Top 30 Companies Founded by Black and Latine Entrepreneurs That Raised the Most Funding in 2021

Last year, we launched the 2020 Crunchbase Diversity Spotlight Report to gain insight into the state of funding for Black and Latine founders. The initial report was created to uncover just how wide the funding gap is for Black and Latine founders and the opportunities that lie ahead to close it.

In 2021, we’ve continued to highlight companies with diverse leadership and the investors who fund them by keeping an eye on the data and reporting on funding to underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. To continue measuring progress and raising visibility for companies founded by diverse entrepreneurs, we leveraged Crunchbase’s Diversity Spotlight data to curate this list of the top 30 Black- and Latine-founded companies that raised the most funding in 2021.

The founders included on this list represent a small fraction of the many who are paving the way to provide better access to opportunity for all aspiring entrepreneurs. The full list of 2021 funding rounds for U.S.-based Black- and Latine-founded companies can be found here. Please note the full list does not reflect the order in which we’ve listed the top 30 companies below as it is broken out by individual funding rounds. To create this top 30 list, we’ve combined the 2021 funding rounds to report on each company’s total raised in 2021.

Methodology

*This list was compiled leveraging Crunchbase’s Diversity Spotlight data. The companies featured below are listed in order based on the highest total funding raised in 2021. The data in this article is focused on U.S. companies founded by diverse entrepreneurs, namely Black/African American- and Hispanic/Latine-founded companies. 

The data in the article is based on announced funding to companies from Jan. 1, 2021, to Nov. 30, 2021. Funding includes seed, venture, corporate venture and private equity to venture-backed companies with founders associated. All additional funding rounds raised after Nov. 30, 2021, are not included in this article.

If you notice missing data, it may mean that a company does not have founders listed, they have asked not to be included in this list, or the Diversity Spotlight tags may not be updated on the company’s Crunchbase profile. To update this data, check out our quick video walkthrough on how you can add diversity data to your Crunchbase profile. For additional information, visit our Knowledge Center or reach out tospotlight@crunchbase.com.

1. Brex 

Total 2021 funding: $725 million
Founders: Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi
Diversity Spotlight tags: Hispanic or Latine Founded, Hispanic or Latine Led

Somatus is a Virginia-based healthcare company that partners with health plans, health systems, and primary care groups for patients with kidney disease. The company raised a $60.1 million Series D in June.

How you can contribute to Diversity Spotlight

We have a long way to go to close the funding gap for diverse founders. To continue building Crunchbase’s Diversity Spotlight feature and its impact, we encourage U.S. investors and startup leaders to get verified and add their diversity data to Crunchbase.

Here’s a quick walkthrough demonstrating how you can add diversity data to your Crunchbase profile, and how to search for companies using Diversity Spotlight:

In addition, we encourage you to continue tracking and reporting on progress with us. We’ve created several Crunchbase lists that are enriched with insights on companies and investment firms with diverse founders:

• Black/African American Founded Unicorn Companies 
• Black/Latine Founded Investor Firms
• U.S. Black and Latine Founded Companies with Last Funding at Series A/B 
• Black and/or Latine Founded Companies in the U.S. with >$1M in Funding

If you have an idea about how to improve Diversity Spotlight, please let us know by sending an email to spotlight@crunchbase.com. We take this feedback seriously and each suggestion for improvement helps inform our plans as we continue developing this feature.