In June 2021, three distinguished Black media executives joined forces to launch Group Black, a collective that aimed to safe promoting commitments from manufacturers and companies and direct the spend to a portfolio of Black-owned publishers.
At launch, founders Richelieu Dennis, Bonin Bough, and Travis Montaque introduced an preliminary funding of $75 million from the company GroupM, and multimillion-dollar offers with firms together with Ziff Davis and NBCUniversal quickly adopted. Finally, Group Black pledged its intent to boost and distribute $500 million in funding.
In its early years, the enterprise generated breathless press protection—some of which came from yours truly—and loved the backing of highly effective manufacturers and holding firms, thanks in equal half to its charismatic founders and the heightened local weather of social activism popping out of the pandemic.
By 2024, the corporate had grown quiet. The collective had ostensibly raised a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} for a cadre of Black media shops, however I more and more started to listen to grumblings of late funds.
