The founders of Blavity and The Shade Room are coming to Disrupt 2020 – TechCrunch

Although the media industry is currently in the midst of a long-overdue reckoning over diversity, representation and racism, Morgan DeBaun and Angie Nwandu have been building a more diverse digital media landscape for years. And we’re excited to welcome them to Disrupt 2020 this September.

DeBaun co-founded Blavity, a digital media company focused on Black millennials, back in 2014, responding to what she said was a need for more information and connection in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death. The company has since raised funding from GV, Comcast Ventures and Plexo Capital, and DeBaun is still its CEO.

Nwandu, meanwhile, is no-stranger to Disrupt. I had a chance to speak to The Shade Room’s founder onstage in 2017 about building a huge social media audience for Black celebrity news. Back then, The Shade Room had more than 8.9 million Instagram followers, a number that has more than doubled to 19.9 million.

This time, we’ll be hearing from both DeBaun and Nwandu. I’ve got a lot that I want to ask them, so I’ll do my best to squeeze it all in: How they built their companies, the challenges they currently face with a pandemic roiling the ad industry, how media companies (including TechCrunch) should be responding to the current political/cultural moment and much more.

Learn where digital media goes from here at Disrupt 2020, which runs from September 14-18. Get a front-row seat with your Digital Pro Pass for just $245 or with a Digital Startup Alley Exhibitor Package.