The Tsais' BK-XL Accelerator Put $4M+ Into 17 BIPOC-Led Start-Ups. Was This "Wealth Creation in Brooklyn"?
The borough seemed mostly a way station. A few companies have prospered. After two rounds, the Social Justice Fund has new priorities.
This is part of a series on the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund, established in 2020 by the billionaire couple who own most of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which includes the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and the Barclays Center operating company.1
Perhaps the highest-profile project launched by the Social Justice Fund is BK-XL, described in 2022 as “an early-stage startup accelerator program focused on BIPOC founders and based in Brooklyn,” offering $125,000—plus, potentially, $375,000 more—in financing, plus office space and mentorship/support.
It’s the only Social Justice Fund program with its own website.
(BIPOC translates as “Black Indigenous People of Color,” a term of relatively recent vintage. BK-XL later said it focuses on “underrepresented founders,” part of a general retreat from race-specific language.)
The announced $4 million investment, to validate and launch promising startups, constitutes the single largest component of the Impact Summary’s claimed $25 million “invested in Brooklyn.”
It’s surely more, given the cost of services—staff, rent, swag—for the ten-week programs, held at Camp David in Industry City, plus “Demo Days” at the Barclays Center.
For now, the main spending likely has had little local impact, as most companies treated Brooklyn as a way station. Beyond that, it’s hardly clear that an investment in, say, a far-off tech startup reflects “social justice” in Brooklyn unless, perhaps, the profits are someday redeployed.
BK-XL’s record, after a highly publicized first round and a lightly publicized second round of pre-seed funding, seems mixed. The first round involved 12 companies, while the second included only six, later reduced to five, even as requirements to stay in Brooklyn were relaxed.
In Round 1, half the companies, a reasonable number, got that $375,000 additional funding dangled by the Tsais, while only one in Round 2 so far has received it.
It’s not scalable
However, if the Tsais pledged in 2020 to “fund pilots and programs that are scalable,” BK-XL doesn’t seem to qualify, as the Impact Summary, excerpted below, states that it only operated from 2023-24.
“Regarding the future of BK-XL, based on our analysis of the business landscape in Brooklyn – especially businesses in underserved communities – we have determined that loans and grants have the most impact,” a SJF spokesman, from the public relations firm DKC, stated in response to my query.2
Is that a sign that BK-XL was a challenging program to run, given numerous applicants, a tenuous connection to Brooklyn, and with little visible short-term payoff? The SJF didn’t say so, but the evidence suggests that.
Short- and long-term perspective
Does that mean BK-XL didn’t work? That’s perhaps too soon to tell, since if a single company achieves a high valuation, that could deliver a dramatic return for early investors like the Tsais, perhaps allowing them to endow the Social Justice Fund.
At least two companies, thanks to new investment, are on a growth trajectory, and others may be as well.
“BK-XL takes meaningful equity ownership in each company,” the website states, “thereby benefiting from the success of our founders to reinvest into more underrepresented founders, creating a flywheel that benefits the community.”
That flywheel hasn’t started yet.
“Any exit profits from BK-XL are returned to SJF,” I was told. “Given the program was designed for pre-seed investments, it is too early to collect exit profits or assess the long-term success and viability of each portfolio company.”
A heralded launch
The BK-XL launch was heralded by a widely circulated Nov. 7, 2022, Associated Press (AP) article, “Brooklyn Nets owners start program for minority-led startups,” which relied on an interview with Wu Tsai, co-founder of the Social Justice Fund.
The photo used by the AP, showing Clara Wu Tsai strategically posing outside the Barclays Center, was provided by the public relations firm DKC News. Its trademark is DKC: Maximizing Return on News™.
The Tsais seek to support “economic mobility for entrepreneurs and businesses in Brooklyn,” Wu Tsai told investment manager and podcaster Karen Finerman on May 31, 2024, first citing the EXCELerate loan program.
“To really affect long-term economic mobility, we also had to look at a different part of the ecosystem,” Wu Tsai said, which meant backing entrepreneurs. Hence, BK-XL, “a tech accelerator that provides seed capital at levels comparable to Y Combinator,” she said, referring to a famed accelerator that guarantees $500,000, in two similar tranches.
In BK-XL, each firm receives a $125,000 investment in exchange for 7% equity in a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity), a common funding tool: the investment converts into equity after a company raises additional funding.
