See the 138 Black, Asian, Latino & Women founders who raised $1M+ for their Generative AI companies from 2012-2023

By Gabby Cazeau (Partner) and Nina Prabhu (Summer Intern 2023)

One of our core values at Harlem Capital is data drives decisions. Since 2018, we have been publishing different reports focused on the state of diversity within VC & tech. With the emergence of generative AI, we want to ensure that our diverse counterparts are being recognized & highlighted within this new & important industry. 

This report analyzes the 138 Asian, Black, Latino & Women founded startups that have raised $1M+ in generative AI from 2012 to 2023. You can find the full report here.

At Harlem Capital, we are proud investors in 3 Generative AI companies – Chatdesk, Superstorm, and DocDraft. The 3 companies have raised a total $14.8M in capital. We’re excited to celebrate their success as they pioneer pathways for many others. 

Methodology

Our data comes from Harlem Capital’s proprietary database alongside databases from Crunchbase. This report only includes publicly available information and therefore excludes undisclosed funding rounds.

For the scope of this report, we include U.S. based businesses that have raised $1M+ with a core focus using Generative AI.

We defined Generative AI as using AI to create net new content (ex. ML models, training data, images, music, copy). We did not include companies that use AI to generate/amplify existing data/content.

Who Are The Founders By Gender and Race?

Out of the 138 companies, 45% have Asian male founders, followed by White & Asian women founders at 23% & 17%, respectively. However, in terms of capital raised, Asian women have the highest median raise of $10M.

What are the Sub-industries They Are In?

There are 18 sub-industries represented, with the majority of companies falling within Developer Tools. The median raised within Developer Tools is also the largest and 3x greater than the second most common sub-industry, Enterprise SaaS. 

In terms of sub-industries by race, Black and Hispanic founded companies were largely within 5 sub-industries, the largest being Enterprise SaaS and Media & Entertainment, respectively. Asian founded companies raised the most in Developer Tools. In terms of sub-industries by gender, women have the raised the most in Developer Tools while men have in Enterprise SaaS.

Where Are The Companies Headquartered?

There are 19 states represented, with the majority of companies being headquartered in California (63%) & New York (17%). In terms of capital raised, the top states are also California ($5.3B) & New York ($560M).

What Stages Are The Companies At?

Majority of diverse founded Generative AI companies are still in early stages with 42% having a latest funding round at the Seed stage. The largest amount of capital raised has been at the Series C, making up 42% of total capital raised.

Conclusion:

Check out the full report and dataset here. We’re proud to highlight the 138 trailblazers who have raised $1M+ in this new & exciting industry. Though we celebrate, we recognize that Asian, Black, Latino & Women founders still make up a very small percentage of the overall funding that went into Generative AI over the years. We hope that this report encourages more Asian, Black, Latino & Women founders to build in Generative AI & pushes more investors to bet on these diverse founders. This report is just the beginning, we’re excited to continue mapping the journeys of these incredible founders.

If you know of other U.S.-based Asian, Black, Latino or Women founders who have raised $1M+ in Generative AI that we missed, please submit them here so we can continue to keep this list updated. 

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