The Importance of Black Venture Capital

News

• Tops in Americas: Pittsburgh ranks among the top 25 cities in the Americas for foreign direct investment strategy
• Winning: Advanced Acoustic Concepts announced an expansion in Fayette County 
• About last week: Wabtec opened its 10,000-SF space at Neighborhood 91 last week, this week, Texas-based Cumberland Additive committed to the development
• TV & film: The Pittsburgh Film Office is in talks with 19 tv & film projects for the region with a combined production value of $650 million

On the rails, teamwork makes the dream work

Pittsburgh-based Wabtec Corporation envisions a more sustainable rail industry and is committed to developing more sustainable technologies to make that vision a reality. 

As part of the company’s efforts to drive the rail industry’s path to decarbonization and zero-emission locomotives, Wabtec will partner with General Motors to commercialize GM’s Ultium battery and HYDROTEC hydrogen fuel cell systems for Wabtec locomotives. 

The utilization of these two technologies are steps in the right direction towards Wabtec’s vision to transform the rail industry, which is detailed in its Freight 2030 plan. The collaboration comes after Wabtec completed a pilot project in California that resulted in the world’s first 100% battery-electric locomotive.

From The Blog

The importance of Black-led venture capital funds and how Black Tech Nation Ventures is holding the pen to write a new story

There is an incredible lack of funding directed to Black founders and startups. This isn’t editorial comment. The supporting statistics (as you will see by clicking “read more” below to read the blog) are overwhelming. In fact, the business case is pretty simple: diverse founding teams generate higher exits and returns. But, still, the reality is that limited (extremely limited) capital flows to Black founders.

This is the reasoning behind launching Black Tech Nation Ventures (//BTNV), which was created with the goal of getting “more Black people funded,” as stated by one of the Pittsburgh-based founding partners, Kelauni Jasmyn, in TechCrunch.

With //BTNV over halfway to its $25 million first close and with an investor base currently comprised of as many Black investors as non-Black investors, the partners of the new fund (Jasmyn, as noted above, and David Motley and Sean Sebastian) are writing a new story without compromise.