5 Black-Owned Tech Companies to Watch in 2026

As 2026 approaches, attention is shifting to a group of Black-founded and Black-led tech companies that solve practical problems rather than pursuing spectacle.

Their goal is simple but critical: converting rent payments into credit history, providing small enterprises with contemporary financing instruments, streamlining how cities distribute help, and providing more equitable access to short-term funding.

Growing payment volumes, public-sector contracts, and more distinct regulatory footing are what distinguish them—not rhetoric. These black-owned tech companies are creating pipelines, not merely applications, in industries that have an impact on daily life.

Five of these tech companies are highlighted in this list. Each is rooted enough to matter yet small enough to move swiftly. They could influence the flow of funds, the provision of benefits, and the development of credit in the upcoming year if execution holds.

Esusu (Fintech)

Esusu, the New York fintech co-founded in 2018 by Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel, turns on-time rent into credit history, an obvious idea that’s finally scaling through landlords, housing agencies, and impact investors.

This year, Esusu expanded with Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund to bring rent reporting to residents in Amazon-funded affordable units across several regions—an institutional signal that rent data is moving from edge case to standard practice.

Squire (Vertical SaaS + Fintech)

Squire started life as a barbershop booking app and grew into a full operating system, POS, payouts, inventory, marketing, for a Main Street business that never shuts off.

Founded in 2015 by Songe LaRon and Dave Salvant, Squire closed 2024 with roughly 20,000 shop customers and made Forbes’ Fintech 50 in February 2025, a nod to its software-plus-payments model and staying power in a choppy market.

Promise (Govtech/Fintech)

Oakland-based Promise modernizes how governments and utilities take payments and deliver relief, think flexible plans, verified identity, and digitally disbursed aid.

The company was founded in 2017 by Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Diana Frappier, and has been steadily adding public-sector contracts as agencies push to make collections more humane and efficient. The YC profile and industry coverage capture the founding details and the through line: better rails for people who interact with government the most.

MoCaFi — Mobility Capital Finance (Fintech + Public-Sector Rails)

MoCaFi, short for Mobility Capital Finance, calls its approach “financial services as infrastructure.” Founded by former JPMorgan executive Wole Coaxum in 2016, the New York fintech powers city programs like Los Angeles’ Angeleno Connect, which combines a debit account with rapid cash assistance and transit benefits.

That public-sector embed, banking stitched into municipal workflows, is why MoCaFi keeps cropping up in city playbooks for inclusive aid delivery.

SoLo Funds (Community Finance/Embedded Banking)

Finally, SoLo Funds has built a community-based, small-dollar finance platform aimed at the “cash-poor” middle—consumers who need $50 to $500 quickly and have historically turned to predatory lenders.

Co-founded in 2018 by Travis Holoway and Rodney Williams, SoLo cleared a major overhang in February 2025 when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dismissed its lawsuit with prejudice; separate reporting noted the broader policy backdrop even as private litigation continues.

The regulatory clarity helps SoLo double down on partnerships and product guardrails as it scales.