Of the 40 startups, a third are led by women.

Between 2009 and 2019, a mere 0.24% of VC funding went to Black founders in the UK. Last year, Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) backed 30 Black-led startups with a £1.5m Black Founders Fund. These firms have already achieved an additional £65m in follow-on funding. Encouraged, Google has doubled this year’s fund to £3 million. (Sifted)

2022 Black Founders Fund from Google

• 40 startups selected
• A third of these are women entrepreneurs
• Each startup will receive $100K in non-dilutive cash
• Up to $200K in cloud credits and ad support
• Mentoring by industry experts
• Most (2/3^rd) are based out of the UK

Rachael Palmer, head of VC and startup partnerships, EMEA, at Google, said: “Through the Fund, we’re hoping to ignite the change needed across the entire startup ecosystem, deliver more opportunities for underrepresented entrepreneurs and ultimately change the face of what a successful founder looks like.”

One startup on the list is fashion tech company Sojo UK.

“If you don’t look like a Mark Zuckerberg or a Bill Gates, there is this genuine barrier for investors to visualise that you are an entrepreneur that is going to build a unicorn,” said Josephine Philips, founder and CEO of Sojo.

“The intersection of being a woman, or the intersection of being black or the intersection of being young, or the intersection of being a solo founder, all of those things combine in people’s minds to just thinking you’re not the archetype of what succeeds and that barrier has to be overcome,” she added.

Related Story: AWS Launches $30M Accelerator Fund For Underrepresented Entrepreneurs