In the first round, that initial investment was split between the Tsais and Visible Hands, a Boston-based venture capital fund that supports underrepresented founders.
(Note: Some sources suggest that Y Combinator (YC) supplies a combination of pre-seed and seed capital, while BK-XL’s FAQ below, despite Wu Tsai’s reference to “seed capital” in the interview, states that it’s pre-seed funding, a “foundational investment round.”)
“I think the best proof of our belief in Brooklyn and Black businesses is by investing in them and showing the world that these are good investments,” Wu Tsai told the AP, adding, in the article’s paraphrase, that profits would be reinvested into Brooklyn businesses.
That likely reflects BK-XL’s “flywheel” goal. Then again, profits for investors, as investing guru Andy Weissman said at BK-XL’s June 12, 2023, Demo Day, could take a decade to emerge.
Announcement hype: scope
The hype—regarding the project’s scope, its impact on Brooklyn, and even its professed focus—earned the Tsais generous publicity.
The initial press release, Clara Wu Tsai, The Social Justice Fund and Visible Hands Launch BK-XL, the Largest Accelerator Focus on BIPOC Founders, fueled the AP article, which called it “the largest business accelerator for minority founders of early-stage startups.”
Largest? The AP ignored a sentence in the press release stating the measurement was “potential investment size per company.”
Indeed, other accelerators have committed more funds overall and across more firms. Also, other programs offer less onerous terms. Google offered 126 founders a total of $10 million in non-dilutive funding through its U.S. Black Founders Fund, so the founders didn’t have to give up ownership.
That said, a stake from investors like the Tsais, coupled with mentorship, might do more to charge growth.
“Impact investing”?
While a New York Times article about BK-XL called Wu Tsai “a philanthropist,” the program seems less philanthropic than impact investing, aiming to spur “positive, measurable social and/or environmental impact alongside a financial return.”
So far, that impact accrues significantly to the entrepreneurs themselves, by virtue of their identity, sending the message that BIPOC founders deserve support in a venture capital world that often ignores them.
“I’ve had to really prove myself, prove my metrics before being even considered for investment, whereas my white male founder counterparts often just get investments based on belief,” Tai Adaya, founder of the skin care company Habit, told News12 after the first Demo Day.
Among those funded, a relative handful—an “Airbnb for churches,” a kidney dialysis device, a personal safety smart ring, and an educational STEM kit maker—seem to combine business and social responsibility.
Many others, perhaps unsurprisingly, cluster around business efficiency: as a tool for solo entrepreneurs, a cloud collaboration platform for audio files, a B2B retail booking platform, and a calendar automation tool that syncs with email.
Then again, business efficiency reflects the mission of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba (“to make it easy to do business anywhere”), which ultimately funds the Tsais’ “philanthropic investments.”
Initially, BK-XL offered a “preference for businesses that are in fields where the Tsais have experience – including e-commerce… and sports media,” according to the AP. For the second round, in 2024, they professed to be “industry-agnostic.”
Follow-on funding?
Asked in 2022 by Forbes about the pilot’s markers of success, Wu Tsai said, “Follow-on funding. There will be a chance for them to pitch to other venture capital firms.”
At least half of the participants in most major accelerators secure follow-on funding within three years, suggests this article. BK-XL may be part of the way there.
Half of the first-round companies received the full $500,000 in pre-seed funding. The claimed $5 million in follow-on funding would average less than $300,000 across 17 companies, but, if concentrated among six companies, would average $833,333.
That would be a sign of progress, if not sterling success. As of 2016, according to this article, “Exclusive of capital contributed by the accelerator, companies must have raised an aggregate of at least $750,000 post-accelerator to be considered as having raised a follow-on.”
Competition for spots
Another metric might be the interest of startups in BK-XL. In 2023, 2,000 applicants were said to have vied for 12 slots, according to an April 4, 2023, press release headlined BK-XL, The largest BIPOC Accelerator, Announces Its Inaugural Cohort of Startup Founders.
In the second round, while the announcement said “up to twelve startups” could be selected, only six were named, and one later left the program, for reasons not explained.
In response to my query, I was told, “We had over 600 applicants for the second cohort. We intentionally raised the bar for the second cohort. While we had the ability to accept up to 12 companies, we made 8 offers and two of those companies decided not to participate.”
