The United States is home to some of the largest and most influential brands, yet Black-owned U.S. businesses with at least one employee represent a fraction of these companies.
They face significant obstacles, from access to capital to other institutional barriers. Challenges include everything from accessing venture capital to discriminatory lending practices.
Still, in recent years, Black businesses have grown, with regions like Washington D.C., Maryland, and Georgia leading the way. And, of course, some Black-owned brands have consistently exceeded expectations, crossing the billion-dollar mark in assets, revenues, and valuations.
Today, we highlight these Black U.S.-based billion-dollar businesses and their inspirational journeys to the top. These businesses from different industries dominate their respective fields and achieve immense success for their owners.
Global Infrastructure Partners
Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) is an American infrastructure investment fund manager founded in 2006. It targets infrastructure businesses and assets in the energy, transportation, water, and waste sectors, where its expertise and relationships provide a competitive advantage.
Before starting GIP, Ogunlesi spent 23 years in Credit Suisse’s investment banking unit and as an attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a law firm in New York. Born in Nigeria, he attended Kings College Lagos, a prominent boarding school in the country. His father, Theophilus Oladipo Ogunlesi, was reportedly Nigeria’s first professor of medicine.
Some of GIP’s prominent assets were Gatwick Airport, Edinburgh Airport, Sydney Airport, London City Airport, and the Port of Melbourne. Ogunlesi built the business to become the largest independent infrastructure manager in the world by assets under management (AUM), getting backing from General Electric and Credit Suisse.
The company managed over $71 billion in assets on behalf of its global investor base. In January 2024, BlackRock acquired GIP for $12.5 billion in cash and stock, making BlackRock the second-largest infrastructure manager in the world.
Calendly
Tope Awotona founded Calendly in 2013 after he became frustrated with the back-and-forth emails required to schedule meetings. The software company’s business communication platform is used by teams to schedule, prepare, and follow up on external meetings.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Awotona immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He attended the University of Georgia Terry College of Business and obtained a Management Information Systems degree. After that, he landed a job at IBM as a sales rep, where he worked for seven years. He tried launching some businesses but failed until he got the idea for Calendly.
Awotona spent a day wasting time going back and forth over email to schedule meetings. He started searching for a scheduling tool, but all the products he found were slow and clunky. After months of research, he pursued this idea and emptied his savings accounts.
With everything on the line, he turned his vision of simple scheduling for everyone into a vibrant, growing platform that manages scheduling for more than 20 million individuals and businesses. Today, Awotona’s company does around $30 million in annual revenue and is valued at approximately $3 billion.
Esusu
Esusu is a digital platform that helps users save money, access capital, and build credit. The company, founded in 2015 by Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel, partners with property managers and credit bureaus to include rental payments in credit scores, helping renters improve their financial future and achieve homeownership.
Abbey grew up in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria. Struggling to secure a loan without a credit score, his mother borrowed money from a predatory lender at an exorbitant 400% interest rate. They moved to the US when he was 17, and he graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in Business Management. Furthermore, he earned his M.P.A. from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Abbey’s journey as an entrepreneur did not begin with Esusu. Before Esusu, he created a global social venture providing affordable clean water access for over 250,000 people in eight emerging countries. In addition, he founded the data analytics company Open Aid Initiative, which was acquired in 2014. Abbey’s early career includes Accenture, Goldman Sachs, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Esusu has served over 30,000 people, saving them over $20 million in interest rates and helping users access $13 billion in credit. It reached a $1 billion valuation in its 2022 Series B. Its service is available in 4 million rental units across all 50 states.
Uncle Nearest
Uncle Nearest is a Tennessee whiskey brand that honors the first known African American master distiller, Nathan “Nearest” Green. It’s the first spirits brand in the world named after a Black American. The Premium Whiskey is the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in U.S. history and the best-selling African American-founded spirit brand.
Fawn Weaver founded Uncle Nearest in 2017 in Lynchburg, Tennessee. She wanted to honor Green, a formerly enslaved man who taught Jack Daniel how to distill whiskey. Her exploration into Nearest Green’s history began with a headline she read in the New York Times International Edition, suggesting that Jack Daniel had been mentored by an enslaved man.
Through investigations and conversations with local descendants, Weaver uncovered a rich history that confirmed Nearest Green’s pivotal role as the master distiller who taught Jack Daniel how to distill whiskey. Upon this discovery, she purchased the 300-acre farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where Nearest taught Jack how to distill and launched the Nearest Green Distillery.
In November 2023, the whiskey company raised $225M from 163 individual investors, each contributing an average check of $500,000. In May 2024, Forbes announced Uncle Nearest’s valuation at $1.1 billion, solidifying it as the most successful Black-owned liquor empire.
Black-owned Businesses Worth Billions
ActOne Group
ActOne Group is a global workforce management company providing employment, staffing, and procurement solutions to various industries. The billion-dollar company specializes in flexible workforce solutions like contingent staffing and talent acquisition, catering to large and mid-market companies.
Founded in 1978 by CEO Janice Bryant Howroyd, ActOne Group is the largest privately held, woman—and minority-owned workforce management company in the United States. In 1976, after leaving her segregated hometown in North Carolina for Los Angeles, Howroyd spotted an opportunity in the staffing industry. She recognized the need for personalized and attentive workforce solutions and launched the business with her $1500 savings and a passion for helping others succeed.
Howroyd’s commitment to excellence has seen the California-based corporation grow to 33 countries, with over 2,800 employees, 17,000 clients, and yearly revenues estimated to close to $1 billion. Today, ActOne Group provides employment, workforce management, and procurement solutions to various sectors, from Fortune 500 organizations to government agencies.
