This is a tale of two tech startups.

The first is a messaging app that allows a user to send a one-word greeting to a friend and nothing more. There is no messaging functionality, filtering features, or ability to provide a longer message. In time, it will come to send notifications for followers, with the message, “Yo,” and a link.

The second startup is also a messaging app. It operates much like Gmail and Outlook’s “recall message” feature, but for text messages, and is well positioned for dating app expansion. All of the text messages a user has sent to exes, old friends, parents, and colleagues can be recalled by using this app as a primary messaging app.

The first app, Yo, received mainstream press attention and $1.5 million dollars in funding from a well-known VC firm with Facebook alum. Its founder is a white man.

The other app, On Second Thought, is available in almost 200 countries but has yet to have a major VC funding round. Its founder, Maci Peterson, is a black woman. “Some large VCs thought we were too early, some never responded, some we couldn’t get meetings with,” she explains. The company bootstrapped first, then raised money from a friends and family round, included angel investors, and won money from pitch competitions.

The different outcomes for these two startups highlights the hurdles that black women founders often face. Investors aren’t taking risks on startups run by the nation’s most credentialed, accomplished, and ambitious group. In an industry filled with tales of boys behaving badly, there is a growing group of women who are just looking for their break. The tech industry, one that thrives on creative solutions and innovation, is ignoring the opportunity for fresh ideas for new products, and improvements on existing ones.

The Lost Opportunity Of Black Women Founders

Black women are the most educated group in the nation, and black women are the highest percentage of any group enrolled in college, as per the 2011 U.S. Census Bureau. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that 60% of black women are active in the labor market, but are grossly underpaid (Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is on August 1 this year).

They are also the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the country. According to data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, there was a 265% increase in black women-owned business between 1997 and 2014, outpacing growth among all women-owned firms, which grew in revenues by 72% during the same time period. Black women are responsible for over 1.5 million businesses and generating over $44 billion a year in revenue, while being responsible for the livelihood of roughly 400,000 workers.

Understanding The Problem

Women start companies at twice the rate of men, yet women comprise only 16% of tech founders. According to a study by First Round Capital, founding teams including a woman outperform their all-male peers by 63%, but female CEOs get only 2.7% of all venture funding, while women of color get virtually none: 0.2%.

The fact that black women are educated and entrepreneurial yet so underfunded is a confluence of broadening thoughts of diversity, use of technology, and economic policy. The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 increased limits for tax write-offs for startups, such as the ability to deduct cell phone bills and depreciation, and health care costs. This was great news for black women, who tend to be younger when they found their companies, have more debt, and less access to capital. Black women have greater difficulty receiving…