And so the lack of legacy and generational wealth that has been available because of systematic oppression for black and brown people is impeding on our ability to succeed and we're still seeing it today. That's so true. Your network is really invaluable and that's why it's important that you also launched a next gen program for hBCU students. Why did you want to launch this program right now? And what was the overall goal? Even though I grew up with a grandfather who was, was an entrepreneur, I still didn't really like understand entrepreneurship until way later in life. And as a person who was had two kids and was on public assistance and working more than one job and I was working good jobs. I was a teacher, I work in K through 12. Education also worked for the patent and trademark office and during that time, because of the cost of living, I just could not afford To live as a single parent with two kids, entrepreneurship was the way for me, but I didn't learn that until way later in life. And so with the next gym program, the goal is to show, give early access to entrepreneurship to black and brown people who are attending HBCu between the ages of 18 and 25 to make sure they know that entrepreneurship is an available option for them when it comes to joining the workforce. What some of the feedback that you've gotten from black and brown women who've been a part of your different programs and what kind of impact has black girl ventures had to date? I mean, we funded over 300 women founders. We have directly impacted over 20,000 people across 64 countries. We have partnered with some of the largest corporations in the country, partnered with Nike, the N. B. A. Visa Paypal people have all got onboard Pimco to really, really champion the work that we do. Um, our founders are now, we're seeing them get deals in places like shark tank behind the scenes. We have fellows, we have a fellowship program well, which is focused on emerging leaders and so we're seeing that impact around their networks growing. We're seeing that impact around the company's growing. One of the company's called Sweet Kiwi on the founder is a big day and we help facilitate her getting into Kroger and so we want to see you get a bigger customer right? I think that some of the feedback that we're getting is that they're expanding their networks and they're able to get access to, like I said, articulation. Those bigger customers, Shelly, thank you so much for joining us. That is Omi Bell, founder of Black Girl Ventures.