The Funding Gap, in Numbers

You cannot fix what you do not measure, so it is worth stating the numbers plainly. In the UK, roughly 0.24 percent of venture capital funding has gone to Black entrepreneurs, a total of just 38 businesses, and of those only one Black female founder has raised a Series A. Meanwhile, around 88 percent of Black founders in the UK self-fund at least part of their venture.

These are not small gaps at the edge of the market. They describe an entire category of talent that the venture ecosystem has, so far, largely failed to back. There has always been entrepreneurialism in the Black community. Venture capital simply has not made its way to it yet.

Why the gap persists

The reasons are structural: networks that recycle the same founders, pattern-matching that mistakes familiarity for potential, and a pipeline narrative that too often blames founders for a system that was not built with them in mind. Closing the gap means changing who writes the cheques, not only who receives them.

That is the thinking behind Black Seed: a fund led by Black investors, backing Black founders at the earliest and hardest stage, and building a community and venture studio around them in Brixton. The number we care about most is the next one, the founder who would not otherwise have been funded.

If that is you, submit your pitch.