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Vernon Coleman, youngest Black tech CEO at 23 raises $4mill seed round from Alexis Ohanian

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Alexis Ohanian just made a 23-year-old tech CEO one of the youngest Black entrepreneurs to raise VC funding. Meet Vernon Coleman.


  • Realtime, an invite-only social networking app cofounded by two Gen Zers, just announced a $4 million seed round led by Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six venture fund.
  • Users on the app create video chat rooms where they can talk and connect with each other, and also host conferences and group meetings.
  • Vernon Coleman, 23, cofounder and CEO of Realtime, told Business Insider that the app wants to become the "authentic social layer for Gen Z and young millennials" and he has plans to expand into the real world after the pandemic subsides.
  • Other investors in the app include Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler, former Tinder CPO Ravi Metha, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin. Coleman is now one of the 1% of Black founders that have raised VC funding.
  • In an interview with Business Insider, Coleman talks about the company's plans to create a next-gen social service, how he was able to connect with key investors, and what the future holds for him as a Black man in tech.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Last year, Vernon Coleman and his friend Kevin Robertson took a risk. In their fourth year at the University of California, Santa Cruz, they dropped out to work full-time on their social networking app, Realtime.

They wanted to redefine social networking for Gen Zers and young millennials. The initial premise of Realtime centered around people meeting each other in person, but the onset of the pandemic forced the duo to rethink everything.

"We were like 'Okay, let's rethink what social connectivity and community look like in the age of remote universities,'" Coleman, 23, now Realtime's CEO, told Business Insider. "Where the places where people serendipitously meet are gone."

They adapted fast, making Realtime an invite-only video chatting service that allows users to create chat rooms to talk and hang out with each other. People can also hold conferences and group meetings on it.

The app doesn't officially launch until early next year, but big names are already betting big on it. On Friday, the app announced it raised a $4 million seed round led by investor Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six venture fund. Other investors include Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler, former Tinder CPO Ravi Mehta, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin.

Coleman said he wants Realtime to be a "very egalitarian place," in contrast to most social networks, which "are focused on this aspect of status and almost somewhat the worst parts of human beings in how we think and perceive each other."

5fdd0926d366e60018099016

(L) Kevin Robertson (CTO) and (R) Vernon (CEO).
Courtesy of Realtime
Realtime forgoes traditional social networking features such as likes and followers to focus solely on connecting and fostering social environments. It just finished its alpha testing round, and Coleman said Realtime has already accrued a waiting list, though he declined to say how many people were on it.

"People are craving human connection now more than ever and Vernon has identified a unique way to expedite today's evolving need for interaction," Ohanian said in a press release. "His innovative approach to building hyper-personal online communities through instant, real-time video chatting made Realtime a compelling company to invest in."

This is also a big deal for Coleman, who identifies as Black. Only about 1% of VC funding goes to Black startup founders, meaning the 23-year-old Gen Zer just became the latest addition to one of tech's most exclusive clubs.

5fdd09c2d366e6001809901d

Courtesy of Realtime
Realtime wants to become the social layer for Gen Zers and young millennials
Traditional social clubs and even tech spaces haven't always been known for being the most inclusive spaces and earlier this year, Coleman was part of a group of young people pointing that out.

He had a position called "head of Hype" at a place called (eye mouth eye), a social club that started as an inside joke online but quickly began to pick up steam as the group began to criticize Silicon Valley and venture capitalists for fostering an environment of elitism.

went on to raise over $200,000 for three charities that support people of color and the LGBTQ community. It started off as a joke, Coleman told Business Insider, but it quickly became an emblem for how young people currently see the system of tech and social spaces.

"People either break the cycle or join within the cycle," he said. "If you look at most social networks and communities, they've been built by pretty much the same person."

Realtime logo
Courtesy of Realtime
Right now, only two people are running Realtime: Coleman, who handles operations, fundraising, and product design, and his cofounder Robertson, the chief technical officer, who works on development. Even though the app hasn't officially launched, Coleman said he and Robertson are already trying to figure out how to bring Realtime into the real world once the pandemic subsides.

