Startup Founder Becomes First Black Woman in Tennessee to Raise $1 Million

Business incubators Launch Tennessee and the Nashville Entrepreneur Center are touting the first black woman in the state to raise over $1 million in venture capital.

And it didn’t take long for Shani Dowell to make that history — with funding for her parent engagement platform Possip.

Dowell says she founded the platform after a conversation with her husband, a school principal.

“We were at home at the dinner table talking about a parent issue that they were having at one of his schools. He and I got to talking and really the idea for Possip was born,” said Dowell.

But despite her success, raising money as a black woman in the tech industry has its challenges.

Nationally, women receive less than 3% of all venture funding. Black women receive .0006% of those funds.

Dowell says all entrepreneurs face barriers due to the limited access to capital in Nashville, but that minority business owners face bigger challenges because of underrepresentation in the city.

“What we often see with inequity and disparities is when there are constraints, people of color and women tend to miss out the most,” she said.

One constraint is that Nashville isn’t attracting enough investors to the city.

Another, says Brynn Plummer, the vice president of inclusion and community relations at the EC, is pattern matching, a one-size-fits-all formula for what a successful business owner should look like.

“We live in an incredibly segregated city where you could easily, if you stayed in one neighborhood, not see anyone who looked different from you,” said Plummer. “The people that you know who’ve been successful doing something — if you’re an investor, they might kind of all look like one sort of person. And so you’re likely to not have a strong pattern of difference that indicates to you this is a good idea,” said Plummer.

Plummer says minorities are often viewed as risky investments because they aren’t associated with success.

To combat this, Dowell says black business owners have maintained a strong voice in their advocacy for equitable funding for entrepreneurs of color.

Plummer says the EC has also made efforts to build equity for entrepreneurs of color through Twende, a minority specific business program.

Currently, Dowell serves as a mentor for the program’s participants.

“I certainly hope to be a role model,” she said. “There are increasing numbers of role models that the next generation of black female founders have in Nashville.”