Inside Forbes’ Inaugural List of 25 Black-Owned Business to Watch

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about the future of business ownership in Black America, starting with these 25 companies.

A Black-owned business. Whenever Cheryl McKissack Daniel, a fifth-generation business owner, comes across that phrase, she feels compelled to act.

“I run to it – I feel like I have to support it,” says Daniel, Chair of the Board of McKissack, the oldest Black-owned construction company in the U.S. Her family founded the business in 1905. A civil engineer, she bought the business from her mother in 1999 and has run it ever since. “That’s the first thought that comes to mind because I know how hard it is to run a Black business in America. “When I hear ‘Black-owned business,’” Daniel adds, “I’m excited.”

There’s plenty of reasons to be excited regarding the future of business ownership in Black America. That’s because for the first time in U.S. history, the number of Black-owned employer businesses topped 200,000 firms. And those employers generated revenues of a whopping $249 billion, U.S. Census Bureau. Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, explained the findings in its research: Black employers are reaching new heights. The study uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau and notes that Black employers supplied over 1.8 million jobs that paid out salaries totaling $69 billion in 2023.

“When you recognize the real growth that’s actually happening,” Andre Perry, Brookings Director of the Center for Community Uplift, says, “you are cutting through the constant narrative that Black people aren’t doing well or there’s no growth or there’s just disparity.

“What it also points to,” Perry adds, “is that [Black America] is increasing opportunity for everyone. And whenever we have signals that more groups are participating fully in an economy, is when we have more signals that the American dream is achievable.”

Black people make up 14.4% of the U.S. population and own 4.6 million businesses, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Of these, 4.4 million – which generated $128.7 billion of the revenue in 2023 – have no employees at all.

“We’ve got a lot of black entrepreneurs,” says Don Cravins, CEO of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, a non-profit that connects larger corporations with smaller businesses. “How do we get them to have employees? How do we get them to grow, to scale?”

It’s not always easy, especially these days, with challenges like tariffs, high inflation, and the Trump Administration’s opposition to DEI, which puts federal supplier contracts at risk for many companies. Among his 16,000 member businesses, Cravins says fear of losing business because of unfair DEI backlash remains a major concern.

“No minority business I’ve ever run across says, ‘Hey, just give me something for nothing,’” Cravins says. “They want access. They want an opportunity to be seen, to be heard and to compete—to win on their own laurels.”

25 Top Businesses To Watch

ForbesBLK: 25 Top Black-Owned Businesses To Watch In 2026

With that in mind, ForbesBLK scoured the country looking for companies that deserve to be seen. Among the 25 employer-businesses and entrepreneurs fueling this new ForbesBLK list are a food company that makes all of McDonald’s sauces, a construction company whose clients include Meta, and Apple, and a World Wide Technology. All of them were founded, owned and/or run by black entrepreneurs and business people. To create this dynamic list, we spoke to venture capitalists and business organizations; tapped Forbes’ journalists and lists and scoured companies solving problems through innovation. To qualify, companies had to have at least $75 million in revenue or a valuation of at least $100 million for VC-backed startups. We also considered company growth rates and employee count to vet candidates. (See full methodology below).

Methodology

Forbes launched its ForbesBLK platform in 2023 to champion and highlight business and community leaders in the Black community. Since its launch, ForbesBLK has hosted three business summits in Atlanta, featured the World’s Black Billionaires, and published two ForbesBLK 50 lists, one on top financiers and another on top executives and entrepreneurs.

To create our third list, the 25 Businesses To Watch list, Forbes spoke with numerous industry sources and organizations, including the National Minority Supplier Development Council, U.S. Black Chambers, and McKinsey & Company. We also consulted venture capital firms 645 Ventures, Base Ventures, Revolution Ventures, and Mac Venture Capital. The criteria used to make the final selections included revenue ($75 million to $2.5 billion), growth rate, longevity, and industry reputation. We targeted small to large firms, and legacy businesses with century-old roots and new ventures already getting traction with over 15 years in business required $75-100 million in revenue. Startups that didn’t hit the revenue minimum required a valuation of at least $100 million. We verified financials using company information, news articles, and third-party data from sources including PitchBook.

Source: Forbes