🎉 Wocstar portfolio company, Redactable®, on securing $5.5 million in seed funding! With support from Wocstar Fund and other notable investors, Redactable is revolutionizing document security through its AI-driven platform.

👏 Redactable's innovative solution, led by CEO Amanda Levay, uses Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning to swiftly and permanently redact sensitive information in documents.

📣 "We're not just investing in innovative tech solutions; we're backing bold and exciting entrepreneurs like Redactable's CEO Amanda Levay," said Gayle Jennings O'Byrne, Co-Founder and General Partner at Wocstar Fund. "She and her team are reimagining how companies scale, succeed, and bring new products to market. They represent the future we all need and deserve."

Check out this remarkable story of innovation and investing with Spectrum's NY1 News team featuring our co-founder, Gayle Jennings O'Byrne Jennings-O’Byrne and Re-nuble founder, Tinia Pina discussing how Re-Nuble and Wocstar are creating a sustainable future for all of us.

Re-Nuble helps farmers more affordably grow #food using climate-smart methods and earn more money while making Re-Nuble more mainstream to daily consumers!

Community, which was first marketed as a way for celebrities to text their fans, now has big brands on board.

That’s why so many of us are moving our most important communications to text messages. And in the process, the “text inbox” has become the new holy space for brands, far more intimate than your social media feed.

At least, that’s the bet that Ashton Kutcher, the actor turned venture capitalist, and Guy Oseary, Bono’s and Madonna’s manager turned investor, made when they co-founded a text message company called Community in 2019. In the beginning, it was marketed to celebrities to communicate with their fans about tour dates and new projects.

But over the last year, the business has quietly grown to power text messages from some of the largest brands, like McDonald’s, HBO, the New York Yankees and Condé Nast. When this month’s Hollywood blockbuster, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” launched an advertising campaign, it came with a phone number for viewers to text, powered by Community.

New York City Economic Development Corporation is rolling out the next phase of its Women.NYC initiative with “The Network.”

As its name suggests, the platform is designed to connect women in the city’s five boroughs to help them advance and pinpoint opportunities in emerging fields like technology, the green economy, life sciences and offshore wind. Participants can choose from three types of program, such as virtual one-on-one office hours, small group discussions, or shadowing more seasoned executives. They will also have the chance to get involved through quarterly events.

Filmhedge Leads 1st Atlanta Delegation to Cannes Film Festival, Marche Du Film

International trip to Cannes 2023 touts Atlanta's entertainment fintech ecosystem and promotes the city as a world-class destination for film and television production.

Filmhedge CEO, Jon Gosier, will lead the first delegation of City officials and business leaders to the Cannes Film Festival, May 16 through May 27.

Check out the six ways to intentionally celebrate Black History Month from the Wocstar team!

Check out the Wocstar Wish List for our favorite gifts and support BIPOC businesses this holiday season!

"That dearth of funding can be attributed to “all those -isms and biases that have built up over the 400 years that we’ve been part of this country,” said Gayle Jennings O'Byrne O’Byrne, who co-founded the Wocstar Fund, an early stage investment fund that invests in tech innovation ventures led by women of color.

But the discrimination is subtle, rather than overt, O’Byrne said. “It looks like, ‘Hey, great job. That’s an awesome idea. Keep going. Come back to me, you know, a year from now. I’d love to see how you’re doing. Hey, stay in touch.’”

And it’s not just a lack of funding for promising start-ups. It’s the lack of sustained support for micro businesses that make up the lifeblood of communities.

“How do we empower those micro businesses? How do we ensure that they have access to capital? How do we ensure they have access to business education?,” Brandon Andrews asked.

Doing so is also likely to help keep a community afloat. “We know that Black business owners and Black entrepreneurs tend to hire from their community, hence spreading the economic benefit,” said Kenneth Ebie, executive director and chief development officer, Black Entrepreneurs NYC.

"Just 2% of businesses with employees are Black-owned, according to a report from the Alliance for Entrepreneurial Equity."

Insightful. The numbers speak for themselves and reducing the wealth gap is one of the only ways to drive equality.

CANNES, FRANCE (May 2022) – Media finance innovator Gayle Jennings O’Byrne will be honored at the Women in Entertainment Finance Forum (WEF) celebration this year at the Cannes Film Festival.

The event is a new program launched as part of Winston Baker’s larger International Film Finance Forum now in its 12th year. The event offers recognition to outstanding contributions of Women working in financial services as related to the production of Film, TV, or other areas of media.

Winston Baker produces conferences globally for the entertainment industry addressing strategies for finance, growth and innovation. The company will be hosting its 12th Annual International Film Finance Forum in partnership with Marché du Film, on the Main Stage at the 75th Annual Cannes Film Festival on Friday, May 20th, 2022. The Women in Entertainment Finance Event will follow on Saturday, May 21st.

Black History Month is here, and Crain's is highlighting some of New York's most prominent Black leaders. In industries spanning real estate to hospitality, Black entrepreneurs, founders and business owners are tackling some of the city's most pressing issues and shining a light on the systemic inequities that continue to suppress equal opportunity.

Here's a rundown of our staff's favorite features and profiles highlighting Black leadership in New York.

As we learn from the past this Black History Month, Mindr also celebrates today’s trailblazers and modern history makers. Here are 28 of the individual changemakers who inspire us daily as we work to build belonging in the world’s leading workplaces.

Four venture capital funds founded by women of color in the United States on Monday said they are banding together under an umbrella called The Ally Capital Collab to get an edge on fundraising and investments.

The 22 Fund and WOCstar Fund have Black female founders, while Supply Change Capital and 2045 Ventures have Latina founders, according to The Ally Capital Collab.

In the dog-eat-dog world of venture capital, two Black and two Latinx female founders of venture funds are doing things differently. They are collaborating, not competing.