• Raising venture capital is a daunting experience for Black women.
• Before 2021, only 93 Black female founders had raised $1 million or more in venture capital.
• Insider compiled a guide to help Black women through their fundraising journeys.

Raising venture capital is a daunting experience for Black women.

Before 2021, only 93 Black female founders had raised $1 million or more in venture capital, according to ProjectDiane, a biennial report on the state of Black and Latina women founders by Digitalundivided. Additionally, the report found that the median seed round in 2020 for Black female entrepreneurs was just $125,000, far less than the national median average of $2.5 million.

Insider tracked 40 Black women who raised at least $1 million in venture funds last year — which brought the total number to more than 150 — and asked how they navigated the tricky landscape.

We also analyzed how they crafted their pitch decks, navigated conversations with investors, and built support networks, in addition to recording the books they read. From that information, Insider compiled a guide to help Black women through their fundraising journeys.

These women fill their pitch decks with data

Regardless of the race of the founder, there is a standard formula most pitch decks follow for early-stage rounds: Introduce a problem, a way to fix it, and the team behind the business. The aesthetics often consist of company colors, while metrics address market value and projected revenue. Black women must have these things and then some.

For example, Rachael Twumasi-Corson, a cofounder of the beauty brand Afrocenchix, stuffed her seed-round pitch deck with numbers typically seen in a Series A presentation, hoping the data would win over investors. Afrocenchix closed a $1.2 million seed round in June, which included Google as an investor.

Jasmine Crowe, the founder of the waste-solutions company Goodr, decided to put an appendix at the end of her 29-page Series A deck to give investors a clearer understanding of her company, how customers were using it, and the success she had seen. To date, she’s raised $2.5 million.