How Black Founders Are Shaping Memphis’ Financial Future

[ad_1] by Tierra Smith September 29, 2025

A brand new wave of Black founders in Memphis is constructing tech-backed options to strengthen minority communities.

Regardless of immense strain from each angle, a brand new wave of Black founders in Memphis is constructing tech-backed options to strengthen minority communities.

Their mission is to unravel day by day struggles that many Black households know too nicely — challenges compounded in Memphis by excessive charges of eviction, poverty, and unemployment.

“Many staff usually wrestle with cash for fuel, payments, or power,” mentioned Alfred Millian, the CEO of Specific Wages, a Memphis-based fintech platform that gives same-day paycheck entry. “Research present earned wage entry helps individuals handle cash higher.”

Almost 60% of U.S. staff live paycheck to paycheck in 2025. Millian mentioned biweekly pay is outdated. To modernize payroll, Millian launched Specific Wages in January 2023, providing a platform free to employers, with a small payment to staff.

He raised $1.2 million from household and pals, practically $4 million in a seed spherical, and now plans a $50 million Sequence A inside 9 months.

“We approached practically each Black PE and VC fund and initially couldn’t get traction,” Millian mentioned. “Lower than 1% of fintech startups obtain funding, so securing buyers was a problem. It’s a “hen or the egg” downside — you want capital to generate income.”

Discovering Capital In The Delta

Entry to capital stays a serious hurdle for Memphis entrepreneurs, with solely two main enterprise capital corporations within the metropolis in comparison with 12 in Nashville, 11 in Tulsa, and 6 in Birmingham.

Regardless of restricted VC funding, Memphis-based corporations have raised greater than $5 million within the first half of 2025. Many founders leveraged Epicenter, an innovation middle that helps founders launch venture-based corporations and join with assets.

“VCs need to see density—a gentle stream of startups—earlier than they commit,” mentioned Epicenter President and CEO Anthony Younger. “The expertise is already right here; what’s been lacking is capital and assist.”

Native leaders are ramping up startup progress by initiatives, just like the “Digital Delta,” an urban-rural technique linking Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi to assist agriculture, healthcare, and logistics ventures.

Epicenter gives accelerator packages, such because the ZeroTo510 Medical System, Capital Readiness, Buyer Readiness, and Patents2Products, a post-doc fellowship with the College of Memphis.

Anchored by Fortune 500 corporations FedEx, AutoZone, and Worldwide Paper and the house of St. Jude Kids’s Analysis Hospital, the native enterprise panorama favors sustainable mobility, medical units, and ag-tech.

“For those who’re constructing in logistics tech or superior manufacturing, there’s no higher place to be,” Mayor Paul Younger advised BLACK ENTERPRISE. “Income from contracts or pilots will be simply as worthwhile as VC funding—it validates the enterprise and raises valuations.”

In June, Mayor Younger dubbed Memphis an “Entrepreneurship Metropolis,” uniting native organizations, small-business packages, and enterprise homeowners by digital storytelling, visibility campaigns, and expanded entry to assets.

“Our purpose is to be a connector,” he mentioned. “We began Entrepreneur Metropolis, making certain entrepreneurs have the enterprise instruments and infrastructure to take their concepts to the subsequent degree.”

AI In Innovation

Past conventional startups, Memphis leaders are betting on rising applied sciences like AI to drive future financial progress.

In 2024, Elon Musk’s firm xAI opened one of many world’s largest supercomputer services in Boxtown, a traditionally Black neighborhood in South Memphis. The power trains the unreal intelligence GROK and operates utilizing dozens of fuel generators.

The $6-billion challenge has confronted scrutiny. The NAACP and environmental teams filed an attraction in July, whereas Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson, who represents Boxtown, criticized the power.

“It’s an precise fuel plant in the midst of a neighborhood and also you don’t want any allowing?” Pearson mentioned. “One thing has failed drastically and considerably with our system of checks and balances.”

He continued, “For those who take a look at the place these information facilities are propping up, it’s at all times in poor communities.”

xAI says it's in compliance with native legal guidelines and plans a second Memphis facility. Whereas a current College of Memphis examine discovered no important short- or long-term hurt from the turbine emissions.

“Information facilities are coming globally. The query is: what worth can they create to the neighborhood?” Mayor Paul Younger mentioned.

