High Street Equity

We’re thrilled to unveil our visual market map showcasing promising startups across Arkansas as we kick off our partnership with AVDF SSBCI Capital Program.

If you’re an Arkansas-based tech company that’s secured funding in the past year or gearing up for a raise, we want to hear from you! This is a fantastic opportunity to gain visibility and connect not only with us, but with VCs statewide.

Shoutout to Sarah Goforth and the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation for laying the groundwork with the Arkansas Capital Scan.

We’re diving deeper into the data to spotlight the founders and companies driving the narrative.

Tag an Arkansas-based founder or company making waves! 🚀

🗣️Calling all founders in Arkansas

Explore the diverse VC landscape with High Street Equity Partner’s comprehensive map.

From pre-seed to Series A funding, venture studios to entrepreneur support, we’ve mapped out the resources you need to thrive in the world of startups.

Let’s build, grow, and succeed by taking the High Street together! Are there any we should add? Let us know in the comments below — and please share within your network!

High Street Equity Partners is proud to invest in Bastazo, led by CEO Mauricio Iglesias.

This Arkansas-based cybersecurity firm is making major waves in the $223B global market, protecting utilities and energy companies with cutting-edge tech. Bastazo’s innovative solutions ensure real-time security and compliance, helping clients avoid cyber threats.

This investment supports our mission to back promising tech in emerging hubs, driving progress in Clean Tech and the Future of Work. Stay tuned for more updates and join us in supporting groundbreaking innovation!

Learn more about us at hsep.vc

Sober Sidekick, the Health Tech game-changer shaking up addiction recovery, is the latest to receive an investment from our firm.

Founded by Chris Thompson, Sober Sidekick uses a super smart “Empathy Algorithm” to give personalized support and has already grown to 500K+ members with a 68% drop in relapse rates!

Chris has experienced his own recovery journey, which makes this mission all the more personal and powerful.

We are thrilled to invest in Sober Sidekick alongside Nina Capital, 46 VC, and others. Sober Sidekick is on track to make a meaningful impact on consumer health and addiction recovery!

At High Street, we believe that some of the most transformative technology disruptions are born from diverse minds and untapped regions.

Check out our impact at hsep.vc or email us at [email protected]

Raise your glasses and let’s celebrate ! 🎶🙌🏽

As we celebrate Black musicians making waves in the industry, let’s also shine a spotlight on Black voices making their mark in VC. 🚀💰

Check out our curated playlist featuring some of our favorite songs from the talented individuals shaping the future of investing.

Link in bio!

Kameale Terry and Evette Ellis launched ChargerHelp to ensure the emerging space of Clean Tech included Black and Brown communities.

Based in the vibrant city of Los Angeles, CA, ChargerHelp has become a trailblazer in the electric vehicle industry, offering a cutting-edge dispatch and deployment system for on-demand repairs and maintenance support of EV charging stations.

ChargerHelp is an exceptional portfolio company.

At HSEP, we are passionate about investing in companies that are driving innovation and shaping the future. As we join them as partners, we look forward to supporting ChargerHelp's growth and expansion and empowering them to reach new heights.

Together, we will pave the way for a greener, more sustainable future, one electric vehicle charging station at a time.

We are proud to be an investment partner in Campus Ink, a dynamic consumer internet company based in Urbana, IL.

Led by founder Steve Farag, Campus Ink empowers college athletes to create and sell branded NIL merch online and through their social media accounts.
With over a dozen partner schools in the 2023
Men's and Women's NCAA March Madness tournament, including NCAA champions UConn and LSU, Campus Ink is making waves in the collegiate sports community.

Their platform not only promotes college athletics but also allows fans to support their favorite teams while benefiting the student-athletes directly.

Together, we will celebrate the spirit of college athletics and provide fans with a meaningful way to connect with their favorite teams.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates! «

We are proud to be an investment partner in Happied, a remarkable Future of Work company based in Washington, DC.

Led by founders April Johnson and Sharon Cao, Happied focuses on employee wellness and retention programming through their innovative SaaS model.
Joining forces with co-investors True Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Heart Labs, Virginia Venture Partners, and TechStars, we are committed to supporting Happied's mission of enhancing employee well-being and creating positive work cultures.