It’s plausible that a second round might refine the process. That round promised the founders mentorship and support from investors and operators at Blue Pool Capital, BSE Global, and the Brooklyn Nets, which are all Tsai ventures, plus Udy Road Holdings, which has no public profile but is led by a longtime lieutenant to Joe Tsai.
They also could work with Advisory Council members: Infinity Ventures, focused on B2B fintech and commerce; WndrCo, a technology-focused investment firm; Benchstrength, focused on “technology companies that transform business and uplift communities; Harlem Capital, focused on founders who are people of color and women; and Udy Road Holdings. Though no longer putting up half the initial stake, Visible Hands was part of the Advisory Council.
What’s “in Brooklyn”?
BK-XL’s 2024 press release cited the 2023 record of “twelve startups across FinTech [financial technology], Commerce, SaaS [Software as a Service], and other diverse industries in Brooklyn.”
The SJF, as Executive Director Gregg Bishop described it in a July 19, 2023, panel discussion, was “looking at how do we bring more tech companies to Brooklyn.”
The purported Brooklyn focus misled some journalists. The AP reported that Wu Tsai “hopes to spotlight untapped business talent in Brooklyn.” The New York Times claimed BX-XL would fund “entrepreneurs in Brooklyn from diverse backgrounds.”
Wu Tsai’s essay in the 2024 book, The Power of Basketball: NBA Players, Coaches, and Team Governors on the Fight to Make a Better America, described BK-XL as targeting “underrepresented founders… with the potential to launch successful new businesses in Brooklyn.”
When the inaugural cohort was announced, Daniel Acheampong, co-founder of investing partner Visible Hands, said, “We are excited… to help guide these founders on their path to growth and generational wealth creation in Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn as a way station
That, it seems, was a stretch. While those in the initial cohort gaining the additional $375,000 investment had to meet certain growth benchmarks and maintain operations in Brooklyn for at least one year, the borough seemed mostly a way station.
The recruitment efforts treaded lightly on Brooklyn. “any black founders interested in a $500,000 check that requires moving to ny for a bit?” posted Timi Dayo-Kayode in January 2023 on X. (By February 2024, he would be named co-leader of the program.)
Acheampong quoted Dayo-Kayode’s post, adding, “We’re investing up to $500K in 12 companies led by BIPOC Founders and they get to experience Brooklyn.”
Asked, in the deleted tweet, “How long would you have to be in NY?” Dayo-Kayode responded, “10-12 weeks.” (For the first cohort, that was apparently an understatement, at least for those seeking $500,000.)
Visible Hands’ General Partner Yasmin Cruz Ferrine, introducing Wu Tsai at BK-XL’s first Demo Day, June 12, 2023, said, “Clara is working on making Brooklyn home to brilliant new companies and technologies.”
In the first round, those gaining full funding had to commit to one year in Brooklyn, as shown in the screenshot below. For the second round, that requirement was dropped.
While my query about that change didn’t get an answer, it’s not unreasonable that growing companies might cluster in locations that serve them best.
Growing the ecosystem?
“One of the things we ask for when they do receive a second tranche of funding, if they do, is that they move to Brooklyn,” Wu Tsai said in the May 31, 2024, interview with Finerman. “The goal… is hopefully they’re going to hire people who live in Brooklyn, and it will just help… grow our overall ecosystem of businesses in Brooklyn.”
Perhaps recognizing the cost of a tight geographical focus, BK-XL’s About page was amended to say it supports “businesses that will benefit Brooklyn, New York City, America, and the world.” (That passage was absent from the initial version.)
I asked how many jobs have been created in Brooklyn, but didn’t get an answer. After all, these are fledgling companies.
Which companies moved to Brooklyn? “From the first cohort, Crafted, SWYE360, and Tuma had all started outside Brooklyn and maintained operations in Brooklyn after the cohort ended,” I was told. “From the second cohort, Ambessa Play did as well. So between the two cohorts, four companies moved to Brooklyn.”
I’m not sure that “maintain[ing] operations” means a full, and permanent, move, as the footnoted citations suggest.3
How much did they invest?
In the first round, half of the initial $125,000 investment came from the SJF/Tsais, and the other half from Visible Hands. Then half the group, or six companies, got follow-on funding of $375,000 from BK-XL.
That means the SJF put $3 million into the first round. In the second round, the SJF invested $125,000 in each of the five companies, for a total of $625,000. That suggests a total investment of $3,625,000, not $4 million.
