PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – MARCH 26: Actor/rapper Will Smith is seen throughout the Will Smith Approach road renaming ceremony on March 26, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photograph by Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Photographs)
Welcome to Black Wealth Watch, the place we spherical up the largest tales in Black enterprise and financial information every week – the wins, the setbacks, the offers being made, and the conversations we must be having about cash, energy, and who truly will get a seat on the desk.
This week we have now an ungainly black woman returning to her digital roots, a black-led enterprise fund closing an oversubscribed funding spherical with hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in institutional backing, Kevin Durant shopping for again land at his PG County house, a Philly legend (or ought to we are saying, a brand new prince?) investing within the metropolis’s first-ever WNBA franchise, and a former leisure govt betting on girls as customers. Is that this factor on?
Issa Rae takes Hooray to TikTok
The true OGs understand it first Precariousand the Hollywood fame that accompanied it, Issa Rae printed episodes of The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Lady on YouTube. She at all times needed to talk on to the viewers, and this week she redoubled her efforts. Hoorae Media introduced a partnership with TikTok to develop authentic micro-series for the platform, launching later this month with Display screen timea brief thriller a few doubles night time that goes very mistaken, in a short time. Different sequence are already in growth in a number of genres. “I need individuals to really feel like Hoorae is a part of their every day routine,” Rae mentioned throughout TheWrap’s Creators x Hollywood Summit.
Collide Capital Closes $95 Million Fund II
5 years in the past, Brian Hollins and Aaron Samuels launched Collide Capital with $1.3 million betting that institutional capital was overlooking a few of the strongest founders available in the market. This week, they closed a second oversubscribed $95 million fund with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and the College of California Endowment on their cap desk. The agency now manages greater than $170 million in fintech, provide chain and future of labor startups, with 75 portfolio firms and 5 exits below its belt. For an rising black-led fund to be oversubscribed on this market is not any small feat. Bravo to those brothers.
Kevin Durant buys the previous Six Flags website from his house
Kevin Durant grew up in Seat Nice, Prince George’s County, Maryland, and this week he purchased it, or a minimum of a large a part of it. His funding agency 35V, co-founded with agent Wealthy Kleiman, partnered with Atlanta-based actual property agency TPA Group to accumulate the previous Six Flags America property in Bowie, a 515-acre website that closed in November 2025. Prince George’s County Government Aisha Braveboy introduced the deal and indicated she expects a sports activities part to no matter is constructed there, however no formal growth plans has not but been printed.
Will Smith invests in Philadelphia’s first WNBA crew
The Contemporary Prince invests in the way forward for his metropolis. Philadelphia has by no means had a WNBA crew, however all that may change in 2030, and Will Smith could have a small a part of it.
The WNBA and NBA boards of governors this week formally authorised the town’s enlargement franchise alongside new groups in Cleveland and Detroit, with Harris Blitzer Sports activities & Leisure (the 76ers’ possession group) set to handle the Philadelphia crew. Smith owns a minority stake within the franchise, accompanied by a $250 million enlargement charge. For a metropolis that produced Allen Iverson, Daybreak Staley, and Wilt Chamberlain, it took means too lengthy to get right here, nevertheless it’s lastly right here now!
Thai Randolph launches NILE & Co. and acquires As/Is and Goodful from BuzzFeed
After main one of many largest capital raises in Hartbeat historical past, Thai Randolph is lastly constructing for herself. NILE & Co. (Narrative, Affect, Legacy, Enterprise) is a branding and mental property platform centered on creators, athletes and girls, who already affect most spending on this nation. The corporate is launching with the acquisition of two BuzzFeed manufacturers, As/Is and Goodful, for $500,000, in addition to a business partnership with Cocoa Butter, Pero Like and A*Pop, bringing the portfolio’s complete attain to greater than 50 million individuals. As/Is and Goodful are relaunched this summer time, utterly reinvented. “Ladies are in cost now,” Randolph mentioned. “They management nearly all of buying choices, are on the heart of the biggest switch of wealth in trendy historical past, and are reshaping the way in which capital, tradition, and commerce transfer. Naturally, our first funding is in it.”