Bridgewater Interiors
Bridgewater Interiors is a leading automotive seating manufacturing company in the United States. They specialize in just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, sequencing, delivery of seating systems, overhead, and center console systems. The company is one of the largest Black-owned and minority-owned suppliers in the automotive industry.
Bridgewater Interiors was founded in 1998 as a joint venture between Epsilon Technologies, a Detroit-based entrepreneurial partnership, and publicly traded Johnson Controls, Inc., to manufacture General Motors Corporation (GM) automotive seating systems. The founder, Ron Hall Sr., launched the company after failing as the owner of some Bonanza Steakhouses in Detroit in the 1980s.
GM and other automakers wanted to do more business with minority-owned companies. Johnson Controls, a car seat maker, invited Hall to form the joint venture. Bridgewater grew rapidly as its initial five-year GM contract was the largest contract ever awarded to a racial minority-owned business by an automaker.
Now led by the founder’s son, Ronald E. Hall, Sr., the company has expanded from one Detroit location with 133 employees to four facilities in two U.S. states with 2,400 employees. Its customer base, meanwhile, has expanded from one automaker to four, including GM, Honda Manufacturing of America, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles – supporting 11 different vehicle models. Bridgewater generates an annual revenue of just over $2 billion, making it one of America’s largest Black-owned companies.
World Wide Technology
World Wide Technology (WWT) is a global systems integrator that provides digital strategy, innovative technology, and supply chain solutions to large public and private organizations. The St. Louis-based company has expertise in AI, cloud, networking, cybersecurity, data analytics, automation, digital transformation, and more.
David Steward co-founded World Wide Technology with Jim Kavanaugh in July 1990 as a reseller of technology equipment. In 1994, the company partnered with Cisco Systems to resell hardware and software.
WWT’s big break came when it secured contracts with government agencies and Fortune 500 companies, positioning it as a trusted technology partner. Today, WWT is a global leader in IT services, with over 8,000 employees and annual revenues surpassing $14 billion.
Some companies it has partnered with include Dell, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Intel, Microsoft, NetApp, F5, Tanium, and VMware. The company employs approximately 10,000 people and operates over 20 facilities with two million square feet of warehousing, distribution, and integration space. The privately held American technology services company has an annual revenue of $20 billion.
Modular Assembly Innovations
Modular Assembly Innovations (MAI) is an auto parts supplier for Honda, which sells more than 25 million vehicles and motorcycles annually. The automobile company also partners with Midwest Express Inc., a subsidiary of the automobile giant, to operate Great Lakes Assemblies, Gulf Shore Assemblies, and Indiana Assemblies.
Furthermore, MAI produces other products, such as automobile center console modules, powertrain accessory modules, chassis assemblies, and engine components. The company, headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, is dedicated to designing and implementing sub-assembly modules that cater to every aspect of automotive manufacturing, enabling the industry to uphold rigorous safety and quality standards.
The company was established in 2005 but acquired by Billy Vickers in 2011 after purchasing TAG Holdings’ interest in GLA, GSA, and IA. Vickers became the majority owner of these joint ventures with MEI, a Honda-owned company. With Vickers’s leadership and a savvy team of professionals, the company has grown to over $1 billion in revenue and employs 281 associates.
Coca-Cola Beverages Florida
Coca-Cola Beverages Florida is an independently owned and operated Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Coke Florida is the third-largest privately held and the sixth-largest bottler of Coca-Cola products in the United States. The company is also one of America’s largest black-owned businesses.
The company was founded in 2015 by Troy Taylor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Coke Florida. Taylor previously served as an advisor to The Coca-Cola Company and a consultant to one of its largest independent bottlers in the world. Before this, he held senior-level positions at J.P. Morgan, Accenture, and BBVA Compass.
The family-owned Coca-Cola bottler has an exclusive territory covering over 21 million consumers across 47 Florida counties, including the Miami, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville metropolitan areas.
Coke Florida manufactures, sells, warehouses, distributes, and merchandises products of The Coca-Cola Company and other partner companies. The company employs over 5,000 associates and is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. As of December 2024, Coca-Cola Beverages Florida’s annual revenue reached $2 billion.
Black-owned Businesses Worth Billions 2
Vista Partners Equity
Vista Equity Partners (Vista) is a leading global investment firm that invests in enterprise software businesses and manages over $100 billion in assets on behalf of its global network of investors.
The investment firm invests in enterprise software, data, and technology-enabled businesses across private equity, permanent capital, credit, and public equity strategies.
Founded by Robert F. Smith in 2000, the company has been one of the best-performing private equity firms, posting annualized returns of 31%. Some of the firm’s portfolio companies include Aderant, Accruent, Applause, Brainware, Bulhorn, Centralsquare, Dispatch, Eagleview, Granicus, Infoblox, Jamf, Jaggaer, Lucid, and MedTrainer.
Palantir Technologies
Palantir develops and provides software platforms that help organizations integrate and analyze data for better decision-making and operational efficiency. The publicly traded American company specializes in platforms for big data analytics, particularly for government and commercial clients.
The software company was founded in 2003 but went public in 2020. Although the company is led by African American Alexander Karp, it was co-founded alongside Stephen Cohen and Peter Thiel.
Palantir Technologies recently secured major contracts, such as a $178 million AI deal for the Army’s Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program. Also, a $480 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to develop the Maven Smart System prototype.
Other notable clients of the Denver, Colorado-based company include the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Morgan Stanley, Merck KGaA, Airbus, Wejo, Lilium, PG&E, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and more. According to Forbes, Palantir was the 47th “mega-cap” publicly traded American company valued at $200 billion or more.
