Collab Capital Managing Partner Barry Givens Shares That His Biggest Mistake As A Founder Was Thinking Investors Were His Friends
Collab Capital Managing Partner Barry Givens reveals his biggest mistake as a founder.
Givens has entrepreneurial experience leading the tech-focused brokerage, Dream Reality, which operated between 2009 and 2010. Later, he became managing director of Techstars, further establishing himself in the venture capital world.
In 2018, he co-founded Collab Capital, a venture capital firm supporting early-stage founders, alongside Jewel Burks Solomon — the former head of Google for Startups in the U.S. Collab Capital raised $75 million in 2025 from investors such as Apple, Leon Levine Foundation, and California IBank for its second fund, as AFROTECH™ previously reported.
On the “Black Tech Green Money” podcast hosted by AFROTECH™ Brand Manager Will Lucas, Givens acknowledges that the pair did not initially have a steady track record when they were starting as investors, so their roles were strategic. That choice helped them secure funding for their first round in 2021, which led to a $50 million raise to support Black founders, according to TechCrunch.
“People are just jumping off the cliff, and I think they look at people like Jewel and I and they say, ‘Oh, well Jewel and Barry jumped in and just started a fund.’ And that could be no further away from the truth,” Givens explained on the podcast.
“We did jump in with the idea of starting a fund, but the part of the process that people maybe didn’t put two and two together is that we did not have great track records. Jewel had a couple of angel investments. I had an angel investment, but we did not have long, deep track records to be able to put in front of investors,” Givens shared.
“People didn’t see that we actually had a meeting before Jewel took the job at Google for Startups. We had a meeting before I took the job as managing director of Techstars, as strategic things for us to do to be able to get to the end product, which was a fund,” Givens continued.
Givens also shared a lesson that he learned with investors: They are not your friends. He added that while relationships can exist outside of business, investors must understand their role as good stewards of the capital entrusted to them.
“It is a mistake that I made as a founder. I tell my founders, ‘I don’t think there’s anyone out there in the world that is an investor that’s going to have your back as much as I will.’ I will put me and Jewel up against any other investor in the market. We are going to have your back. But, there’s going to come a time where…I’m going to have to balance out what is the best thing for the capital, the million dollars that I gave you,” Givens shared on “Black Tech Green Money.”
AFROTECH™ Future 50
Givens is also featured among the AFROTECH™ Future 50, a recognition given to Black innovators, founders, technologists, and change makers shaping their industries. He is listed under the Dynamic Investors category, which spotlights individuals creating wealth-building opportunities for underserved tech founders.
On receiving the recognition, Givens said, “When we started this, we did not think that our impact was going to be seen in five years…This is something that is going to be a 20-30-year impact, but I think we’re doing a great job.”
Full Episode
To watch the full episode of the “Black Tech Green Money” podcast, click here.
