
TEDCO Selects Collide Capital to Support Management and Investment of Allocated SSBCI Funding
COLUMBIA, Md., July 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — TEDCO, Maryland's economic engine for technology companies, announces the selection of Collide Capital as one of the early-stage venture capital fund managers supporting the management and investment of up to $10 million in U.S. Department of Treasury State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funding.
'TEDCO's commitment to creating opportunities aligns with our goals of ensuring capital goes to the most deserving applicants rather than the most privileged,' said Brian Hollins, co-founder and managing partner of Collide Capital. 'With this funding, we are excited to better support the Maryland entrepreneurial ecosystem and look forward to working with TEDCO to help the ecosystem flourish.'
Collide Capital is a $66 million black-owned venture capital firm envisioning a world where capital is awarded to those who are best positioned to solve the next generation of global challenges. Through their work, the company seeks to guide founders on their journey by equipping them with resources, knowledge networks and hands-on support. To date, they have backed more than 50 founders, with over 80% identifying as Black, Latine, and/or female.
Recently, TEDCO announced receiving an infusion of up to $50 million in funding from the SSBCI initiative. This funding supports recipients of TEDCO's Venture Funds, Seed Funds and Social Impact Funds—along with the $10 million earmarked for the Venture Capital Limited Partnership (VCLP) Equity program. Of this amount, funding has been allocated to 100KM Ventures, AIN Ventures and now Collide Capital.
'This allocation reflects TEDCO's continued commitment to supporting the growth of an inclusive and sustainable merit-based ecosystem across the state,' said TEDCO CEO, Troy LeMaile-Stovall. 'Through our collaboration with Collide Capital, we are hoping to expand our reach, support more underserved individuals, bridge gaps in the system and allow for innovative advancements.'
For more information about the SSBCI VCLP funds, visit our website here.
About TEDCOTEDCO, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, enhances economic empowerment growth through the fostering of an inclusive entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem. TEDCO identifies, invests in, and helps grow technology and life science-based companies in Maryland. Learn more at www.tedcomd.com.
Media ContactTammi Thomas, Chief Development & Marketing Officer, TEDCO, tthomas@tedcomd.comRachael Kalinyak, Associate Director, Marketing & Communications, TEDCO, rkalinyak@tedcomd.com
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Malaysian Reserve
2 days ago
- Malaysian Reserve
Delaine A. Deer Launches "Voice of Impact", a 12-Session Leadership Program for Women in Male-Dominated Industries
Built for real-world leadership, the program equips marginalized women with the strategy, confidence, and community to rise without burnout or compromise NEW YORK, July 21, 2025 /CNW/ — Delaine A. Deer, leadership coach and founder of ProWorks Hive, has launched Voice of Impact, a 12-session coaching program designed for women ready to lead in industries where their voices have long been underrepresented—construction, tech, and corporate leadership. Despite growing conversations around diversity, women—especially women of color and LGBTQ+ professionals—continue to face barriers. Only 10% of construction executives are women (BLS, 2023), nearly half of women in tech report workplace discrimination (Pew, 2023), and Black women are promoted at just 58% the rate of white men (Lean In, 2023). Voice of Impact addresses these disparities directly, offering practical tools, coaching, and community to help women break through bias and lead with impact. The program is a systems-level response to leadership inequality. Designed by Deer with support from industry advisors, Voice of Impact equips women with actionable strategies to apply immediately in their careers. The experience blends expert coaching, leadership development, and continuous support via the ProWorks Hive platform—an exclusive online network for peer engagement and mentorship. 'For too long, women have been told to 'lean in.' But without the tools to navigate systemic bias, that's not enough,' said Deer. 'Voice of Impact gives them the skills, strategy, and support to not only claim their seat at the table—but to thrive in it.' Participants in the inaugural cohort receive founding member status and lifetime access to ProWorks Hive. Program modules cover leadership branding, confident communication, negotiating promotions, and building a bias-resistant mindset. About Delaine A. Deer and ProWorks Hive Delaine A. Deer is a leadership coach, speaker, and founder of ProWorks Hive. With 20+ years of experience in project leadership and inclusive development, she helps women and marginalized professionals lead with clarity, confidence, and systemic impact. ProWorks Hive is a leadership accelerator that supports professionals navigating male-dominated spaces through coaching, community, and strategic career insight. Women ready to stop being overlooked and start leading on their own terms can apply now for the Voice of Impact inaugural cohort. Learn more or join the waitlist at Media Contact: [email protected] Photo –


Malaysian Reserve
6 days ago
- Malaysian Reserve
TEDCO Selects Collide Capital to Support Management and Investment of Allocated SSBCI Funding