Seed funding breakthrough after more than a year of hustling
This $4 million funding round is big news for Coleman, who spent the last year-and-a-half hustling for investors.

Getting into Silicon Valley had always been a dream of his, Coleman said. Growing up, he moved around a lot. Both of his parents were in the US Navy, and he was born in Okinawa, Japan. They briefly moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, before settling down in South Carolina when he was around 7 years old.

In high school, he would practice building iOS and Android games and he said he always wanted to find a way to intersect technology and entrepreneurship. He used to watch videos about the founding of startups to study how big names in tech spoke — memorizing the names of the entrepreneurs and founders who were making it big.

He did so, he said, to understand "how people think and how people viewed the world." This became useful for him as he began to seek investors. It helped that he was able to speak their language. "Every industry has its own type of lexicon," he said.

"I remember watching Scott Heiferman talk about Meetup. I remember listening to Yancey [Strickler] talk about confounding Kickstarter," he said. Today, both Heiferman and Strickler are investors in Realtime.

5fdd095cd366e60018099019

Vernon Coleman
Courtesy of Vernon Coleman
Sometimes, he said, he would ask his brother, who works in real estate, for money to buy plane tickets and pay for Uber rides so he could get to cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, to meet possible investors.

"I would go places and I would ask questions," Coleman said. "Even if that was 'Yo, how do you make it? How do you make it in the game when you don't have the resources financially to do so?'"

He was able to meet other investors for Realtime via friends who knew people. Some people, however, Coleman would simply recognize at events or parties and approach — take Nick Caldwell, for example, who is the vice president of engineering at Twitter.

"I recognized that there was another Black dude doing tech in Santa Cruz," Coleman said. "Santa Cruz doesn't have many black people."

Silicon Valley and "Big Tech" in general don't have many Black people — CNBC reported this year that only 3% of Facebook's workforce is Black. And though 9% of Apple's workforce identities as Black, only 3% hold leadership positions. At the start of 2019, about 6% of Twitter's workforce identified as Black — up 2% from 2014, the outlet reported.

So when Coleman was at a Facebook conference one day — it didn't take much to recognize Caldwell in the room. Coleman was able to introduce himself to Caldwell and they later went out for coffee. Today, Caldwell's an investor in Realtime. He's the one who made the introduction to Alexis Ohanian, too.
 

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This is amazing and hopefully, this will open the floodgates for those in our community who want to succeed in tech.

In high school, he would practice building iOS and Android games and he said he always wanted to find a way to intersect technology and entrepreneurship. He used to watch videos about the founding of startups to study how big names in tech spoke — memorizing the names of the entrepreneurs and founders who were making it big.

He did so, he said, to understand "how people think and how people viewed the world." This became useful for him as he began to seek investors. It helped that he was able to speak their language. "Every industry has its own type of lexicon," he said."

Very, very smart of him!

This is also a big deal for Coleman, who identifies as Black.

Why wouldn't he identify as Black? I'm not trying to nitpick, I'm just trying to figure out why they had to point that out? :sidefrown
 

Anacaona Taino

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This is amazing and hopefully, this will open the floodgates for those in our community who want to succeed in tech.



Very, very smart of him!



Why wouldn't he identify as Black? I'm not trying to nitpick, I'm just trying to figure out why they had to point that out? :sidefrown
Right? That was weird but you know people and their pronouns
 

abbadabba

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Hmmmm, I meannnnnn, good luck to this man. I hope he can pay it forward....
 

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Good for him. So bright-eyed & bushy tailed & they will be doing pδrn on it as soon as the doors open XD

I thought about this too. Plus no one talks about ethical social media practices. I hope it doesn't end up like Facebook selling people's info., creating algorithms and designing to make people addicted to the apps. After watching Social Dilemma I want more for social media besides their bottom line -- making money at any cost.
 

QueenViper

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I don’t understand how anyone can say anything negative in this thread.

Just say congratulations and move the hell on.

