SQUIRE TECHNOLOGIES

This all-in-one platform for barbershops started out as a booking site. It soon expanded into nancial services and is now testing distribution of supplies such as razor blades. The Manha an-based company charges its 2,000 customers a monthly fee of $100 to $250 per location and collects transaction fees on services. Songe LaRon (above le ), 37, quit a job at law rm Skadden Arps, and Dave Salvant, 36, ditched one as a sales associate at AXA to start the company. They took over a Manha an barbershop to be er learn the business. A er a tough start convincing investors to back them, the pair got into the accelerator Y Combinator on their third try. Today investors have come around, and Squire’s valuation tripled to $750 million last July a er a $60 million fundraise. “We have to start pu ing money earlier in the pipeline for Black founders,” LaRon says. “Institutional capital needs to start taking more risk.”