Kimberly Bryant is an engineer who worked in the biotechnology field at Genentech, Novartis Vaccines, Diagnostic, and Merck. In 2011, Bryant founded Black Girls Code, a nonprofit organization that focuses on providing technology and computer programming education to African-American girls. After founding Black Girls Code, Bryant was listed as one of the “25 Most Influential African-Americans In Technology” by Business Insider.
Early in her career, Bryant held jobs at electrical companies Westinghouse Electric and DuPont. Later, Bryant would move to biotechnology and later to pharmaceutical companies, where she worked at Pfizer, Merck, and at Genentech and Novartis.
Bryant founded the investment firm Ascend Ventures which launched the Black Innovation Lab, a Memphis startup accelerator for underrepresented founders.
Since 2022, funding to Black founders has fallen by more than half. Funding to women-led startups has nearly halved. As the pool of capital grows, overlooked founders are receiving a shrinking share of it.
