Collab Capital

We’re committed to equipping our portfolio companies with the best resources to help them grow. We're currently building a Preferred Vendors List and are seeking exceptional fractional CFOs, bookkeepers, accountants, auditors, and legal support to recommend to our founders. If you or someone in your network has a track record of excellence and experience working with startups or scaling businesses, we’d love to hear from you! We’re looking for professionals with proven startup financial management experience and expertise in financial modeling, forecasting, and reporting. We’ll check references, so please share only the most trusted and reliable professionals. Reply to this post and tag your recommendation so we can follow up! Or send us a DM with your recommendations or credentials.

I recently had the pleasure of attending the annual general meeting for venture capital fund, Collab Capital and had the opportunity to hear directly from founders Jewel Burks Solomon and Barry Givens. Their motivation to launch Collab Capital is rooted in a drive to empower Black entrepreneurs and create equitable access to capital. Collab Capital's mission is to close the funding gap for Black entrepreneurs, paving a pathway to economic independence and building a sustainable venture ecosystem that champions underrepresented founders. This mission stands out in today’s landscape, where Black-founded VC funds are still overcoming significant barriers to capital and representation. Efforts like those of Collab Capital are moving the needle in ways that matter. In addition to investing locally in Atlanta startups, they are making a real impact nationally to spur growth and innovation. A special shout out to the CEOs of some of the Collab Capital portfolio companies; Dr. Brandon Zimmerman, PhD, Sumorwuo Zaza - Nicklpass, Joshua Aviv, and Jasmine Crowe-Houston. #CollabCapital #EmpoweringEntrepreneurs #VentureCapital #EconomicEquity #AtlantaStartups 

A quick note to founders on financial projections: don’t forget to sense check. One of the easiest ways to have a flag raised on your projections is where there is a significant jump between actual vs. forecasted revenue. If your revenue has been growing at 10% month-over-month (MoM) and then suddenly it jumps to 40% MoM between the last month of actual realized revenue and the first couple of months of projected revenue, that spike will be met with scrutiny. Everyone who is traditionally trained in financial analysis learns the quote, “past performance is not indicative of future results.” While I still hold this rule to be true, we can intelligently infer trend lines based on past performance. There should be thoughtful rationale on why your sales projections are spiking, with a well-built pipeline to back it up. At Collab Capital, we look for founders who can balance optimism with practicality. Think of your projections as a story you’re telling investors. Each number should have a basis in past performance, industry benchmarks, or a clear growth driver, like a new product launch, expanded sales team, or strategic partnerships. Without this narrative, your projections may appear overly optimistic and less credible. Remember, it’s not about showing the biggest numbers; it’s about demonstrating you have a realistic, achievable plan. When investors see thoughtful projections, they’re more likely to view you as a disciplined, strategic founder who’s in touch with your business’s realities and opportunities. Bottom line: show us how you’ll get there. Investors want to see confidence in your numbers, but they need to believe in the journey to get there, too.

I recently had the pleasure of attending the annual general meeting for venture capital fund, Collab Capital and had the opportunity to hear directly from founders Jewel Burks Solomon and Barry Givens. Their motivation to launch Collab Capital is rooted in a drive to empower Black entrepreneurs and create equitable access to capital. Collab Capital's mission is to close the funding gap for Black entrepreneurs, paving a pathway to economic independence and building a sustainable venture ecosystem that champions underrepresented founders. This mission stands out in today’s landscape, where Black-founded VC funds are still overcoming significant barriers to capital and representation. Efforts like those of Collab Capital are moving the needle in ways that matter. In addition to investing locally in Atlanta startups, they are making a real impact nationally to spur growth and innovation. A special shout out to the CEOs of some of the Collab Capital portfolio companies; Dr. Brandon Zimmerman, PhD, Sumorwuo Zaza - Nicklpass, Joshua Aviv, and Jasmine Crowe-Houston. #CollabCapital #EmpoweringEntrepreneurs #VentureCapital #EconomicEquity #AtlantaStartups 

