NewBWS · Member-Owned · Launching Juneteenth 2026
A village, rebuilt.
A century after Tulsa, we are building the digital infrastructure our grandparents were denied. Owned by the community. Governed by the community. Designed so it can never be burned down.
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Already in the village
What this is
The professional network for our ecosystem.
NewBWS is where Black investors, founders, operators, and institutions find each other, vouch for each other, and build wealth together. Think of it as LinkedIn — if LinkedIn had been built for us, by us, and could never be sold against us.
A members-only network.
Every member is vouched for. Every connection carries a name. No recruiter spam, no fake accounts, no algorithm feeding you ads.
Built for capital that circulates.
Investors find founders. Founders find operators. Operators find mentors. LPs find GPs. The village is the deal flow.
Owned by the people in it.
No venture capital. No behavioral ads. No exit to a bigger platform. NewBWS is member-funded through Wefunder, governed by a golden share, and built to outlast us.
Why now
The ecosystem exists. The infrastructure does not.
On June 1, 1921, a white mob burned Greenwood — Black Wall Street — to the ground. Thirty-five city blocks. Ten thousand Black Americans displaced. A century of wealth, erased in eighteen hours.
What made Greenwood possible was not permission. It was infrastructure Black people owned — banks, newspapers, theaters, law offices, grocery stores — circulating capital through the community before it left.
What made Greenwood vulnerable was that the infrastructure was physical. It could be burned.
NewBWS is the answer to that vulnerability. A community-owned digital network cannot be torched. The code is ours. The data is ours. The algorithm serves the village, not a shareholder.
The village by the numbers
We are enough.
Total AUM across the ecosystem
Black-led VC & PE firms
Founders & fund managers mapped
Of VC going to Black founders
The lowest share in modern tracking history (2024)
The capital is here. The talent is here. The firms are here. What has never existed, in any generation, is the infrastructure that lets it all find itself.
What you can do here
Everything a professional network should be. Nothing it shouldn't.
Directory
Find the capital that's already here.
A verified directory of Black-led funds, operators, founders, and institutions — filterable by industry, check size, stage, geography, and HBCU affiliation. The people moving capital, in one place for the first time.
Feed
Publish without being punished.
Share your work, your theses, your wins — without an algorithm that punishes depth or boosts outrage. Our feed is tuned for wealth-building, not attention extraction.
Connections
Every introduction comes with a name.
Vouched connections mean you always know who opened the door. Trust is legible. Warm intros are the default, not a premium tier.
Messages
Reach decision-makers directly.
Private, async messaging once you're connected. No recruiter spam. No InMail upsell. No paywall to reach the people you need.
Profiles
Context built for capital.
Investor profiles lead with thesis, check size, stage. Founder profiles lead with company, raise status, what you're building. Professional profiles lead with your excellence. Designed for the work, not the résumé.
Organizations
A presence for the village's institutions.
Firms, funds, and organizations get a dedicated surface. Claim yours pre-launch. Over 170 entities already mapped.
Different by design
The algorithm is not for us.
So we built our own. Every design decision on this platform starts from a different question than the one the big networks ask.
The big networks
Built for recruiters.
NewBWS
Built for relationships.
The big networks
Algorithm optimized for ad revenue.
NewBWS
Algorithm optimized for capital that circulates.
The big networks
Owned by a $3 trillion corporation.
NewBWS
Owned by the members who use it.
The big networks
Your data is the product.
NewBWS
Your data is yours. Walled garden. Zero tracking pixels.
The big networks
Anyone with an email can join.
NewBWS
Every member is vouched for by someone already here.
The big networks
Premium features behind a paywall.
NewBWS
Warm introductions are free. The paywall is on extraction, not access.
First principles
Eight convictions, inherited.
These principles are not ours alone. They are the convictions of Black builders, investors, and organizers across generations — distilled into the rules this platform refuses to break.
Community ownership must be structural.
Governance lives with the community, protected by a golden share no capital can buy. The platform can never be sold against community interest.
Economic power should be visible.
Every surface of the platform renders the village's collective strength — because perceived power drives participation.
The multiplier effect is sacred.
Intra-community economic activity is the point. Every connection is weighted for its contribution to circulation.
Serve the ecosystem, not the individual.
Recommendations surface who the village needs you to meet, not just who algorithmic similarity picks.
The algorithm serves the village.
No engagement bait. No rage optimization. The feed is tuned for wealth-building, not attention extraction.
