92. Cashblack: earn cash back by shopping for Black-owned businesses

DEI Award Nominee

For the business that demonstrates committed diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative and how it has been embedded in the company.

Startups 100: DEI Award

Founder: Matthew Addai, Jonathan Addai, and Nicholas Addai
Year founded: 2020
Website: cashblack.com

For Matthew, Jonathan, and Nicholas Addai, the lightbulb moment for Cashblack came during the global anti-racism movement of summer 2020. It became clear to the brothers that there was a direct correlation between socioeconomic issues faced by Black people throughout the world and a lack of support for Black-owned businesses.

The result of this epiphany is Cashblack, a cashback app for Black-owned businesses. It’s simple, yet impactful – app users can discover and explore Black-owned businesses, choose their purchases, and, once completed, receive cashback to withdraw or donate however they wish.

“In addition to the 800 Black-owned brands with whom we’re affiliated, we also have partnerships with Amazon, eBay, and Etsy to host their independent Black creators and promote them on our platform through those respective marketplaces,” says Matthew Addai.

Through Cashblack To Your Door, members can order from Black-owned food vendors through delivery app partners including Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats in the UK, and DoorDash and Grubhub in the US. The brothers name winning £10,000 with the Black Business Residency Growth Fund as a notable highlight in the past year.

Its target audience includes consumers who wish to support minority-owned businesses but who struggle to find them, and Black-owned businesses needing to generate sales through exposure to wider markets. The app’s international reach and long list of household name partners has helped support this mission, and earned Cashblack a nomination for the Startups 100 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.

In the next five years, Cashblack’s cofounders intend to scale from a cashback platform into a data-as-a-service company. The plan is to build the largest dataset of Black-owned businesses and Black consumerism while leveraging their technology to support other marginalised demographics.

Cashblack does what it says on the tin. Its grassroots approach to giving more Black-owned SMEs access to cash, and a determination to effect positive change, have earned it a well-deserved place on this year’s Startup 100.