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Black
entrepreneurs pitch their dreams to Silicon Valley
By Mark Milian, CNN
August 5, 2011 2:33 p.m. EDTAugust 5, 2011 -- Updated 1833
GMT (0233 HKT) | Filed under: Web
The inaugural class of the NewMe Accelerator program pitched
their websites on Thursday. The incubator helps black entrepreneurs
get their ideas in front of investors African-Americans rarely
start Internet businesses or receive venture capital
CNN's Soledad O'Brien is chronicling the NewMe Accelerator
journey in "Black in America 4," which is scheduled
to air November 13.
San Francisco (CNN) -- Hank Williams has performed dozen of
times to audiences like the one here on Thursday at the Kapor
Capital investment firm.
This time, however, the 46-year-old software veteran wasn't
the only black person in the room, as is often the case at
fundraising meetings in Silicon Valley.
Williams is a member of the NewMe Accelerator's inaugural
class. The tech incubator was formed to help minorities get
advice from successful executives and put their new Internet
ventures in front of investors.
For two months, eight black entrepreneurs worked (and some
lived) together in a rented house in Mountain View, California,
which is the same city Google, a NewMe sponsor, calls home.
Having removed himself from the Silicon Valley technology
scene for a decade, Williams re-emerged on Thursday to demonstrate
the project he's been working on for four years with two colleagues
in New York.
When Spaces begins testing in the next few weeks, people will
be able to sign up for an online storage locker, which allows
them to organize, search and transmit various types of data.
It can handle files, e-mails, calendars, Twitter messages
and other digital information that competitors generally don't
facilitate.
The concept is unique, yet familiar to investors salivating
over the unexpected success of another new Web-storage service,
Dropbox. Williams' Kloud.co has been self-funded so far, but
he is about ready to exchange equity in his company for cash.
Before the dotcom bubble burst a decade ago, Williams had
raised $40 million for an Internet music service called Clickradio.
But he is an anomaly of sorts in the Silicon Valley institution,
where black people don't typically start Internet businesses
and, for that or whatever other reason, rarely receive venture
capital.
Despite his legacy and deep connections in Silicon Valley,
Williams was nervous on demo day.
"I will never go up there in front of a roomful of people
and not be nervous," he said in an interview afterward.
"The tech industry is pretty clubby," he said earlier,
and it often shuns prospects who "didn't go to Stanford
or work at Google."
Among the presenters, Williams stood out not because he's
a person of color but because he's the grayest of those who
presented on stage, with salt-and-pepper hair on his head
and face.
The rest of the class is fairly green when it comes to raising
capital. Associating with this minority-focused Web startup
group, an innovative idea in Silicon Valley, has helped them
to secure meetings that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten,
said several of the entrepreneurs.
"People like to think of us in terms of what they already
know," said Crisson Jno-Charles, one of the NewMe Accelerator
participants. "The way Silicon Valley works is word of
mouth."
Last year in Boston, Jno-Charles, a black computer programmer,
began building Fetchmob, along with Alisa Boguslavskaya, who
is not an ethnic minority but as a woman, is likewise a minority
in the tech industry. Fetchmob is targeting colleges with
an online marketplace for ordering groceries that other students
can volunteer to deliver.
Another male-female duo started BeCouply, which makes an application
for scheduling and chronicling dates. Statistically, blacks
and women get little venture funding -- less than a tenth
combined, according to some studies. BeCouply founders Pius
Uzamere and Becky Cruze have another factor stacked against
them: investors tend to shy away from entrepreneurs who are
romantically involved, they learned.
"He's black; I'm a woman; we're a couple," Cruze
said in an interview. "So we're screwed, right?"
Angela Benton, the NewMe event and group organizer who also
pitched an app called Cued that offers restaurant recommendations
based on a person's interests, said she would consider the
incubator a success if three of the companies received funding.
Some investors here were more optimistic.
"The expectations aren't set, and we need to do something
about that," said Mitch Kapor, a software pioneer turned
venture capitalist who lent his office and contacts to the
NewMe Accelerator.
James Joaquin, who attends the top incubator events and pitch
presentations, said of the NewMe crop: "These entrepreneurs,
these startups are at the same caliber."
Matt Van Horn, an executive at the venture-backed social networking
company called Path, spoke at an event for the NewMe class
and he agreed. "I've just seen a lot of growth,"
he said.
Joaquin is the CEO of a popular service for synchronizing
bookmarks between Web browsers. He also finances young companies,
a practice called angel investing. He added, "I think
the majority of these companies will get angel investments."
He named Pencil You In as one of the standout presentations.
The service, led by
Tiffani Bell, lets people schedule haircut appoints online.
Other presentations included:
Aislefinder is a digital grocery list that tags each item
with the aisle number the store stocks it in, as long as the
product is among the 80,000 at 1,300 stores in the database.
Users have made 12,000 shopping lists so far.
Playd, an app geared toward video-game players, is expected
to launch this month.
Central.ly has a drag-and-drop website geared toward small
businesses and is already bringing in revenue.
Wayne Sutton, whose service called Vouch lets users endorse
associates via social networks, offered what sounded like
music to a tech financier's ears. "We're going to have
an API integrated with mobile apps, and we're going to make
some money," he said in rapid succession, to laughter.
In a business environment that values teamwork, at least one
person in this crop of entrepreneurs possesses a skill uncommon
among the typical pasty-faced programmer.
Hajj Flemings, who co-founded a personal website builder called
Gokit, concluded his speech saying: "I'm a former college
athlete, and I always play to win."
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