Though my initial question about follow-on funding for the second round didn’t get an answer, I pointed to the claimed $4 million total. I was then told that the one-second-round company got $375,000.
Does such reticence mean they’re not happy with the second round? Or are they waiting longer to assess the companies’ prospects? Unclear. However, if they “intentionally raised the bar,” presumably they had contemplated a higher, not a lower, percentage for follow-on funding.
BIPOC, and Black
“This could be the next Black-owned Google or Calendly,” Wu Tsai told Forbes. “These businesses create incredible jobs. A lot of BIPOC founders will hire BIPOC people.”
Though Wu Tsai told the AP, “We want to show that investing in Black businesses makes money,” and the Social Justice Fund says it’s “centering economic mobility and racial justice for BIPOC populations in Brooklyn,” both claims deserve scrutiny.
Black founders did not represent a large majority, as far as I can tell, and some of them began their success an ocean away.
The initial announcement, as shown below, claimed the program was “Brooklyn-born” and focused on “BIPOC founders.”
By 2024, it stressed that “Building is better in Brooklyn,” which hinted at the way station aspect, and said it was “focused on supporting underrepresented founders,” without using the term “BIPOC.”
While the 2023 FAQ said “BK-XL is open to founders of early-stage startups whose racial identities are under-represented, e.g., Black, Indigenous or people of color (‘BIPOC’),” the updated FAQ says the program supports “underrepresented founders” but “is open to founders of all backgrounds.”
“Less than five percent of venture capital goes to founders of color, or all-female founding teams,” the SJF spokesman told me. “We started BK-XL to address this.”
That adjusts the original rationale, which was focused on race, and seemingly reflects the unusual number of female founders in the first round, as described below.
BK-XL 2023 recap reel, from the Social Justice Fund
Family office?
As I’ve written, the Social Justice Fund seems to be the philanthropic platform for the Tsais’ businesses, without necessarily much distance from them.
An April 5, 2024, post on LinkedIn from Harvard Business School Professor Archie Jones cited a “great discussion” with Wu Tsai and Bishop, covering the EXCELerate loan program and BK-XL. “Clara, Gregg, and Rich we appreciate you allowing us to learn alongside you,” he wrote. (That was, I believe, a reference to Udy Road’s Tao. I queried him, but didn’t hear back.)
If so, it’s another sign that the Social Justice Fund is a platform for the Tsais family office. (Besides Dayo-Kayode, who on LinkedIn said he was an investor for the Brooklyn Nets, the other co-lead of BK-XL for the second round, Chris Martinez, was a former executive at Blue Pool, the Tsais’ family office.)
What entity actually invested in the startups: The Social Justice Fund? The Tsai Foundation? I didn’t get an answer, but I was reminded that the “Social Justice Fund is a project of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, not a separate entity.”
OK, but the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation doesn’t report any grantmaking. It may be that the Tsais use Blue Pool, their family office—not their unfunded family foundation—for funding.4
Success story #1
I asked the SJF for success stories. Among the 17 firms, “ChurchSpace raised $1.2 million and announced a public-private partnership with the City of Detroit,” I was told.
ChurchSpace, dubbed “Airbnb for churches,” helps them monetize underutilized meeting spaces and commercial kitchens. It was founded in Houston by Day Edwards and Emmanuel Brown, two self-described PKs, or “preacher’s kids.”
The team’s compelling idea already had momentum before entering BK-XL. In June 2022, ChurchSpace was named to the inaugural cohort of the AWS Impact Accelerator for Black Founders, receiving a $125,000 equity-free grant from Amazon, along with additional assistance worth up to $100,000.
In September 2022, ChurchSpace was awarded $100,000, also equity-free, from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. In April 2023, it joined the first BK-XL cohort, gaining not a grant but an investment.
ChurchSpace raised $500,000 from BK-XL. In a July 6, 2023, article in The Guardian, This duo is finding new uses – and extra income – for houses of worship, ChurchSpace founders were said—less than a month after Demo Day in Brooklyn—to have decided to focus on churches around Dallas and Houston.5
Then they pivoted. Last May, the firm announced, “ChurchSpace Raises $1.2M, Moves HQ to Detroit, and Partners with City to Transform Churches into Economic Engines,” including micro-logistics and last-mile delivery centers. A Mayoral announcement noted, “ChurchSpace, which was founded in Texas, will relocate its national headquarters to Downtown Detroit.”