In response, Mayor Younger directed 25% of metropolis tax revenues from new services to adjoining neighborhoods totaling $3.2–$3.5 million yearly, to assist housing, parks, and public security.

Metropolis leaders emphasize that adapting to new applied sciences is important to closing the wealth hole.

“With AI and automation advancing so shortly, we are able to’t afford to be left behind,” mentioned Anthony Younger of Epicenter. “Logistics is core to Memphis, however many roles may very well be changed by robotics. We have to put together our workforce now. If we’re not getting ready Black and brown communities for the long run, we’re failing them.”

Ladies Main The Means

As Memphis embraces rising applied sciences, homegrown feminine innovators are driving breakthroughs in healthcare.

Erika Dillard of Popcheck Applied sciences is constructing an AI-enabled remote-patient-monitoring wearable to foretell surgical issues, whereas Erica Plybeah based MedHaul to offer inclusive transportation companies for marginalized sufferers.

“Individuals who beforehand couldn’t get to healthcare now have methods to hook up with vital assets,” mentioned Mayor Younger. “I consider these native innovators will form town’s future.”

Ladies are driving financial progress in Memphis. Over half of town’s entrepreneurs are girls, in response to EDGE, the Financial Improvement Progress Engine of Memphis and Shelby County. EDGE helps small companies with loans, help, and incentives, issuing about 120 forgivable loans totaling $2 million and producing $9 million in financial affect.

“We additionally lead the nation in women-owned companies, not by probability, however as a result of the ecosystem helps them,” mentioned EDGE CEO and President Joann Massey. “When girls are empowered, households and communities thrive. That’s why I’m so captivated with supporting girls entrepreneurs. Give us one thing to create, and we’ll delivery it into one thing larger.”

Massey, the primary Black and first girl to guide EDGE, credit her experiences as a lifelong Memphian for sharpening her community-rooted options.

“For me, financial growth is tied to civil rights. It’s about turning ache to resilience and resilience into alternative,” she mentioned.

Tech founder Kontji Anthony is tackling one other pressing problem: meals insecurity.

About 32% of Memphis residents in 2021 lived in meals deserts. Because the nation’s largest majority-Black metropolis at 67%, Memphis had the very best relative affect amongst main cities, in response to the Annie E. Casey Basis.

Kontji Anthony alongside together with her sisters, Johnita and Aurora, created Youdle, an app that connects unbiased grocers on to customers in actual time. Customers earn factors and rewards whereas boosting each retailer gross sales and loyalty. The beta model was launched in late 2022.

“By connecting native grocers — particularly Black-owned companies — to residents, we’re preserving {dollars} in the neighborhood whereas additionally enhancing entry to meals,” Kontji Anthony mentioned.

DRIVING INNOVATION IN MEMPHIS

Stuart Lott, CEO and president of Spine Applied sciences, sees huge progress potential with 40,000 microbusinesses in Memphis. If every added only one worker, he mentioned, the native job market may very well be reworked.

“Memphis is particular due to the authenticity, ardour, grit, and hustle of our individuals,” Lott mentioned. “We need to assist entrepreneurs take that power into enterprise with out monetary administration being a barrier. If we are able to get it tight in Memphis, we are able to replicate it in different cities.”

Drawing on his experiences in small enterprise banking and fintech, Lott noticed that Black candidates have been usually denied funding, not for a scarcity of creditworthiness however for lacking documentation.

After two years of analysis, he launched Spine Applied sciences, an easy-to-use monetary administration app designed for small companies. The platform streamlines bookkeeping, accounting, invoicing, fee processing, and cash-flow administration, all for beneath $50 a month.

“Most Black companies fail inside two to 5 years,” he mentioned. “Poor monetary administration is the foundation trigger– missed capital alternatives, pricey tax errors, and the lack to scale.”

He bootstrapped about $250,000, raised $500,000 by RevTech Labs in Charlotte, and secured a $65,000 grant from Epicenter. The corporate is now in beta testing.

Anthony Younger emphasised Epicenter’s function in scaling founders like Lott: “We’re not simply constructing corporations—we’re constructing options tied to tradition and lived expertise,” mentioned Younger. “Collectively, these gasoline innovation throughout the Delta.”