Together, we will redefine the workplace by prioritizing employee wellness and driving retention.

Stay tuned for the incredible journey ahead with Happied! 💼💚

IA Interviews: High Street Equity Partners David Sanders, Director of Innovate Arkansas (IA) at Winrock, interviews Mitch Brooks and Tristan Wilkerson, general partners at High Street Equity Partners....

Building Generational Family Wealth for the next generation requires us to educate ourselves first.

How can you close the equity gap? How can you secure a stable financial status for your children?

Mitch Brooks, General Partner at High Street Equity, discusses steps and strategies to help change your financial trajectory for the future of your family.

🎧 Listen here!
https://player.captivate.fm/episode/7e8cf457-c92c-4fc2-bfda-5d81e82d8e74

High Street Equity added a button to help you learn more about them.

Joanna Smith has raised over $12m in capital for edtech chatbot , after starting with $5,000 in savings. Smith participated in the Innovation Lab, and still recognizes access to investors and startup capital is inequitable depending on a person’s circumstances. As a Black female founder with no cofounders, Smith faced an extremely steep uphill battle to raise money, but she did it.

Janice Omadeke moved to Austin, TX from Washington, D.C., a few years ago and launched The Mentor Method in 2017. This business is at the forefront of diversity in tech and uses a proprietary algorithm to match corporate mentors and mentees. Omadeke’s $1.4m seed round was led by several high-profile investors, including Backstage Capital, founded by .

Sheila Lirio Marcelo founded Care.com in 2006 after her personal challenges as a young working mother finding care for two small children and ailing parents. Today, the company is the world's largest online destination for finding and managing family care, serving more than 30.8 million members in over 20 countries. continues to drive innovation, and drive systemic change across the care economy as a whole.

Katrina Lake, the founder and former CEO of , is one of America’s richest female entrepreneurs. Lake founded Stitch Fix in 2011 while a MBA student. The online styling service adds a personal touch to e-commerce by having employees pick out clothing and accessories for customers who subscribe to the service or sign up for a “Fix.” At the time when Stitch Fix debuted on the stock market in 2017, Lake was the youngest woman to take a company public.

We're celebrating Women’s History Month on High Street. According to , there are only about 20 companies trading on that had a woman founder lead them to an IPO, and four of them happened in 2020. We'll share profiles of women entrepreneurs who took their companies from private to IPO, and we will shine a light on “living history makers,” women who have raised at least $1M in venture funding. Less than 3% of US venture dollars went to women founders, and we hope our exposure can change that this month and every month. Happy Women’s History Month from High Street.

In this remarkable memoir, shares the extraordinary story of how she went from bankruptcy to successful entrepreneur—grossing more than two million a year while working from her very own Brooklyn home. Intoxicated by fragrance and scent even as a child, Lisa was famous among her friends for always smelling good. She never imagined that the oils she enjoyed mixing up for her own pleasure would give way to the hugely popular “Carol's Daughter,” a luxurious, all-natural line of bath and beauty products. In “Success Never Smelled So Sweet'', Lisa Price charts her amazing journey in lively, down-to-earth stories about her childhood growing up in Brooklyn and the often unexpected “accidents” in the kitchen that led to her bestselling scents. From the early cultivation of her sensory gift through cooking with her Trinidadian grandmother to her painful years in a rigid school system where she was berated by teachers and bullied by kids, Lisa speaks tenderly and wisely about the subtle ways in which life can guide us to our inner truth—even as it throws out difficult obstacles along the way.

The story of is ultimately the story of American business, in black style. From constant battles with a racist advertising community to hostile takeover attempts, warring partners packing heat, mass firings, and mass defections—all of which revealed inherent challenges in running a black business—the saga is as riveting as any thriller steeped in high drama, hijinks, and juicy dishing. In this engaging business memoir, Ed Lewis tells the inspiring story of how his own rise from humble South Bronx beginnings to media titan was shaped by the black women and men in his life. This in turn helped shape a magazine that has changed the face of American media. By the time Lewis did the deal with Time, starting in 1970 with a national circulation of 50,000, growing it into a powerhouse with a circulation of more than a million and a pass along readership of eight-point-five million.

