The Trailblazer

When Joah Spearman launched his travel-recommendations service, Localeur, in 2013, he was a rarity as a black tech-company founder—and even more so in Austin, where the black population has shrunk as its overall population has boomed. Spearman, meanwhile, has become an outspoken advocate for increasing diversity in the city’s startups. “The city really embraces small companies because they are driving so much growth. But it’s all too easy to give startups a pass on diversity and think of it as a big-company problem.” Spearman, who has raised roughly $5 million for Localeur from angel investors, says he found it nearly impossible to raise money from local venture capital firms— in part, he suspects, because there was no precedent for founders who looked like him. As Austin’s challenges with diversity have begun to attract public attention in recent years, more advocates are speaking out, and Spearman says he’s beginning to see change. Kungfu.AI founder Stephen Straus, with backing from local business leaders, launched a Startup Diversity and Inclusion Pledge that he asks founders to sign and plans to take nationwide.