Birmingham-based startup TaxxWiz receives $150,000 Google for Startups Black Founders Fund investment
CEO Tevin Harrell, second from left, with his TaxxWiz team. Harrell is one of 23 startup founders selected to receive funding this year from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. (contributed)
Tevin Harrell, CEO and founder of the Birmingham-based startup TaxxWiz, is one of 23 founders announced earlier this month to receive $150,000 each in funding from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund.
The tax preparation company uses an IRS-approved software that allows tax professionals and CPAs to file returns in minutes versus hours.
Birmingham-based TaxxWiz uses an IRS-approved software that allows tax professionals and CPAs to file returns in minutes versus hours. (contributed)
The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund provides $150,000 cash awards as well as hands-on support to help Black entrepreneurs build and grow their businesses in the U.S. In addition to the capital and up to $100,000 in Google Cloud credits, recipients receive mentorship from Googlers, along with other resources such as sales training, investor prep and mental health coaching at no cost.
“The Google for Startups Black Founders Fund is huge for us,” Harrell said. “The support will be used to continue to develop AI (artificial intelligence) in our product with Google’s AI specialist, get more dominance in the SEO (search engine optimization) space for tax professional software and advance the product with some of the best engineers in the world at Google.”
Tevin Harrell is CEO and founder of the Birmingham-based tax preparation startup TaxxWiz. (contributed)
The latest round of Google for Startups awards represented the fourth group of recipients from the Black Founders Fund and the second from the Latino Founders Fund.
“In 2020, we launched our first Google for Startups Black Founders Fund to help Black tech entrepreneurs overcome the disproportionate hurdles they face when raising capital,” said Lisa Gevelber, vice president of Google for Startups. “Over the past three years, we’ve significantly expanded the scope of our work, expanding our Black Founders Fund to Europe, Africa and Brazil, and to Latino founders in the U.S. We’ve now provided $45 million in cash awards to 547 promising entrepreneurs through our Black and Latino Founders funds.
“We are excited to welcome a new group of diverse founders who are using technology to solve some of society’s biggest problems,” Gevelber said.
Since 2020, Google for Startups has contributed $600,000 to six startups in Alabama.