Anytime money and black people making money via investments, businesses, etc is discussed on here the threads are met with a whole bunch of skeptical Debbie Downers.

If you can’t congratulate or say something positive just STFU or bypass the thread.

As for the OP, congrats to this man. I have my own idea for a social networking platform centering on fitness. So it’s nice to see a black face in a white crowd.
 

Fabulous Foxxx

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I thought about this too. Plus no one talks about ethical social media practices. I hope it doesn't end up like Facebook selling people's info., creating algorithms and designing to make people addicted to the apps. After watching Social Dilemma I want more for social media besides their bottom line -- making money at any cost.
It does indeed sound like Clubhouse with video as mentioned above, & Clubhouse is already a mess, all the girls have instathot avis, showing full nipple and ass to get moderators badges, moaning freak rooms...it’s bound to get worse.
I have zero faith they won’t do exactly what you have listed above, as that’s the whole point AND it’s what the people want :(
 

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It does indeed sound like Clubhouse with video as mentioned above, & Clubhouse is already a mess, all the girls have instathot avis, showing full nipple and ass to get moderators badges, moaning freak rooms...it’s bound to get worse.
I have zero faith they won’t do exactly what you have listed above, as that’s the whole point AND it’s what the people want :(

Just really sad. We have enough innovators to do better, but people just want to make/take the money and run.
 

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How do you know? What do you do?
I know enough and do enough to know the appropriate levels of money at each stage round and this one is a seed. Seed rounds are to test ideas and the team. I remember when seed rounds were sub 1 million, they have grown now.
 

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Why wouldn't he identify as Black? I'm not trying to nitpick, I'm just trying to figure out why they had to point that out? :sidefrown

They're trying to normalize the conflation of racial identity with gender identity. If a man can identify as a woman, then a black person can identify as a white person. I've seen the whole 'who identifies as black' thing in many mainstream articles. They're laying the foundation of transracialism.
 

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Part of what's making Clubhouse so effective is people don't have to worry about looking presentable or stunt'n.


It will be interesting to see the differences in topics/subjects.



Moderating a video platform is also a whole different monster.
 

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we were just talking about this, seeing more black people do social media platforms or just succeed in tech

congratulations to him​
 

yourstruly1

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Sounds like clubhouse!!

but good luck to this guy!

s/n: he looks way older than 23 in that photo on the OP...lol
 

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Alexis putting his money where his mouth is. This is the type of anti racism I like to see, not just signs and photo ops.
 

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I don’t understand how anyone can say anything negative in this thread.

Just say congratulations and move the hell on.

Anytime money and black people making money via investments, businesses, etc is discussed on here the threads are met with a whole bunch of skeptical Debbie Downers.

If you can’t congratulate or say something positive just STFU or bypass the thread.

As for the OP, congrats to this man. I have my own idea for a social networking platform centering on fitness. So it’s nice to see a black face in a white crowd.

I don't see where people are being negative.

Most in the thread are congratulating him, some cracked a few jokes (as usual for LSA), and some are addressing social media in general.

With that said, just because Vernon is our own and is making big moves doesn't mean he's immune from any criticism.
 

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This is great inspiration for more black tech entrepreneurs. However the idea is repetitive and not that original. There's so many chat apps out there. I still support the fact that he got the funding and hopefully the app has something unique about it.
 

NoxAura

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This is great inspiration for more black tech entrepreneurs. However the idea is repetitive and not that original. There's so many chat apps out there. I still support the fact that he got the funding and hopefully the app has something unique about it.

Chat apps are very popular and this could hook the Gen Z user base in very quickly. The app is probably a starting point for him and I wouldn't be surprised if he moves beyond the chat app in the coming years.
 

yourstruly1

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Someone needs to start a social network were politics isn’t allowed. They really ruined twitter with politics. Smh
 

NoxAura

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Someone needs to start a social network were politics isn’t allowed. They really ruined twitter with politics. Smh

Unless harassment, disinformation, or cyber bullying is involved, you really can't regulate what people are going to discuss.

