NBA/Atlanta Hawks: creation of a $50m fund to support "minority-led/underrepresented" start-ups

The Atlanta Hawks, a National Basketball Association franchise, has launched a $50m (€46.6m) fund named "Hawks Venture" to combine "two primary focus areas: minority- and women-led/underrepresented businesses and customer-obsessed businesses with the potential to impact or transform the way a product or service is experienced," announced the NBA team on 16/03/2023.

The $50m will be allocated "over the next five years" to "strategic investments that can benefit the Hawks and/or State Farm Arena (the club's stadium in Atlanta, USA) businesses," explained the franchise.

"Hawks Ventures is exactly the kind of community-enhancing effort we committed to making when we purchased the team in 2015. Creating a fund that could strategically enhance our business and leverage the experience and talents of our ownership group has been something that we have been working to put our resources and energy into from the beginning. Hawks Ventures is an endeavor that our ownership group is extremely passionate about, and we are excited to be able to invest in and work with the significant untapped…