As a teenager, Curtiss Pope worked as a clerk at Food 4 Less in east San Jose, Calif., gathering up shopping carts and helping customers find grocery items. He got the job to help his single mother of nine pay the bills, but it also seeded the idea for a start-up he's launched while helping to buck a well-documented Silicon Valley trend.
Pope, an 29-year-old African-American, goes up against some tough stats as he seeks funding for his company, AisleFinder, which aims to help people find items in grocery stores.
According to a recent CB Insights report, which tracked founders of 165 companies that had received a first round of venture funding during the first half of 2010, just 1 percent were African-American, even though 11 percent of the U.S. population is black. That's compared with 87 percent of founders who were white (whites make up 77 percent of the U.S. population), and 12 percent of start-up founders who are Asian (Asians make up 4 percent of the population).
To read the full, original article click on this link: Minority entrepreneurs set up own Valley incubator | Business Tech - CNET News
Author:Boonsri Dickinson