A.G. Gaston was born at a time when the bitter legacy of slavery and Reconstruction still poisoned the lives of black Americans. He was determined to make a difference for himself and his people. Gaston served in the celebrated all-Black regiment during World War I, and was bound to the near-slavery of an Alabama coal mine for his first job. Even still, Gaston saw not only hope but opportunity. He launched a business selling lunches to fellow miners, and soon established a rudimentary bank. A kind of black Horatio Alger, Gaston let a single, powerful question be his guide: What do our people need now? His success flowed from an uncanny genius for knowing the answer. Combining rich family lore with a deep knowledge of American social and economic history, authors Carol Jenkins and Elizabeth Hines unfold Gaston’s success story against the backdrop of a century of crushing racial hatred and bigotry. Gaston not only survived the hardships of being Black during the Depression, he flourished, and by the 1950s he was ruling a Birmingham-based business empire. Gaston provided critical financial support to many activists through to the early 60s.

Early in the twentieth century, the black community in Tulsa’s "Greenwood District" became a nationally renowned entrepreneurial center. Frequently referred to as "The Black Wall Street of America," the Greenwood District attracted pioneers from all over America who sought new opportunities and fresh challenges. Legal segregation forced blacks to do business among themselves, and the Greenwood district prospered when Black dollars circulated within the Black community. It was fear and jealousy that swelled in the greater Tulsa community. Allegedly, a Black man assaulted a white woman, and this triggered unprecedented civil unrest and was the worst riot in American history. The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 destroyed people, property, hopes, and dreams. Hundreds of people died or were injured. Property damage ran into the millions. The Greenwood District burned to the ground. But through courage, the Greenwood District pioneers rebuilt and were better than ever by 1942. Some 242 businesses called the Greenwood district home. Black Wall Street speaks to the triumph of the human spirit.

This is an astonishing untold history of America’s first black millionaires. They were former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century. This is a story from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring Twenties, these millionaires were self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison. While Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Michael Jordan, and Will Smith are among the estimated 35,000 black millionaires in the nation today, these famous celebrities were not the first blacks to reach the storied one percent. Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of smart, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success. Black Fortunes illuminates the birth of the black business titan and the emergence of the black marketplace in America as never before.

Every entrepreneur has their own roadmap to success, but being Black, brown, and even being a woman poses their own unique challenges. Fortunately, we can take cues from people who have already reached the top: the millionaires and billionaires who have played the entrepreneurial game and won. Many of these successful entrepreneurs and personalities have put their journeys into words, writing books full of personal experiences, lessons learned, success tips and tricks and more to help others climb that ladder. Successful entrepreneurs understand that the way to success is to be a lifelong learner. From staying abreast on latest trends to reading up on tried-and-true strategy, leaders win by seeking knowledge. For the rest of Black History Month, we have highlighted some of the best books for entrepreneurs of color that will help any business owner win.

Tope Awotona founded Calendly in 2013, and has primarily bootstrapped itself to profitability. After pouring every single penny of his own wallet and more into his startup idea, he quit a stable job in the sales department of cloud services company Dell EMC, emptied out his retirement, maxed out credit cards, and took out expensive small-business loans to found a company that had yet to post any revenue. He ended up finding a business in Kiev to help him build out the tech behind his scheduling software, and in 2020, he raised $550,000 from investors such as Atlanta Ventures. In total, since its founding since 2013, Awotona says some of Calendly’ s would-be suitors have casually valued the company “well north” of $1 billion. Awotona was by no means the first person to come up with the idea of scheduling software, however, Calendly took off because it was designed like a consumer product.

Black Unicorn Factory ("BUF") is a development company founded by John Stewart in 2020. Based in Los Angeles, is an African American tech startup accelerator, and embodies the tagline, "From startups to the stock market," as it prepares small business startups to go to the New York or Nasdaq Stock Exchanges through its Pre IPO-Startup Accelerator program. Using a new IPO law called the J.O.B.S. Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act), which was passed in 2012 by then-President Obama, Black Unicorn Factory BUF has helped over 65 startups gear up for the stock market jump. BUF has raised over $420 Million in its last round of funding led by BarterVentures and 68 other companies, raising their valuation to $6.1 Billion. All the companies they've worked with are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are all on a clear path to go public within a year of graduating from the program. These companies also have great credit with Dun and Bradstreet, hold a valuation of over $50 million, and bring in revenue of over $7.5 million.