$1.5 Billion of capital managed by diverse VC’s investing in MBE’s in that room. Five incredible MBE’s with AI platforms backed by those investors. 30+ corporations spending hundreds of billions with suppliers were in the audience looking for the next big thing. It’s the beginning of a revolution. Race to a Trillion. Thank you to Kendra Burris-Austin, MBA, PMP, CPSM for leading and to Centene Corporation for sponsoring. Thank you to Maria Prince, M.B.A., NACD.DC and DuPont for leading the cybersecurity segment. Thank you to Cisco for hosting us at the incredible Experience Cemter. Thank you to Chris Genteel for being the brainchild and workhorse behind this great event. Thank you to Jewel Burks Solomon and Collab Capital and Luke Cooper and Latimer Ventures for inviting your portfolio companies and your knowledge today. And finally, way to many to name here, but thank you to my favorite people in the world, Supplier Diversity pros. Your dedication and commitment to wealth creation with our suppliers is just incredible. We all appreciate you.

👋🏾 Hi folks! A few professional updates: I've joined Ramp to lead the product partnerships team. I was originally looking for product management roles but Colin Kennedy convinced me that great partnerships are an important part of Ramp's velocity and that my team could have an outsized impact on Ramp's future success. I just spent the past week with my team in NYC (I'll still be based in Atlanta) and I'm so excited for what we're going to build together. I'll also be spending time with early stage companies as an Executive in Residence focused on fintech at Collab Capital. I've known Jewel Burks Solomon and Barry Givens since I moved to Atlanta and I'm glad we've finally found a way to work together! Finally, I'll continue to write Batch Processing as much as I can. I have a new post going out later this week so subscribe if you enjoy 3,000 word essays on payments-related topics.

Thank you to Valdese Jones! The Center is incredibly grateful for Wells Fargo's continued support and partnership. We couldn't agree more with your recognition of Kamy Twiggs Taylor and her leadership in building such a vibrant and growing Milestone Circles community! We are also deeply appreciative of your commitment to empowering women business owners through these transformative conversations. It was a pleasure learning from you, Monique Carswell, Jewel Burks Solomon, and Lisa S. Jones for the insightful panel on Expanding Capital Pathways at the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) conference. The collective wisdom shared on aligning capital strategies with business success and leadership values left a lasting impact. We look forward to building on the connections made and the invaluable learnings gained. Onward together! #MilestoneCircles #NMSDC #WomenInBusiness #CapitalPathways Walmart EyeMail, Inc. Collab Capital

We are excited to reveal our last, but certainly not least, conference panel, "The Role of AI in Atlanta's Startup Ecosystem." Hosted by Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business's Neil Harris, this panel of Atlanta Tech leaders is comprised of Blake Patton from Tech Square Ventures, Barry Givens from Collab Capital, Aly Merrit from Atlanta Tech Village, and Anastasia Simon from Techstars. #TechforwardMBA #SchellerAI

