Brooklyn Nets Owner Launches Funding Project for BIPOC Businesses

Brooklyn Nets Owner Launches Funding Project for BIPOC Businesses

On Monday, November 7th, co-owner of the Brooklyn Nets Clara Wu Tsai announced a project that would fund start-ups owned by Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Named BK-XL, the project will support 12 selected start-ups with $500,000 each. The project will be a joint venture between the Social Justice Fund and the Visible Hands organization. 

“It will be a mix of grants, loans, and investments into this borough which I think ultimately is going to result in strengthening the community and the building up of people,” Wu Tsai said. 

“Capital is one of the biggest impediments to wealth-building, particularly for BIPOC entrepreneurs,” Wu Tsai said in an Associated Press interview. “We thought that investing in this segment was how we could create wealth, not only for the entrepreneurs but also through all the different jobs that they are going to create.” 

Startups that fit the requirements to receive funding may submit their information on the BK-XL website from December 5 to January 20. The start-ups that are approved will receive initial funding of $125,000 for 7% of their company.

If the business shows operational progress and growth, it will receive additional funding worth $375,000. The project would also provide the start-ups brought on with office space and a 10-week program offering mentorship on growing a business. The mentorship will be provided by Visible Hands and Tsai’s investment company Blue Pool Capital. 

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The Social Justice Fund was launched by the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation as a project to improve racial justice and economic revitalization in Brooklyn. Joe and Clara Tsai are the co-owners of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn as well as the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA team that has been under the spotlight recently due to the actions of their player Kyrie Irving. 

Visible Hands is a Boston-based venture capital firm described as “the most trusted platform for early-stage, overlooked founders looking to launch and scale high-growth startups.”  On their website, Visible Hands claims to provide “programming, financial investments, social capital, mentorship, and more holistic support to historically marginalized founders in the hopes of closing the racial and gender equity gaps in the VC and entrepreneurship ecosystems.”