How to create inter-generational wealth among people of color and to do so in a way that’s accessible to a critical mass of people? That’s the question four friends who all met through business school connections started discussing in earnest after the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the spotlight on racial inequities it fostered.
Their answer: boost business ownership by people of color, but with a twist. Instead of helping founders start something from scratch, they decided they’d focus on entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA)—that is, buying an existing business. “It’s a much lower-risk path to entrepreneurship,” says Havell Rodrigues, cofounder and CEO of New Majority Capital, the Providence, RI, company they formed to boost ETA. “You have cash flow from day one.”