Tribe Network is a community of racialized people pursuing technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation. They envision a world where Black, Indigenous, and people of colour are at the forefront of these disciplines, fully armed with the knowledge, resources, skills, and connections they need to start, build, and scale thriving businesses.
TRIBE NETWORK IS BUILDING A GLOBAL NETWORK OF ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATORS FOR RACIALIZED PEOPLE.
Making this world a reality takes a village, especially in one where systemic racism perpetuates disparities. Tribe Network, through its ongoing programming, services, and support, is that village for racialized people.
COMMUNITY, COACHING & CAPITAL
Racialized entrepreneurs deserve equal access to networks, opportunities, and markets. Since its inception in 2020, Tribe Network has supported over 1,000 entrepreneurs in achieving just that. From homegrown small businesses to emerging AI startups, Tribe works with a wide range of founders and aspiring entrepreneurs to offer support in the form of mentorship and coaching, courses and workshops, showcases and pitch competitions, upfront funding, co-working spaces, and more.
Tribe believes that an entrepreneur’s potential is infinite when they have a community to support them. They regularly engage the larger business community in their initiatives, including ecosystem partners, industry professionals, and investors, so that their members can work at building and nurturing their own communities. They also pay special attention to youth, engaging students through business challenges, offering scholarships, and connecting them with employment and internship opportunities.
By the numbers
Over the past 4 years, Tribe has…
- list Worked with 30+ ecosystem partners
- Engaged 100+ mentors and coaches
- Hosted 100+ events and workshops
- Shared 400+ opportunities
- Distributed $300K+ in grant funding
START SMALL, THINK BIG
The Black Start-Up Project
The Black Start-Up Project is a unique program providing Black entrepreneurs and business owners in Atlantic Canada with access to resources and opportunities in the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem to help them START, BUILD, and ACCELERATE their businesses.
Support under this initiative includes workshops, courses, and coaching tailored to Black founders, including live sessions delivered by successful Black leaders, experts, and entrepreneurs.
The Start Small Grant powered by Emera
In November 2021, Tribe Network and Emera Inc. launched the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Access) Fellowship presented by Emera to create opportunities for racialized innovators in Nova Scotia to pursue entrepreneurship and innovation. The program served to provide participants with access to peer networks, mentors, and industry experts, as well as financial support to pursue their community-based efforts.
Since completing the first iteration of this program, the IDEA Fellowship has evolved into the Start Small Grant Program, which allows Tribe to serve more racialized entrepreneurs from across Atlantic Canada. The Tribe Start Small Grant powered by Emera offers grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 to help these entrepreneurs overcome funding challenges. To date, this program has supported over 100 community projects.
Tribe Ventures
Across Canada, Black and Indigenous founders receive less than 1% of venture capital dollars. Tribe Ventures is a pre-seed and seed stage fund that specializes in funding racialized entrepreneurs. The fund was created to address the systemic barriers faced by racialized communities in accessing capital and to help close the funding gap. The intent is to support entrepreneurs who are often overlooked and underestimated by traditional venture capital firms and to create a more equitable startup ecosystem where more than 1-2% of venture capital is deployed toward racialized founders.
Diversity and inclusion are essential for innovation. Investing in underrepresented founders is not only the right thing to do but also makes good business sense. Companies with at least one female or one ethnically diverse founder are shown to generate over 60%+ in business value; and racially diverse founders gain an average exit multiple that is 30% higher than those of solely white founding teams.
