Pinterest relaunches fund targeting minority founders

^{Zenash “Zeny” Shifferaw, Pinterest’s global inclusion content partnership lead. Image courtesy of LinkedIn.}

US image-sharing social media platform Pinterest has rebranded its Creator Inclusion Fund to Pinterest Inclusion Fund, TechCrunch reported yesterday.

Formed in 2021, the fund previously only targeted content creators. Pinterest has now partnered with Canadian ecommerce platform Shopify’s Build Black and Build Native initiatives to help entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds, including racial, sexual, functional and plus-sized minority groups, to access funding.

Pinterest Inclusion Fund is a six-week accelerator programme set to coach diverse founders based in the US and Canada on scaling their businesses with Pinterest. It intends to expand to other countries including Argentina, Brazil, France and India.

The programme will allow participating companies to gain access to educational and financial resources, such as linking their Shopify accounts with Pinterest. Shopify’s training sessions and Pinterest’s mentoring, monetary stipends and paid workplace software tool subscriptions will also form part of the package.

Through its previous funds, Pinterest backed creators every quarter. While the firm will continue to support entrepreneurs quarterly, it will expand its coverage to global markets. Traditional creators who are small ecommerce merchants will still be eligible to apply.

Pinterest has invested more than $3.3m through the accelerator and had more than 150 companies globally join the programme.

“It’s critical that the diversity of our users is reflected within the inspiration they search, save and shop from,” Zeny Shifferaw (pictured), Pinterest’s global inclusion content partnership lead, told TechCrunch.

“This programme is uniquely designed to increase pathways of success for content producers who’ve been disproportionately underrepresented, allowing them to grow and reach new audiences and customers on the platform.”