Private asset management firm Ariel Alternatives launched its Project Black with a clear mission: to help close the racial wealth gap in the U.S. by building up minority-owned businesses so they can sell to large companies. “We have the ability to break today’s mental models which relegate minority-owned businesses to a second-tier status because they lack scale,” says Mellody Hobson, co-founder of Ariel Alternatives and co-CEO and president of Ariel Investments. Project Black is “simultaneously solving for two critical factors: capital and customers,” she says—providing a powerful roadmap for Black and Latinx business owners. And the need is real: 95% of minority-owned enterprises report less than US$5 million in revenues. Further, minority-owned suppliers receive an average of just 2% of the corporate spend of the Fortune 500. So Ariel is bringing in the heavy hitters, with companies like salesforce, walmart, and jpmorgan each committing at least US$100 million over a seven-yea...