How important was BK-XL? It was surely worthwhile—the accelerator aimed to boost skills, connections, and credibility. The press release last year, though, didn’t even mention BK-XL. (ChurchSpace didn’t respond to my query.)
Success story #2
The other example: Highnote, self-described as an audio workflow platform that centralizes conversations, feedback, and assets, “successfully raised $2.5 million from Dropbox Ventures and other investors in 2024 and launched an integration with Dropbox,” according to the SJF spokesman.
Then again, Highnote had raised $1.7 million before even joining BK-XL, according to Crunchbase. So it had a head start on other companies that were truly “pre-seed.”
Dropbox tells users: “Create playlists, electronic press kits (EPKs), and interactive beat packs in one click. Highnote and Dropbox have teamed up to give you an all-in-one solution for storing, sharing, and discussing your audio projects.”
Success questions
“Three other businesses have now achieved six-figure revenue,” the SJF spokesman told me. That indeed validates those companies’ products, but doesn’t yet point to business growth. According to this expert, after three years, startups on a growth path should generate $2 million in revenue.
“There are several other unannounced or yet-to-be-announced fundraises from other BK-XL portfolio companies,” the spokesman added. So stay tuned.
Was the goal of BK-XL to have a direct social justice impact? If so, ChurchSpace might qualify, if it can help stabilize church budgets, albeit not necessarily in Brooklyn. If the goal was to potentially fund future SJF initiatives, a digital business like Highnote might scale faster.
More social justice impact might come from a second-round company, Ambessa Play, launched in the UK, which “designs educational STEM kits that offer hands-on learning experiences.” Founder/CEO Sara Berkai is an Eritrean and British social enterprise founder and STEM educator.
Eliding Black and BIPOC?
“Only 2.4 percent of all U.S. venture capital raised from 2015 to 2020,” BK-XL stated in the initial press release, “ was allocated to companies with Black or Latinx founders,” citing Crunchbase.
In a Dec. 6, 2022, New York Times article, Why the Owners of the Nets Are Funding Tech Startups, Acheampong noted that “only 3 and a half percent of New York City businesses are owned by Black entrepreneurs.”
The Social Justice Fund has leaned into supporting Black founders, such as in the tweet below, celebrating Black inventor Lewis Latimer.
However, BIPOC doesn’t necessarily translate as Black, nor does it make a distinction—as some do, not uncontroversially—between those who trace their lineage to slavery6 or Black descendants of more recent immigrants, or even residents of other countries.
For example, Congo-born Elijah Lubala, co-founder of Tuma, a software-based tap-to-pay point-of-sale system for African merchants, built his Attila Group in South Africa before moving to New York and headquartering the firm in San Francisco.
Was he an “overlooked founder”? Maybe in the United States, but he was named one of Africa’s top entrepreneurs by Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017, as noted on his LinkedIn.
“With the backing of our investors, Joe & Clara Wu Tsai, Visa, and Visible Hands,” Lubala wrote on LinkedIn after the first BK-XL Demo Day, “we are propelled forward, more determined than ever, to transform the way people experience financial transactions worldwide.”
Asked by Forbes about BK-XL’s global reach, Wu Tsai responded:
The global cast is to spread awareness. We’d like as many people as possible to know about this as possible. It’s going to take time to build up the reputation of our accelerator. The key to this is pipeline, pipeline. I want to get the best businesses possible.
Well, they’ve apparently pivoted from that.
The Asian-American question
If Black or Hispanic founders raise the least capital, according to the original announcement, that implies that Asian-Americans--a broad category--might be over-represented.
So, did BK-XL, funded by an Asian/Asian-American couple, exclude Asian founders? Not quite.
The first round included no Asian-American men, who are over-represented in tech (but not venture capital), but five—by my count—Asian-American women, plus Sara Nesheim, who has a Vietnamese parent, and Tai Adaya, who describes herself as half-Mexican and half-Indian.”
They represent six of the twelve initial startups. Of the five firms in the second round, one is Afar, a Brooklyn-based savory bar business founded by Gene Zhu, an Asian-American man.
Using the Barclays Center
Leveraging its owners’ assets, BK-XL has used the Barclays Center for two “Demo Days,” during which entrepreneurs pitch their products to peers and potential investors.
The first Demo Day, as noted on LinkedIn, featured “a fireside chat with Clara Wu Tsai and special guest Andy Weissman from Union Square Ventures!”
