How Hip-Hop Created A Multi-Million Dollar Business Empire

When an African student in London decided to set up a hip-hop music magazine he never imagined it would turn him into a multi-million digital media venture capitalist success story.

Claude Grunitzky was just 23 years old when he launched a magazine called Trace to showcase his passion for music. At first, the venture looked destined to fail. He struggled to pay his rent and often lacked the funds to pay his writers:

“I really struggled for the first couple of years and I had a lot of failures. Then my luck changed…”

A Turning Point: Alicia Keys and The Rise of Trace Magazine

“I met the singer Alicia Keys and she agreed for me to put her on the front cover of Trace magazine. She was followed soon after by artists like Gwen Stefani and Rihanna. That built up our profile and soon after that I got a call from Goldman Sachs who wanted to invest $15 million in my business.”

That changed everything. From that investment, Claude was able to fund Trace magazine properly. It also gave him the finance to launch a pan-African digital TV network called True Africa. His digital coverage grew from reporting on the hip-hop scene to covering film, arts, tech, and fashion to help create a new narrative for black youth in Africa and the diaspora.

This shift in his fortunes was so dramatic that Harvard Business School chose him to be the subject of one of its prestigious business case studies. That exposure would lead to further success.

Ties to Togo & Public Service Aspirations

Now Claude, who was born in Togo in West Africa, is working to become an Angel investor himself. Although he’s now based in the digital media world of New York he still maintains close ties to his Togo heritage. His great uncle Nicolas Grunitzky was a former President of Togo, while his father was a diplomat who once served as Togo’s Ambassador to the United States.

The family name of Grunitzky comes from his great-grandfather who emigrated to Togo from Poland many years ago. Claude’s desire is to follow in the family tradition of public service by supporting entrepreneurial young people like himself who want to start up their own businesses.

That desire led him to set up entrepreneurial training for young people in Togo and to become the Founder of a new digital platform called True Africa University which champions young African voices all over the world. When Claude launched True Africa it attracted 300,000 online readers, and that attracted funding from the tech giants at Google.

MIT, the Equity Alliance and Embracing the US Entrepreneurial Spirit

Claude developed True Africa’s digital university with an online learning platform in partnership with MIT in the US:

“The US has been kind to me. When I was living in London I had a lot of setbacks and failures, while in the States there’s a real entrepreneurial spirit that suits my personal style of doing business”

That US business environment has enabled Claude to move into Angel investing. He’s teamed up with the former CEO of Time Warner Dick Parsons to create a new venture called the Equity Alliance: “Dick is one of the world’s leading digital media practitioners and after the George Floyd killing here in the US we wanted to do something to promote and support young black people and black women in particular.

“The Equity Alliance exists to support undiscovered entrepreneurial talent and those who have a hard time accessing the capital. We are dedicated to providing capital and education to venture capital firms and new entrepreneurs. I want to build generational wealth in Africa and I’m hopeful we’ll do that”.

Claude is the founder CEO of Equity Alliance. It has raised a fund of $28.2 million with plans to raise a further $100 million fund by the end of this year.

To date, it has 23 portfolio investments, including Koosmik, a Fintech start-up based in Luxembourg and operating out of Claude’s home country of Togo. Koosmik is developing innovative digital financial services for the so-called unbanked in Africa. It’s aimed at young workers, students and female entrepreneurs in particular.

Promoting and Supporting Black Entrepreneurs

According to Claude investing in black women is particularly important:

“Black women get only 0.01% of the venture capital each year – so it’s very important for us to be investing in black women. We also spend a lot of time looking at African-Americans and Latinos because we found that they are the most under-represented fund managers”.

Having been a black man looking for funding himself Claude feels closely aligned with the aspirations that emerging entrepreneurs have, and he hopes he can make a difference in making their business dreams come true– just as that Goldman Sachs investment into his hip-hop magazine all those years ago did when he first stepped out on his entrepreneurial journey.

Looking for your very own Angel Investor? Or a coach who can inspire you to be the very best in your personal and professional life? Reach out to Matt Haycox today to start the next step in your journey. 

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