Only 25% of startups in Brazil are led by black people

In Brazil, black people are 55% of the population, but only 25% of Brazilian startups were founded by black people, shows the BlackOut: Map of Black Startups 2021 report, unprecedented research carried out by BlackRocks Startups, an innovation hub founded in 2016 to promote access to the innovation ecosystem for the black people, in partnership with the Brazilian Startups Association. The study looked at a universe of 646 startups founded by black people regarding region, sector, ability to raise investments, among others, from the answers obtained through an online questionnaire.

Following the Brazilian startups’ boom in the last five years, the huge majority of companies founded by black people (81%) were started between 2017 and 2021, and most of them focus on Education (13.8%), Health and Wellness (8.2%), and Finance (7.4%) segments.

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Most of these startups are in the Southeast region (47.5%), followed by Northeast (25.1%), South (12.1%), North (8%), and Midwest (7.3%).

Only 29.3% of black founders say they have already got some investment round: the most were from Angel Investor (34.2%), or Seed rounds (33.7%), or thought Acceleration Program (20.5%). 56.1% inform that at the moment they are not dealing with a new investment round.

When looking at the gender of the black founders, there is a chasm between the number of male founders (72.4%) and female founders (18.7%).

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Gender inequality is also seen in the revenue earned by startups: among startups led by black men, most respondents reported having ended 2020 with no revenue (28.8%); among female black founders, this percentage is 33.9%.

Among the male founders who reported having achieved revenues in 2020, 18.1% reported between BRL 50,000 and BRL 250,000 and 13.9% below BRL 10,000. Among female founders, the majority (15.7%) reported revenues between BRL 10,000 to BRL 30,000, and 13.2% below BRL 10,000.

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“It can be seen from the data that, besides the hegemonic patterns of performance, there is also the recurrence of patterns of inequality, that is, the ecosystem is an inequality environment, there are bigger obstacles to development among black people,” says the report.