Even if politics were somehow banned, I can guarantee you people would still find a way to ruin a discussion. There's plenty of non-political toxic spaces on Twitter.
 

Incokneegrow

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So basically this is Clubhouse with video.
right. reading that had me like yikes! especially knowing twitter is already trying to compete and that it isnt launched until early next year lol. im sure theres already hundreds of others trying their hand at creating a competitor as we speak lol
 

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@N A M E

Did you sign up to be apart of the beta team?

Realtime Beta Request - Airtable


5fdd0c02d366e60018099028


Alexis Ohanian just made a 23-year-old tech CEO one of the youngest Black entrepreneurs to raise VC funding. Meet Vernon Coleman.


  • Realtime, an invite-only social networking app cofounded by two Gen Zers, just announced a $4 million seed round led by Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six venture fund.
  • Users on the app create video chat rooms where they can talk and connect with each other, and also host conferences and group meetings.
  • Vernon Coleman, 23, cofounder and CEO of Realtime, told Business Insider that the app wants to become the "authentic social layer for Gen Z and young millennials" and he has plans to expand into the real world after the pandemic subsides.
  • Other investors in the app include Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler, former Tinder CPO Ravi Metha, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin. Coleman is now one of the 1% of Black founders that have raised VC funding.
  • In an interview with Business Insider, Coleman talks about the company's plans to create a next-gen social service, how he was able to connect with key investors, and what the future holds for him as a Black man in tech.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Last year, Vernon Coleman and his friend Kevin Robertson took a risk. In their fourth year at the University of California, Santa Cruz, they dropped out to work full-time on their social networking app, Realtime.

They wanted to redefine social networking for Gen Zers and young millennials. The initial premise of Realtime centered around people meeting each other in person, but the onset of the pandemic forced the duo to rethink everything.

"We were like 'Okay, let's rethink what social connectivity and community look like in the age of remote universities,'" Coleman, 23, now Realtime's CEO, told Business Insider. "Where the places where people serendipitously meet are gone."

They adapted fast, making Realtime an invite-only video chatting service that allows users to create chat rooms to talk and hang out with each other. People can also hold conferences and group meetings on it.

The app doesn't officially launch until early next year, but big names are already betting big on it. On Friday, the app announced it raised a $4 million seed round led by investor Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six venture fund. Other investors include Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler, former Tinder CPO Ravi Mehta, and Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin.

Coleman said he wants Realtime to be a "very egalitarian place," in contrast to most social networks, which "are focused on this aspect of status and almost somewhat the worst parts of human beings in how we think and perceive each other."

5fdd0926d366e60018099016

(L) Kevin Robertson (CTO) and (R) Vernon (CEO).
Courtesy of Realtime
Realtime forgoes traditional social networking features such as likes and followers to focus solely on connecting and fostering social environments. It just finished its alpha testing round, and Coleman said Realtime has already accrued a waiting list, though he declined to say how many people were on it.

"People are craving human connection now more than ever and Vernon has identified a unique way to expedite today's evolving need for interaction," Ohanian said in a press release. "His innovative approach to building hyper-personal online communities through instant, real-time video chatting made Realtime a compelling company to invest in."

This is also a big deal for Coleman, who identifies as Black. Only about 1% of VC funding goes to Black startup founders, meaning the 23-year-old Gen Zer just became the latest addition to one of tech's most exclusive clubs.

5fdd09c2d366e6001809901d

Courtesy of Realtime
Realtime wants to become the social layer for Gen Zers and young millennials
Traditional social clubs and even tech spaces haven't always been known for being the most inclusive spaces and earlier this year, Coleman was part of a group of young people pointing that out.

He had a position called "head of Hype" at a place called (eye mouth eye), a social club that started as an inside joke online but quickly began to pick up steam as the group began to criticize Silicon Valley and venture capitalists for fostering an environment of elitism.

went on to raise over $200,000 for three charities that support people of color and the LGBTQ community. It started off as a joke, Coleman told Business Insider, but it quickly became an emblem for how young people currently see the system of tech and social spaces.

