When capital finds Black founders, it grows enterprises, creates jobs, and diversifies the innovation ecosystem. Initiatives led by non-profits and philanthropy are demonstrating what more responsive capital can look like.
On January 20, 2026, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech that quickly made its way across news feeds and boardrooms. He spoke about how middle powers like Canada must adapt to a shifting global economy by building resilience, leveraging all of our talent, and acting strategically to ensure prosperity. His message was clear: countries that thrive in uncertain times are those that unlock the full potential of their people. Prosperity expands when people see themselves reflected in the systems that shape opportunity.
As I listened, I thought about Black founders across Canada, builders carrying innovation forward from the margins of systems never intentionally designed with them in mind. It became clear to me that this is exactly where economic strength and belonging intersects.
Belonging, in this context, is not sentiment. It is access to capital, to networks, to procurement pathways, to ownership. It determines who gets to build, scale, and benefit. Belonging is not just a social outcome; it is an economic strategy.
Paulette Senior, former president and CEO of the Canadian Women’s Foundation (and now a senator), captured this in her 2023 Black History Month reflection, urging philanthropic leaders to invest in stronger futures and champion policies that expand opportunity for Black women and historically excluded communities.
Canada is becoming more diverse, more urban, and more globally connected. Yet the spaces we associate with innovation – start-ups, venture capital networks, tech accelerators – have not evolved at the same pace. Too many founders, particularly Black entrepreneurs, are still navigating systems that limit their access to capital, networks, and pathways to scale. Across North America, Black founders capture only about 1% of total venture capital funding, even as they pursue business creation at higher-than-average rates. This stark gap underscores that the challenge is not a lack of talent, but unequal access to capital, networks, and opportunity.
What the research tells us
In 2021, Pitch Better conducted a first-of-its-kind national market research study on Black women entrepreneurs in Canada. What emerged was a story not of scarcity, but of untapped potential. Black women are among the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs in the country. They are highly educated, deeply embedded in their communities, and building across sectors. And yet, they remain significantly underfunded.
Despite strong credentials and clear growth ambition, the research revealed that 65% of Black women founders have secured less than $50,000 in external funding or none at all. More than one in five report that limited access to capital directly affects profitability. Seventy-six percent believe race shapes their ability to succeed in business.
A 2020 BetaKit article by Amoye Henry, Pitch Better’s CEO and managing partner, brought visibility to an uncomfortable pattern in Canada’s start-up ecosystem: minority-owned ventures, particularly those led by Black women, are often judged on perception rather than performance. Many founders describe being over-mentored and over-prepared yet still struggling to access capital at the same rate as their peers. These are not founders lacking ambition or sound fundamentals. They are generating revenue, refining strategy, and doing everything we tell entrepreneurs to do.
And yet, funding remains elusive.
Why supporting Black founders matters
Supporting Black founders is frequently described as an inclusion priority. It is, in fact, an economic one.
Small and medium-sized businesses make up more than 90% of enterprises in Canada and employ more than 10 million people. Entrepreneurship is one of the primary engines of job creation and economic mobility in this country. Black Canadians are more likely than the national average to pursue entrepreneurship, and Black women are among the fastest-growing groups of business owners.
At the same time, Canada’s demographic reality is shifting. In 2023, immigrants accounted for nearly all of Canada’s net population growth. By 2036, immigrants could represent close to 30% of the population. Our future workforce, consumer markets, and founder base will be increasingly diverse. Innovation that fails to engage these communities does not simply miss a moral opportunity; it leaves economic growth on the table.
Supporting Black founders is frequently described as an inclusion priority. It is, in fact, an economic one.
When Black entrepreneurs succeed, they create jobs and circulate capital locally. Almost three-quarters (73%) of the Black women founders surveyed for Pitch Better’s FoundHers report said that more than half their workforce identifies as Black, meaning growth directly expands employment within historically excluded communities. Nearly half identify as being in a growth phase, signalling strong expansion potential.
Black founders are already responding to unmet needs, from culturally responsive financial tools to tech-enabled health platforms to creative enterprises shaping new markets. These ventures are not niche; they are adaptive responses to a changing Canada.
When founders have access to capital, networks, and procurement pathways, they scale. When they scale, communities benefit, and when communities benefit, the economy strengthens.
What solutions are showing promise
There are encouraging signs of movement. A Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association report noted that in 2021, women-led start-ups accounted for just 4% of total venture capital investment. By the first half of 2024, that number had risen to 12%. The shift is meaningful, though still far from parity.
In another BetaKit article, Pitch Better’s Henry chronicles the journey of five Black women founders who have each raised more than $1 million in venture capital and non-dilutive funding (capital such as grants and public funding that allows founders to grow without giving up ownership), not as isolated outliers, but as signals of a shifting market. Farnel Fleurant’s Montreal-based company, Workind, secured a $1.4-million seed round in 2023 and has since grown 30% year over year, maintaining a 90% customer retention rate. Karine Bah Tahe, founder of Oasis Learning, has raised more than $1.2 million to scale language tools for global teams, building traction beyond local markets, and Juno Technologies, led by Nanette Sene and Lynn Doughane, has raised more than $1.5 million to advance a medical device that addresses menstrual pain, securing support from major partners. In Calgary, Cleanster, an AI-powered platform founded by Gloria Oppong, has raised more than $4.1 million to modernize an overlooked industry, blending trust, technology, and dignity into a scalable business model.