In Feb 2021, Rihanna’s lingerie product Savage X Fenty achieved unicorn status just three years after launch. The remarkable success followed a Series B financing round guided by investment company L Catterton, which made the organization raise $115 million mostly for retail & athleisure widening. Savage x Fenty has raised $185 million to date. Return investors include Jay-Z's Marcy Venture Partners, Avenir Growth Capital, TriplePoint Ventures, along with new investors including Sunley House Capital, and part of Advent International. The organization’s commitment to a standard of beauty, dedication to diversity and inclusivity, and great marketing all point to a prosperous future for Savage X Fenty. The lingerie brand posted revenue growth of more than 200% last year and increased its active VIP member base by more than 150%. Fashion, culture, and private equity have collided with ’s successful Savage x Fenty hitting this major milestone, sitting at a $1 billion valuation.

Born and raised in Nigeria, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola has firsthand experience with its financial infrastructure, as well as neighboring nations. A successful entrepreneur who founded two previous companies, GB is also a software engineer with an MBA and a Master’s degree in Information Technology Security and Behavioral Engineering. Earlier in his career, he worked on fintech solutions at several tech companies and financial institutions such as and Standard Bank. Just five years after its founding, ’s impact on Africa’s fragmented financial and technological ecosystem is becoming clear: The company is now Africa’s largest payment platform by coverage. GB imagined that one day the payment infrastructure that he and his team built in Lagos, Nigeria, could make a significant positive impact on the economies and people of Africa by making it easy for its under-banked population to trade with people and companies nearby and across international borders. Flutterwave joins only three African startups to have reached the elusive $1bn valuation, connecting Africa to the digital economy and providing access to new prosperity.

Esusu co-founder and co-CEO Nigerian-born American Wemimo and grew up in immigrant homes and experienced financial exclusion firsthand. He started this New York based company in 2018 to build the credit scores for marginalized groups and “leverage data to bridge the racial wealth gap” via rental payments. captures on-time rental payment data of renters who opt-in to its platform and reports to the three major credit bureaus– , and –to strengthen their credit scores. This way, renters can work their way to better credit scores over time while Esusu helps property owners mitigate against initiating evictions. The investment from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 gives four-year-old Esusu a valuation of $1 billion, placing it as one of the very few black-owned unicorns in the U.S. and globally.

Over the past decade, the rise of tech unicorns, or startups that reach $1 billion in valuation, has been astonishing. These trailblazing companies inspire more tech founders to bring their ideas to life while leaving investors eager at the thought of the next big deal. One thing that’s been clear is that the diversity among those who reach unicorn status or even make it into Big Tech at all remains concerningly disparate. Though a few are on the horizon for the first time ever in 2021, the percentage of tech unicorns led by Black founders is close to none. As reported in Harvard Business Review, 2.3 percent of venture capital goes to women, and just 0.34 percent goes to African American women. This means that the chances of founders in these groups making it to the unicorn stage are slim, though not impossible. It’s also critical that investment firms reassess how they evaluate deals, as well as the diversity of who is evaluating them. Doing so will only bring us a step closer to lessening the gap.

W. Don Cornwell was an undergraduate student at Occidental College in Los Angeles where he studied pre-law, being more interested in politics than business. He continued to earn his M.B.A. in 1971 and went to work on Wall Street with investment bank Goldman Sachs for the next 17 years. With the help of partner, Stuart Beck, and his father Martin Beck, chairman of Beck-Ross Communications, the two incorporated Broadcasting on February 8, 1988. For Cornwell, "granite" had significance because it was a black rock that served as a ready symbol for both himself and this company. Granite Broadcasting at the time was the largest television broadcast company controlled by an African American. The new venture raised initial funds of $45 million from investors that included Goldman Sachs, influential Washington attorney Vernon Jordan, and talk show host Oprah Winfrey. After acquiring the company’s first major market station, KNTV in San Jose, California, Cornwell’s Wall Street acumen helped list Granite on the Nasdaq , officially going public in 1992.