"People either break the cycle or join within the cycle," he said. "If you look at most social networks and communities, they've been built by pretty much the same person."

Realtime logo
Courtesy of Realtime
Right now, only two people are running Realtime: Coleman, who handles operations, fundraising, and product design, and his cofounder Robertson, the chief technical officer, who works on development. Even though the app hasn't officially launched, Coleman said he and Robertson are already trying to figure out how to bring Realtime into the real world once the pandemic subsides.

Seed funding breakthrough after more than a year of hustling
This $4 million funding round is big news for Coleman, who spent the last year-and-a-half hustling for investors.

Getting into Silicon Valley had always been a dream of his, Coleman said. Growing up, he moved around a lot. Both of his parents were in the US Navy, and he was born in Okinawa, Japan. They briefly moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, before settling down in South Carolina when he was around 7 years old.

In high school, he would practice building iOS and Android games and he said he always wanted to find a way to intersect technology and entrepreneurship. He used to watch videos about the founding of startups to study how big names in tech spoke — memorizing the names of the entrepreneurs and founders who were making it big.

He did so, he said, to understand "how people think and how people viewed the world." This became useful for him as he began to seek investors. It helped that he was able to speak their language. "Every industry has its own type of lexicon," he said.

"I remember watching Scott Heiferman talk about Meetup. I remember listening to Yancey [Strickler] talk about confounding Kickstarter," he said. Today, both Heiferman and Strickler are investors in Realtime.

5fdd095cd366e60018099019

Vernon Coleman
Courtesy of Vernon Coleman
Sometimes, he said, he would ask his brother, who works in real estate, for money to buy plane tickets and pay for Uber rides so he could get to cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, to meet possible investors.

"I would go places and I would ask questions," Coleman said. "Even if that was 'Yo, how do you make it? How do you make it in the game when you don't have the resources financially to do so?'"

He was able to meet other investors for Realtime via friends who knew people. Some people, however, Coleman would simply recognize at events or parties and approach — take Nick Caldwell, for example, who is the vice president of engineering at Twitter.

"I recognized that there was another Black dude doing tech in Santa Cruz," Coleman said. "Santa Cruz doesn't have many black people."

Silicon Valley and "Big Tech" in general don't have many Black people — CNBC reported this year that only 3% of Facebook's workforce is Black. And though 9% of Apple's workforce identities as Black, only 3% hold leadership positions. At the start of 2019, about 6% of Twitter's workforce identified as Black — up 2% from 2014, the outlet reported.

So when Coleman was at a Facebook conference one day — it didn't take much to recognize Caldwell in the room. Coleman was able to introduce himself to Caldwell and they later went out for coffee. Today, Caldwell's an investor in Realtime. He's the one who made the introduction to Alexis Ohanian, too.
 

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This is great inspiration for more black tech entrepreneurs. However the idea is repetitive and not that original. There's so many chat apps out there. I still support the fact that he got the funding and hopefully the app has something unique about it.
I think this is great and happy to see young black people like myself breaking into these historically secret spaces. But I agree. It doesn't seem too original but that's not a bad thing. I have an idea ive been working on that I fear isnt too "unique" but that never stopped these 50--11 yt folks that create the same product over and over and are celebrated. This gives me the courage and inspiration to move forward with my idea.
 

tobenna2020

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Part of what's making Clubhouse so effective is people don't have to worry about looking presentable or stunt'n.


It will be interesting to see the differences in topics/subjects.



Moderating a video platform is also a whole different monster.

There is a place but I think the topics will be a lot more vanilla/grown up as a result
 

NoxAura

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I think this is great and happy to see young black people like myself breaking into these historically secret spaces. But I agree. It doesn't seem too original but that's not a bad thing. I have an idea ive been working on that I fear isnt too "unique" but that never stopped these 50--11 yt folks that create the same product over and over and are celebrated. This gives me the courage and inspiration to move forward with my idea.

Go for it! :)

People freak out about saturation, which is a real thing, but if a certain product is popular, it's popular for a reason.

Strike the iron while it's hot!
 

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