In France, Shaila Sahai says pitching investors usually goes like this.
She is a woman, Black and a CEO, and when she walks into a meeting with investors, armed with a slide deck for her fintech startup We Take Part, she’s often greeted with bafflement. “They are surprised, and they can’t hide it,” she told me.
She’ll go on to pitch her company, and then: “They usually just leave the conversation,” she said. “I’ve had people say, ‘Oh, okay, nice, very interesting. Thank you. See you soon.’ And we were in the middle of a conversation.”
In France, Sahai isn’t alone in facing this almost systemic avoidance of people who look like her, but you wouldn’t be able to find any proof of it. The French startup ecosystem for Black founders is shrouded in mystery, espe …
