Atlanta's Black and brown entrepreneurs continue to lack access to funding

June 19th, 2024

Toby Egbuna and his sister Dumebi had to be resourceful to secure enough funding when starting their tech company called Chezie, a platform that helps job seekers from underrepresented communities. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)

From the mom-and-pop shops on Auburn Ave to major tech companies started by HBCU grads, Atlanta has a little bit of everything regarding Black-owned businesses.

According to the online lending website Lending Tree, Atlanta leads the country in creating Black-owned businesses, yet systemic barriers persist.

Toby Egbuna sits in The Gathering Spot, a Black-owned private membership club and event venue in Atlanta, with his laptop as an OutKast song plays over the speakers.

“I don’t think that there’s a better place, specifically a Black founder, to be than Atlanta,” he said.

Egbuna and his sister Dumebi were born in Nigeria. They run a tech company called Chezie, a software that helps companies build and operate employee resource groups.

He says he had to be resourceful when starting the business.

“I think the way that funding works for people who are trying to start companies, especially for Black founders, is just totally broken,” Egbuna said.

Gocha Hawkins poses in front of the restaurant Gocha’s Tapas Bar in Southwest Atlanta. Hawkins says despite being a successful Black business owner already, she was forced to take out a risky high interest loan to open her restaurant. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)

Gocha Hawkins loves two things: food and community.

The Detroit native says she grew up with a special relationship with cooking. When Hawkins launched her restaurant, Gocha’s Tapas Bar in Southwest Atlanta, her banks would not help her.

“I never thought that I would be in a position to take out a high-interest loan simply because the interest rates are ridiculous when you do those things,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins spent decades doing hair for celebrities and owned her own shop. However, like many other Black and brown business owners, she says she had little choice but to gamble on a dangerous loan.

“We were busy from day one, so I was able to pay those loans back within six months. Yeah, and I would never do that again,” Hawkins said.

For many other Black and brown business owners, they were not as fortunate.

Although coming out of the pandemic, there was a jump in Black business ownership, according to the 2024 Changing the Odds report, Black Atlantans face a wide range of barriers, including redlining policies and predatory lending practices that prevented generations of Black families from building wealth or trust in banks.

Toby Egbuna is an Atlanta business owner born in Nigeria. He says there are too many barriers for aspiring Black entrepreneurs to secure enough funding to start a successful business. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)

According to a recent study of Atlanta youth, there is a strong interest, particularly among Black youth in starting their own businesses.

Dana Weeks is the CEO of MedTrans Go, a company that transports people to their healthcare appointments.

“There are new ways and new opportunities that our world needs to know and we need to be thinking and listening to everybody,” Weeks said.

She says building the next generation of Black and brown innovators should be a key investment for Atlanta to flourish.

“We’re still, I think, underfunded, and we’re still looking and finding ways to show and support, you know, a system that in some senses wasn’t necessarily made with people who look like me,” Weeks said.

Note of clarification: A previous version of this story described Chezie as a platform that helps job seekers from underrepresented communities. Chezie is a software that helps companies build and operate employee resource groups.