Jewel Burks Solomon’s Collab Capital announced the close of a $75 million Fund II, a noteworthy private-market vote of confidence in a Black-led venture firm that grew out of boots-on-the-ground entrepreneurship. It’s the kind of American success story conservatives should celebrate — someone who learned work and responsibility from family businesses and turned that grit into actual capital that backs job-creating startups.
The new fund builds on Collab’s inaugural roughly $50 million Fund I and brings the firm’s assets under management to about $125 million, with limited partners that include heavyweights like Apple and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. When corporate giants and institutional investors quietly write checks, they’re signaling that private markets — not government mandates — remain the primary engine for innovation and prosperity.
Solomon’s personal arc from helping on her grandfather’s farm to founding Partpic and selling it to Amazon is the kind of upward mobility story conservatives tout: solve a real problem, build something people will pay for, and reap the rewards. Her experience integrating Partpic into Amazon and later leading startup programs at Google gave her the operational chops to turn capital into real businesses, not just woke talking points.
Collab’s portfolio lists dozens of companies — from Goodr, which tackles food waste logistics and job creation, to health and workforce startups that aim to serve everyday Americans. These are businesses with customers, contracts, and payrolls, the tangible measures of economic success that should matter more than PR-friendly phrases about “shared prosperity.” Conservatives should back firms that create value and pay taxes, not those that primarily chase social signaling.
That said, Collab’s rhetoric about “building the infrastructure of an inclusive economy” reveals the progressive lingo that has crept into much of modern finance. Investors and founders ought to be judged on returns, product-market fit, and transparency — not identity boxes or virtue-signaling mission statements — because capital allocated by ideology risks misallocating resources away from the most promising enterprises.
It’s also worth watching the increasing involvement of big tech and Wall Street money in early-stage venture firms; when Apple and Goldman quietly become LPs, those institutions bring influence and expectations that can reshape a fund’s priorities. Conservatives should welcome private capital in communities long denied access, but remain skeptical of any arrangement that substitutes corporate or political fashion for the hard work of building profitable companies.
At the end of the day, Jewel Burks Solomon’s rise is a reminder that the American system of risk, reward, and entrepreneurship still works when it’s allowed to. Hardworking Americans don’t need sermons about “shared prosperity” — they need jobs, customers, and sound investment that rewards effort and produces real goods and services. If Collab’s second fund turns capital into companies that employ people and solve real problems, then conservatives should applaud; otherwise, we should hold the firm to the same standards of success we demand everywhere else.