As I’ve written, using the arena for Social Justice Fund events means that the Tsais pay themselves.
Sidebar: The 2023 inaugural cohort
The image below, from Visible Hands, introduces the inaugural cohort. The first row, left to right, includes (quoting the announcement text):
Tai Adaya: Habit, a skincare brand making next-generation sunscreen products
Emmanuel Brown, Day Edwards: Churchspace, an Airbnb-like booking platform for churches
Jordan Bradley, Paulina Vo, and Chris Muccioli: Highnote, a cloud collaboration platform for audio files
Sarah Lee, Tejasvi Desai, Anna Bailey: Relavo, a medical device for kidney failure patients to receive safer and more accessible home dialysis
Elijah Lubala: Tuma, software-based tap-to-pay point of sale for African merchants
Joy Fan: re/tell, a B2B retail booking platform
The bottom row, left to right, includes:
Amadeu Tolentino: Preneur, a mobile-first management tool for solopreneurs
Jacob Makuvire: SWYE 360 Learning, a machine learning tool to assess edtech ROI and outcomes
Todd Baldwin, Sarah Nesheim: Crafted, a user-generated content platform dedicated to food and beverage brands
Sergio Villasenor: Drooler, a web3 platform that enables merchants to sell & ship products worldwide with zero commissions
Jen Chiang: Opal, a smart ring that provides discreet safety and protection
Nash Ahmed: Undock, a calendar automation tool that syncs with email
Note that various co-founders were not mentioned.
Sidebar: 2024 companies overview
Ambessa Play
Ambessa Play “designs educational STEM kits that offer hands-on learning experiences.” Founder/CEO Sara Berkai is an Eritrean and British social enterprise founder and STEM educator. In December 2024, she was named to the BBC’s list of 100 Women.
Maraboo
Maraboo “connects UMOA [West African Economic and Monetary Union] globally with its platform, offering affordable, real-time international transfers.” Its LinkedIn says it’s based in Brooklyn, but Pitchbook says it’s based in Markham, Ontario.
Peepalytics AI
Peepalytics AI “identifies the exact signals around why talent leaves alongside an action plan for business leaders to retain their top talent.” According to Pitchbook, it’s based in New York.
Afar Foods
Afar Foods offers “a savory, crispy bar featuring globally-inspired flavors,” with just 3g sugar. Before BK-XL, in 2022, it raised early-stage venture capital through the accelerator program of Gold House Ventures, an AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) community for founders, according to founder Gene Zhu. It was founded and is based in Brooklyn, where it has a production facility.
NatML
NatML provides “a platform that enables developers to run AI and other compute-heavy algorithms on their users’ local devices.” Its product is now called Muna. According to Pitchbook, it’s based in New York.
Tailored Industry
In the original cohort was Tailored Industry, “an on-demand knitwear manufacturing company” based in Sunset Park.
After attending Demo Day, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce CEO Randy Peers on LinkedIn saluted “six innovative entrepreneurs” and offered a “special shout out to Brooklyn Chamber member Tailored Industry.” I couldn’t get information about why it’s no longer considered part of the cohort.
The hyperlink includes all articles tagged with the Social Justice Fund, including an initial one Feb. 4, 2026, headlined Has the Tsais’ Social Justice Fund Really Invested $25M “In Brooklyn” Since 2020? The series only includes those with the logo “Eye on Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation Social Justice Fund.”
I couldn’t find address information on Crafted’s website. Pitchbook says it’s based at 33 Irving Place in Manhattan, which has a co-working space. According to Crunchbase and LinkedIn, it is based in New York.
SWYE360 was founded in Dallas and, according to Crunchbase, remains there.
Tuma, which is part of the Attila Group (founded in South Africa, headquartered in San Francisco), is based in Nairobi.
Ambessa Play is located in Oxford, UK, according to Crunchbase, or London, according to LinkedIn, though founder Sara Berkai says she’s based in New York. Pitchbook and Tracxn say it’s based in Norfolk, England.
Harvard Business School, in the fall of 2020, developed a class called Scaling Minority Businesses, involving the three academics who wrote the first of the two cases titled Clara Wu Tsai and Brooklyn Loan Innovation. The class, said Jeffrey Bussgang, was established “to address the racial inequities in business that Black business owners face.”
It’s unclear to me whether they moved to Brooklyn for a year, as seems to be required. It’s hard to see how relocation would have fit their business model.