Collide Capital becomes the third selected VCLP to support the next generation of technological innovation COLUMBIA, Md., July 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — TEDCO, Maryland's economic engine for technology companies, announces the selection of Collide Capital as one of the early-stage venture capital fund managers supporting the management and investment of up to $10 million in U.S. Department of Treasury State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funding. 'TEDCO's commitment to creating opportunities aligns with our goals of ensuring capital goes to the most deserving applicants rather than the most privileged,' said Brian Hollins, co-founder and managing partner of Collide Capital. 'With this funding, we are excited to better support the Maryland entrepreneurial ecosystem and look forward to working with TEDCO to help the ecosystem flourish.' Collide Capital is a $66 million black-owned venture capital firm envisioning a world where capital is awarded to those who are best positioned to solve the next generation of global challenges. Through their work, the company seeks to guide founders on their journey by equipping them with resources, knowledge networks and hands-on support. To date, they have backed more than 50 founders, with over 80% identifying as Black, Latine, and/or female. Recently, TEDCO announced receiving an infusion of up to $50 million in funding from the SSBCI initiative. This funding supports recipients of TEDCO's Venture Funds, Seed Funds and Social Impact Funds—along with the $10 million earmarked for the Venture Capital Limited Partnership (VCLP) Equity program. Of this amount, funding has been allocated to 100KM Ventures, AIN Ventures and now Collide Capital. 'This allocation reflects TEDCO's continued commitment to supporting the growth of an inclusive and sustainable merit-based ecosystem across the state,' said TEDCO CEO, Troy LeMaile-Stovall. 'Through our collaboration with Collide Capital, we are hoping to expand our reach, support more underserved individuals, bridge gaps in the system and allow for innovative advancements.' For more information about the SSBCI VCLP funds, visit our website here. About TEDCOTEDCO, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, enhances economic empowerment growth through the fostering of an inclusive entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem. TEDCO identifies, invests in, and helps grow technology and life science-based companies in Maryland. Learn more at Media ContactTammi Thomas, Chief Development & Marketing Officer, TEDCO, tthomas@ Kalinyak, Associate Director, Marketing & Communications, TEDCO, rkalinyak@


New Straits Times
11-07-2025
- New Straits Times
Addressing AI bias: The push for more women, minorities in tech
As an Afro-Latina woman with degrees in computer and electrical engineering, Maya De Los Santos hopes to buck a trend by forging a career in artificial intelligence (AI), a field dominated by white men. AI needs her, say experts and observers. Built-in viewpoints and bias, unintentionally imbued by its creators, can make the fast-growing digital tool risky as it is used to make significant decisions in areas such as hiring processes, healthcare, finance and law enforcement, they warn. "I'm interested in a career in AI because I want to ensure that marginalised communities are protected from and informed on the dangers and risks of AI and also understand how they can benefit from it," said De Los Santos, a first-generation United States college student. "This unfairness and prejudice that exists in society is being replicated in the AI brought into very high stakes scenarios and environment, and it's being trusted, without more critical thinking." Women represent 26 per cent of the AI workforce, according to a Unesco report, and men hold 80 per cent of tenured faculty positions at university AI departments globally. Blacks and Hispanics also are underrepresented in the AI workforce, a 2022 census data analysis by Georgetown University showed. Among AI technical occupations, Hispanics held about nine per cent of jobs, compared with holding more than 18 per cent of US jobs overall, it said. Black workers held about eight per cent of the technical AI jobs, compared with holding nearly 12 per cent of US jobs overall, it said. De Los Santos will soon begin a PhD programme in human computer interaction at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She wants to learn not only how to educate marginalised communities on AI technology but to understand privacy issues and AI bias, also called algorithm or machine learning bias, that produces results that reflect and perpetuate societal biases. Bias has unintentionally seeped into some AI systems as software engineers, for example, who are creating problem-solving techniques integrate their own perspectives and often-limited data sets. scrapped an AI recruiting tool when it found it was selecting resumes favouring men over women. The system had been trained to vet applicants by observing patterns in resumes submitted to the company over a 10-year period. Most came from men, a reflection of a preponderance of men across the industry, and the system in effect taught itself that male candidates were preferable. "When people from a broader range of life experiences, identities and backgrounds help shape AI, they're more likely to identify different needs, ask different questions and apply AI in new ways," said Tess Posner, founding chief executive officer of AI4ALL, a non-profit working to develop an inclusive pipeline of AI professionals. "Inclusion makes the solutions created by AI more relevant to more people," said Posner. AI4ALL counts De Los Santos as one of the 7,500 students it has helped navigate the barriers to getting a job in AI since 2015. By targeting historically underrepresented groups, the non-profit aims to diversify the AI workforce. AI engineer jobs are one of the fastest growing positions globally and the fastest growing overall in the US and the United Kingdom, according to LinkedIn. Posner said promoting diversity means starting early in education by expanding access to computer science classes for children. About 60 per cent of public high schools offer such classes with Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans less likely to have access. Ensuring that students from underrepresented groups know about AI as a potential career, creating internships and aligning them with mentors is critical, she said. Efforts to make AI more representative of American society are colliding with President Donald Trump's backlash against Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) programmes. DEI offices and programmes in the US government have been terminated and federal contractors banned from using affirmative action in hiring. Safiya Noble, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles and founder of the Centre on Resilience & Digital Justice, said she worries the government's attack on DEI will undermine efforts to create opportunities in AI for marginalised groups. "One of the ways to repress any type of progress on civil rights is to make the allegation that tech and social media companies have been too available to the messages of civil rights and human rights," said Noble.