She Raised Money Inside the 0.34%: Venture Capital Funding for Black Women Founders

July 21

51 mins

Episode Description

Only 0.34% of venture capital goes to Black women. Dr. Liz Clayborne, founder and CEO of NasaClip, raised money inside that number. On Getting Rich Together, she tells host Syama Bunten what venture capital funding for black women founders actually requires.

This physician entrepreneur's startup story starts in the ER, where Liz kept seeing patients mismanage nosebleeds and come in with something a simple device could fix at home. She was six months pregnant and appearing on national television as a frontline doctor when the pandemic hit in 2020. She delivered her daughter that May, then built NasaClip during an accelerator program while on her maternity leave. Her divorce followed about two years later, and she took a steep pay cut to keep the company alive.

Some of her early checks came from physician colleagues who had never made an angel investment before. She had to explain risk, payout, and timeline from scratch, and what she learned from those conversations reshaped how she thinks about angel investing for women and how limited startup funding for women of color really is. It also explains why venture capital funding for black women founders barely moves.

Liz also gets specific about the diamond ring she bought herself and why it became a daily reminder to keep loving herself through a hard year. She shares a question her seven year old daughter asked her, one that says everything about what female founder fundraising can build for the next generation.

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Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Two Numbers Behind the Venture Capital Gap

02:12 Growing Up Biracial in Denver With Four Sisters

07:34 Kicking on an All-Male Football Team

10:47 Choosing Medicine and a Non-Traditional Pre-Med Path

12:18 Family Legacy From Emancipation to Duke

15:03 Paying Her Own Way Through Medical School

21:53 Six-Figure Debt and Becoming an Attending

24:43 Marriage, Money Pressure, and Being the Breadwinner

28:39 Divorce and Founding NasaClip Inside a Pandemic

31:33 Building the Band-Aid for Nosebleeds

39:04 Her Daughter's Question About Boys and Doctors