Venture capitalists are much less likely to invest in businesses and startups run by black men and women, especially in the tech industry. According to CD Insights, less than one percent of venture capital-funded tech businesses were owned by African-Americans. It’s a problem that Thomas has experienced first-hand.

“I’ve had situations where I’ve had venture capitalists who … were like, ‘I’m not even going to waste my time talking to you,’” Thomas said. Though the venture capitalists had the same elite academic pedigree as Thomas, they couldn’t see past his skin color, he said. “The most hilarious part of it is that a couple years later some of them sent teams to actually try to invest in the company,” he said with a chuckle.

Lack of funding from venture capitalists isn’t just a problem for African Americans in the tech sector. Take Diana Vertus, a 35-year-old entrepreneur in Boston, for instance. Her company Exquisite Design Concepts offers customized event-planning services catered to her clients’ aesthetic and strategic goals. Though Vertus, an African American woman, has established herself as a motivated professional on the rise, she finds herself scratching and clawing for every opportunity to grow her business.

“I’ve been told my business is not investable,” she said. “Obviously, I can’t get a loan because I don’t have that capital. I don’t have any assets. I don’t have anything. …When I was looking for a loan they were telling me my business needs to be like seven years in business before I can even get a loan. So, until this day I’m still bootstrapping. Every dollar that I make goes right back into the business. We actually made our first hire this year.”

Vertus faces a challenge that many other African Americans can allude to. Initial perception. Vertus says that walking into a room and simply sitting down to talk business can be discouraging.

“It’s really difficult, “she said. “you are undermined in a lot of meetings. I go to a lot of meetings where I might be the only African American, or I might be the youngest and I look really young, so they’ll just undermine me automatically.”

But while appearances are a huge problem on the surface, there is much more that goes into denying entrepreneurs of funding.

Thomas said that even more fundamental than racism is rampant judgments made based on job candidate or venture candidate’s academic backgrounds. He said a look at the alma maters of tech companies’ management alma would almost all fall in the top-30 universities.

Academic elitism leads to another problem: connections dictating business decisions. A recent survey of 900 venture capitalists showed that of the businesses in which they invested, only 10 percent were discovered via cold calls from the funded companies’ management. The survey was done by four business professors from Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of British Columbia.

This is significant for several reasons. Connections are made via college ties, professional affiliations, and personal affiliations. And since African-Americans for the most part don’t occupy the same educational and social circles as venture capitalists compared to white people and Asians, a huge potential source of funding isn’t available to people of color launching tech businesses.

While Thomas acknowledged that he is not an expert on the subject, he has worked in the tech industry for almost his entire professional career.

Thomas believes that the tech industry, to some extent, lives in a “bubble” made up of graduates from elite universities like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. He believes the unwillingness to look for people from other backgrounds contributes greatly to why there are so few African-Americans in the tech industry.

“You don’t see a lot of VC’s that went to state colleges,” Thomas said. “You just don’t.”

There are increasing efforts to empower black entrepreneurs by providing more resources and mentorship in the industry. Boston, for example, has a startup accelerator known as Smarter in the City, a Roxbury organization that helps African-Americans get access to information and mentorship for their pursuits in the tech industry.

Organizations like this can provide workspace, collaboration opportunities, and connections for those who face added challenges because of their skin color. And organizations like Smarter in the City are popping up all over the country, particularly in areas where economic conditions are a challenge.

There are national organizations like Black Founders and Blacks in Technology advocating for more representation of black people in the tech industry and offering supports to entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs, including grade school children.

Thomas said that entrepreneurs aren’t the only who benefit with more inclusive visions of lending and hiring. In fact, he said, it’s the lack of diversification that leads to companies collapsing. After all, if decision-makers don’t leave their “bubbles” filled with people who look, think, and are educated the same, they have no idea what’s truly happening with trends in their industries and society as a whole.

“Bubbles,” Thomas said, “are the chief cause of why companies become irrelevant.”