Introducing Archetype Ascend

By Ulysses King (he/him) & Erica Billups Johnson

It’s hard to become something you can’t see, and in the technology industry, there’s a clear line of sight between visibility and success. Coverage begets funding which begets the resources to win. But three years since the murder of George Floyd sparked a corporate DEI boom, all three stages of success are still plagued by inequity. Founders of color must squeeze through a very narrow aperture created by almost entirely white people who decide what and who matters.

Facts: Only 3% of VCs are Black. Only 10% of PR pros are non-white. The money tells a starker story. Black founders raised just 1% of all VC funds allocated in 2022. Latino founders fared only slightly better with 1.5% of venture funding in Q3 2022 (full year data not yet available for Latino founders). Financing for Black businesses saw its most significant year-over-year decrease in a decade. 

With nearly 50 years of combined tech comms experience between us, we’ve been in the “room where it happens,” yet we’ve only worked with a handful of Black founders. This has to change. The BIPOC community is everywhere in tech. Across the U.S., magnetic founders are building great companies and their stories need to be shared more widely.

That’s why we’re launching Archetype Ascend, an independent but interconnected division within the global agency dedicated to providing strategic communications and support for BIPOC founders, executives, and VCs. Top-tier communications strategy and support is one of those competitive advantages that has historically been out of reach for many communities. We’ll measure success by how often and well the achievements of Black and Brown people in business and technology are seen and celebrated. 

The idea for Ascend came from conversations we had a little over a year ago as we were looking to transition from our current roles. We wanted to spend the rest of our careers helping people who look like us and need our help. We want to see our people win in this industry. 

Archetype CEO Helena Maus, with whom we’d worked over the years, helped us come up with the right approach, saying “What if we built something here that meets that purpose? You can do it with all the support a global agency can bring to bear – like a startup within a company."

We could have started a boutique agency, but we wanted to scale quickly. We also wanted to avoid this becoming merely a dedicated DEI team within the agency, as many firms have done. Ascend is being created as a standalone division with dedicated leadership and goals so we don’t have to straddle both worlds and can focus on what we're trying to do.

Ascend will operate through short-term engagements and longer-term partnerships. We’ll work with our existing clients to identify and elevate the visibility of their BIPOC executives and DEI efforts and tap our extensive network of BIPOC founders, VCs, and executives to garner new business. We're going to get intentional about seeking out Black and Brown founders who have very viable and profitable businesses but aren’t on the radar because they haven’t come through the Silicon Valley echo chamber. 

They say you do what you can from where you are. Ascend is our commitment to ourselves and permanent change – a movement, not a moment. Our skills as PR pros can help the people who need it the most. A while back, we took a call with two  dynamic Black women founders who started a business to make an impact in the haircare industry leveraging the power of AI to transform the wig buying experience.. It was compelling stuff - extremely relevant to a massive audience of consumers - and they needed good comms advice. What was supposed to be a 30-minute call turned into a 90-minute conversation and the start of a relationship that has been meaningful to all of us.

That need for strategic counsel is so apparent to us. We cannot wait to get started helping businesses like these become household names.