Draper Goren Holm, a blockchain and Fintech venture firm, announced on Tuesday it signed the Equity.District’s #RacialEquityEcosystem pledge, which is led by Techstars Co-Founder Brad Feld, and Draper Goren Holm Venture Partner and Opportunity Hub (OHUB) Chairman and CEO Rodney Sampson.
Along with signing the pledge, Draper Goren Holm also announced the launch of the “Blacks On The Blockchain” initiative alongside Sampson’s OHUB. The VC firm is also allocating $1 million in Bitcoin and 10,000 free passes to its LA Blockchain Summit for members of the Black community to acquire their first digital currency and also attend the conference.
Draper Goren Holm and OHUB then revealed they are creating a $100,000 blockchain investment pitch competition and joining forces to raise money from Blockchain companies to fund coding boot camps to train Black blockchain developers with the ultimate goal to hire them. Sampson explained:
“Together, we must ensure that everyone, everywhere, particularly Black people, have the exposure, skills, careers, entrepreneurship support, funding, and investment opportunities to create shared prosperity and multi-generational wealth with no reliance on multi-generational wealth.”
Alon Goren, Founding Partner of Draper Goren Holm, added:
“Blockchain and cryptocurrency technology have the ability to create a paradigm shift of power and equity within society, but that power can only be realized when everybody, not just the rich and privileged, has uninhibited access to it, to education, and to opportunity. OHUB is leading that charge.”
Draper Goren Holm, a partnership between Tim Draper, Alon Goren, and Josef Holm, is a venture studio focused on accelerating and incubating early-stage blockchain and fintech startups, while simultaneously producing leading blockchain and cryptocurrency events, Security Token Summit and LA Blockchain Summit.