Build for permanence.
Institutions that outlast their founders. Code that does not vendor-lock. Data that members own and can take with them.
Honor many professional identities.
Investors, founders, professionals, organizations — each with distinct surfaces. The village is jazz, not unison.
Excellence on our own terms.
The platform assumes capability, not deficit. It uses market language. It celebrates what is, not what was denied.
Where this goes
A network today. An institution tomorrow.
We're not building a product. We're building infrastructure designed to outlast every one of us.
Now
Juneteenth 2026
The foundation.
- —Invite-only member directory, feed, connections, and private messaging
- —170+ founder and fund manager profiles available for claim
- —Wefunder Regulation CF campaign opens to the community
- —Founding member class capped at the first 500
Fall 2026
First 90 days
Momentum.
- —Weekly curated 1:1 introductions matched to your thesis
- —Discussion forums with flexible anonymity for sensitive topics
- —Virtual events and member-only convenings
- —Pro tier launches: $9/month for advanced filters and priority matching
- —Institutional tier pilots for firms and organizations
Long-term
2027 and beyond
The full village.
- —Deal-flow visibility — founders post raises, investors browse
- —LP-to-GP matching for emerging fund managers
- —The Cookout — cultural layer activated at 2,000 paying members
- —BWS Studio — publishing and podcasting infrastructure
- —Annual State of Black Capital report
- —Mobile app, data partnerships, and ecosystem API
Who this is for
Built for us. Open to the village.
NewBWS exists because, for a century, the capital circulating in Black communities has lacked infrastructure designed for it. We're not building this because we resent other networks. We're building it because our community deserves one of its own.
This isn't about who's kept out. It's about who's been kept out.
If you are Black and in this ecosystem —
This is yours. Whether you're an investor writing your first check, a founder closing a round, an operator changing trajectories, or an organization stewarding capital — the village was built for you to do your work without having to explain yourself first.
If you're an ally —
You're welcome at the table. Co-investors, LPs, partners, and allies who want to build alongside the community are a part of the story. The village gets stronger when capital from every corner circulates through it — as long as everyone at the table respects whose house it is.
A word from the founder
Why I'm building this.
My name is Rasheid Scarlett. I am building NewBWS because the $253 billion of Black capital already circulating in America deserves infrastructure the community owns — not another platform that will be acquired, pivoted, or shut down the moment a larger company decides our network is more valuable than our mission.
A century ago, Greenwood proved what is possible when Black people own the ground beneath their work. Banks, newspapers, theaters, grocery stores — circulating capital through the community before it left. What made Greenwood possible was ownership. What made it vulnerable was that the infrastructure could be physically destroyed.
A community-owned digital network cannot be burned down. The code is ours. The data is ours. The algorithm serves the village — not a shareholder.
This is not a marketplace. Not an accelerator. Not another networking app. It is the infrastructure our grandparents were denied — designed, this time, to last longer than we do.
If you believe the community already has the answer, you are not a customer of NewBWS. You are the village.
Founder & CEO · NewBWS
Community ownership
Owned by us. Governed by us. Built to last.
NewBWS is incorporated as a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation. Community investors participate through a Wefunder Regulation CF campaign launching June 19, 2026 — Juneteenth.
You are not a customer. You are an owner.
When you become an owner, you receive:
- —Equity in NewBWS via a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity)
- —Profit-sharing dividends as the platform grows (modeled after Basecamp — no exit required)
- —A founding member badge that never expires
- —A voice in the Community Advisory Council's quarterly priorities review
- —The knowledge that a platform you own cannot be sold against you
The golden share.
The platform's governance structure includes a golden-share LLC with an irrevocable veto held by the founding team. This veto cannot be overridden by any amount of capital. It exists for one reason: so NewBWS can never be sold or redirected against the community's interest.
What the platform can never do:
- —Sell against community interest
- —Run programmatic or behavioral advertising
- —Sell or license member behavioral data
- —Use AI to target or manipulate members against their interest
- —Raise venture capital equity
- —Deploy dark patterns
Wefunder campaign goes live June 19, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET. Join the waitlist to be notified when the campaign opens.
The invitation
Be the village.
NewBWS is invitation-only. Early members shape what we become. If you are an investor, a founder, a professional, or an organization in the Black capital ecosystem — the waitlist is where you start.
No spam. No behavioral tracking. No selling of your data. Ever.
A century after Tulsa, the infrastructure is being built. This time, the community owns the code.