Blavity’s Morgan DeBaun Raises $6.5 million in Funding with GV

Link to the original article on Walker’s Legacy

July 20, 2018

Blavity recently announced that it raised $6.5 million in funding through a Series A round, a company’s first round of significant funding and investments, led by GV (formerly known as Google Ventures). Major investors include Comcast Ventures, Plexo Capital, and Baron Davis Enterprises, according to a report from TechCrunch.

Morgan DeBaun, co-founder, and CEO, said the funding will go help Blavity expand as a publication and grow tech and engineering initiatives, including a new location in Atlanta and an additional 30 team members solely focused on creating new product and content creation tools.

“A lot of innovation will come out of that office in the next six to nine months,” DeBaun said in an interview with TechCrunch’s Megan Rose Dickey.

Some of Blavity’s prior money moves included purchasing Travel Noire and Shadows and Acts, launching AfroTech, and 21 Ninety– a tech conference for Black women– and raising $1.8 million, which in 2017 added DeBaun’s name to the list of Black women founders to raise over $1 million in funding.

“There’s just a lot going on where it’s important now more than ever that Blavity is committed and has the resources it needs to grow as a publication”