New Effort Bets on Pittsburgh as a Hub for Black Venture Capital
Kelauni Jasmyn is aiming to create a “digital Wakanda” for Black tech entrepreneurs — far from Silicon Valley.
David Motley, Kelauni Jasmyn and Sean Sebastian are general partners in the newly formed Black Tech Nation Ventures, which aims to both fund Black entrepreneurs and recruit other Black venture capitalists.
Jonathan Brown / Black Tech Nation Ventures
A few years ago, Kelauni Jasmyn was deflecting questions from friends about deciding to stay in Pittsburgh rather than take a six-figure salary job in Washington, D.C. It was Pittsburgh where she launched Black Tech Nation, which started as a local organization, but is now an online nationwide network for cultivating a “digital Wakanda” for Black tech entrepreneurs. She could have taken the BTN imprint to D.C., where there’s a growing pool of Black talent gathering in places like her alma mater, Howard University, but instead she decided to remain in Pittsburgh, where she believed overlooked and untapped talent was within reach. To supplement her income as a coding instructor for high school students, she tended bar.
Her decision ended up paying off: In March, she announced that she had become an equal partner in the newly formed Black Tech Nation Ventures, a venture capital firm seeking to raise $50 million this year.