Last week Jewel Burks Solomon and I had the honor of hosting our LP's and a distinguished group of Atlanta ecosystem members for Collab Capital's first in person Annual General Meeting at the beautiful Encore Georgia Tech space. We are thankful for all that flew in for the event and for those that are local but took time out of your schedule to be in the room. We had 3 goals for our event and I am happy to say we knocked each one out of the park. 1. Showcase our portfolio performance and how our portfolio support is our secret sauce - Founders from our portfolio including  Dr. Brandon Zimmerman, PhD from Digiteyze, Sumorwuo Zaza - Nicklpass, Joshua Aviv from SparkCharge and Jasmine Crowe-Houston from Goodr presented their companies to show that they are on pace to help us produce top quartile industry level returns. They also shared stories about how the Collab team supports them in the good and bad times and how extremely important it is to have fellow founders as lead investors on their cap table. 2. Introduce our LP's to the Atlanta ecosystem - For many of our investors, Collab Capital is their first entry into the Atlanta market and we wanted to show them that our ecosystem is growing and ripe for investment. Our very own Mayor Andre Dickens spoke to the group about his plans to push Atlanta to be a top 5 tech hub in the country. We also heard from David Cummings about how he has become what I believe to be the most successful investor out of Atlanta and how he thinks about picking winners when investing. 3. Provide insight into macro economic and industry trends - Sarah Higgins gave an insightful presentation that touched on every angle of macro economic environment. One of my favorite parts of the presentation was her data driven non-partisan preview of how global economics will be affected based on how our election plays out Nov 5th. It showed that not only is our vote for president important, but the results of the House and Senate can have a wide impact on global economics. We also heard from Nashlie Sephus, Ph.D. on how important a role AI will play in our day to day activities as well as how we should view AI from an investment perspective. Most importantly, she provided insights into how critical it is to roll AI out responsibly and without bias. I want to say thank you to our Collab Capital team (Baheejah Crumbley and Sydney Holness) and Shelly Andrews from the ILL Group for planning the event and not missing any details. From the design to vendor selection to execution, you crushed every aspect of the event. We have set the bar high for our future meetings and I look forward to working with you to continue raising that bar. Lastly I want to thank our sponsors Jaisa Gooden from Silicon Valley Bank and Christopher Gilmore from Townsend & Lockett, LLC. You all have continued to be supporters of our mission at Collab Capital and we look forward to growing our relationship and building a better ecosystem in Atlanta.

Founders: your next fundraise could be a make-or-break moment. Don’t let inflated valuations or poor cash flow management sidetrack your success. As down rounds and flat rounds become more common, now is the time to focus on building a sustainable, capital-efficient business that thrives regardless of market trends. In 1H 2024, flat and down rounds hit a decade high at ~30% of all deals largely due to inflated valuations from previous years. Founders who raised at inflated valuations but couldn’t meet expectations during their next fundraise are now raising in flat or down rounds. If you're raising a seed now, research related Series A deals to understand the benchmarks. Use that data to reverse-engineer your seed round and the milestones you’ll need to hit by Series A. Let’s say you’re raising a $3M seed on a $10M post$ valuation for 18 months of runway. You’re currently at $800k ARR and expect to close the year at $1M ARR, projecting 400% growth YoY. In 18 months, you’ll need to raise again unless you hit breakeven. Fundraising can take 3–6 months, meaning you’re likely back in the market in 12 months. What will your fundraising story be in 12 months? If your industry comps are seeing 10x LTM revenue, you’ll want to aim for $3M+ ARR by the time you raise your Series A for a $30M valuation. You should project $9M+ ARR the following year, with a well-defined pipeline that backs it up. For those aiming for unicorn status ($1B valuation), there's a widely followed rule known as 'triple, triple, double, double.' This means after you achieve $1M in ARR, you triple your revenue for two years, then double it the next two. If you're at $1M ARR today, you’ll aim for $3M ARR next year, $9M the year after, and eventually $36M ARR in year five. Not every company will follow this, but it’s a powerful framework for setting aggressive growth targets. Keep in mind, venture capital investors have investors, too. There are return profiles we need to see and believe in before writing a check. I’ll dive into that in another post. Cash flow management is critical because anything can happen between rounds. Customers can churn, prospects can ghost, and entire deals can vanish due to a leadership change at the company. “Growth at all costs” is no longer the standard. Many investors now prefer capital-efficient startups with strong margins and a path to profitability. Once you’re out of cash, you’re out of cash. You do NOT want to raise for 18 months of runway only to find yourself raising again in 6 months because of poor spending discipline. This will shift your focus from growing the business to raising capital, and you’ll lose more equity than necessary and dilute your current investors prematurely. Set weekly, monthly, and quarterly budgets. Regularly compare them to your actual spend to keep your financials in check. Raising capital is about more than just runway. It’s about sustainable growth and setting your company up for long-term success.