Other founders across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, digital services, and enterprise technology are similarly scaling high-impact ventures, from modernizing overlooked industries to strengthening North America’s digital infrastructure.
These stories are evidence that when capital finds Black founders, it grows enterprises, creates jobs, and diversifies the innovation ecosystem.
Encouragingly, we are seeing solutions that understand this. Community-designed accelerators and innovation labs are demonstrating that culturally responsive ecosystems matter. Venture studios and accelerators such as FoundHers Innovation Labs, built specifically to support Black women-led innovation, illustrate what becomes possible when systems are designed with founders rather than around them.
In addition, research-informed design is changing programming. Instead of assuming that every founder is venture-ready, accelerators now integrate capital navigation, legal clinics, financial literacy, and procurement-readiness training. Cohorts are intentionally diverse, including emerging founders, growth-stage leaders, francophone entrepreneurs, and non-profit innovators, all intended to reflect the ecosystem as it truly exists.
Initiatives led by non-profit and ecosystem organizations are demonstrating what more responsive capital can look like in practice. Programs such as the BOF Capital Growth Fund, led by Black Opportunity Fund, and the Black Founders Network Scale are pairing capital with strategic support to help founders move from early traction to sustainable growth. Milestone-based funding models, including initiatives like Futurpreneur’s Core Startup Program, align financing with measurable business progress, reducing risk while building founder capacity. Ecosystem builders like Nobellum, with a mandate to accelerate 1,000 Black-owned businesses by 2030 and generate more than $20 million in revenue across its network, show what becomes possible when capital, mentorship, and community support work together. These approaches illustrate how flexible, intentional financing paired with the right infrastructure can de-risk early growth without placing founders under unsustainable pressure.
Multi-year commitments to ecosystem builders also matter. When organizations receive stable funding rather than one-year project grants, they can deepen mentorship networks, build trust, and track long-term outcomes instead of restarting annually.
Visibility is important, too. When founders pitch in rooms with investors, corporate buyers, and policymakers, perception shifts. Platforms such as Roadmap to Billions, Black Pitch Contest, and FoundHers Demo Day create such opportunities. They position Black founders not as recipients of support, but as builders of viable businesses and new markets – founders worth backing, partnering with, and investing in.
The role of philanthropy
Philanthropy holds a unique lever in Canada’s innovation economy. It can move first. It can take risks where markets hesitate. It can fund infrastructure where governments move more slowly, and it can convene unlikely partners. Yet too often, philanthropic investment in entrepreneurship remains short-term and program-based: workshops delivered, cohorts completed, events hosted. While those outputs matter, they do not always build durable systems.
If belonging is an economic strategy, philanthropy’s role is to fund the conditions that make belonging possible, and if the barriers are structural, then philanthropy’s response must be structural as well.
That means investing in:
- founder-led accelerators and ecosystem builders
- ongoing research to inform program design
- multi-year commitments that allow initiatives to mature
- procurement bridges connecting founders to institutional buyers
- capacity-building grants that strengthen operational resilience
It also means measuring success beyond participation numbers but toward revenue growth, contract acquisition, capital access, and long-term sustainability. Philanthropy can move from supporting participation in the economy to supporting ownership within it.
If belonging is an economic strategy, philanthropy’s role is to fund the conditions that make belonging possible.
The Foundation for Black Communities’ Investment Readiness Program offers a powerful example of philanthropy strengthening economic infrastructure. Designed to help social-purpose organizations overcome barriers to accessing social finance, the program is directing $1.5 million toward ecosystem builders advancing entrepreneurship and innovation within Black communities across Canada.
Among the 2023 recipients is the Banker Ladies Council, whose work focuses on expanding access to entrepreneurship through alternative financing models. By supporting and scaling rotating savings and credit associations and community-based mutual aid systems, the initiative is helping unlock early-stage capital, mentorship, and financial pathways for founders who have historically been excluded from traditional banking systems.
This commitment extends across a broader network of community-led initiatives. The ForUsGirls Foundation’s Emerging Young Global Leaders accelerator equips young Black women and girls to launch social impact ventures, while Code F santé financière pour tous delivers Investing 101, providing financial literacy and investment access to Black youth and women in Quebec.
Together, these efforts illustrate how philanthropy can do more than fund programs; it can expand access to capital, strengthen financial capability, and help ensure that more entrepreneurs are positioned to build and grow.
A future worth building
Black History Month invites us to reflect on the past. But it also invites us to examine the future we are building.
Black founders across Canada are not waiting to be invited into the future; they are building it. The question is whether we are prepared to invest at a level that matches the opportunity. When belonging is embedded into our innovation systems, when Black founders have access to capital, networks, and procurement pathways, the returns are not only social; they are economic.
Belonging is not charity. It is strategy. And Canada’s future will be stronger when the builders of that future truly belong.
