Committed to Empowering Diverse and Black Women-Owned Businesses and Entrepreneurs

Committed to empowering diverse and Black women-owned businesses and entrepreneurs, Wells Fargo took center stage at the Woman Evolve Conference 2024 to highlight the importance of unlocking growth for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Women are ready to learn, connect, and grow. It was a testament to Wells Fargo’s commitment to ensuring that diverse businesses have access to capital, financial education, mentorship, and community. 

The economic potential of women entrepreneurs is vast. The latest statistics show that women-owned businesses contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, generating $2.7 trillion in revenue and employing 12.2 million workers. 

As women-owned businesses continue to grow, it’s essential to recognize the progress made, particularly among Black women, during challenging times.

Black Women Entrepreneur Excellence

The Women's Entrepreneur Leadership Lab (WELL) is a network of Black women business owners that facilitates peer-supported growth by fostering relationships that build community, collaboration, confidence, and capital.  It set out to address the lack of support Black women founders receive as entrepreneurs by banding together and creating a community to support each other.

Data illustrates how far funding needs to progress to support Black women, who accounted for 42% of net new women-owned businesses, while only being 14% of the female population from 2018-19, according to the 2019 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, which analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data, and extrapolated forward based on Gross Domestic Product data.

Learn more to participate and recommend to others.

Are Black Women Entrepreneurs Not Getting Investors?

Despite Black women being the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S. —owning 1.5 million businesses and generating $44 billion a year— the initial support to launch is not there.  Why is that?

“They weren’t getting the seed funding they needed,” Finney [research lead by Kathryn Finney with Dr. Marlo Rencher was published in “The Real Unicorns of Tech: Black Women Founders” and examined 60,000 startups 88 of which were Black women led ...] told Forbes. “We don’t have lead investors. We don’t have people willing to write that first big check.”

Black women entrepreneurs only received 0.2 percent of all venture funding in the past five years.  It's as if black women entrepreneurs are not seen as innovators or women who can run successful businesses.

Read more:  Study Discovers Black Women Entrepreneurs Not Getting Investors