Chaymeriyia Moncrief, a tech entrepreneur from Alabama and founder and CEO of the prepaid wireless carrier, Tesix Wireless™ Network, has launched the “first black woman-owned smartphone brand.”
At 24, Moncrief, who turned down a $4.4 million takeover offer, raised over $5 million and her telecom company ended 2019 with a $10 million valuation. Now, she is 25 years and has ventured into smartphones and electronics.
Moncrief becomes the first African-American woman to launch her own line of smartphones, according to blackbusiness.com. Her electronic brand is named NSPRE™ Electronics featuring smartphones and other electronics.
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The brand’s first phone, the NSPRE™ NX Pro, is officially in production and has already sold out of its first pre-order batch. The NX Pro’s companion NX Pro Plus, Limited Edition model, is also available as the brand’s second launch with only a limited 300 devices available.
The NX Pro & NX Pro Plus are internationally unlocked, and the company will ship in the U.S., Africa, Canada, and Mexico. NSPRE™ will announce the release of two more products this fall.
Moncrief had, at the age of 12, already started pursuing her entrepreneurial dream. The Montgomery resident started off as a designer under her own branding agency which eventually turned into a business by age 16.
Chaymeriyia Moncrief grew up in Montgomery, AL and graduated high school in 2012. She subsequently attended Alabama State University for Business Management and Computer Science.
In 2016, she launched a Branding Studio before stepping into the world of technology at 24 after she had a bad experience with a cell phone company.
“You go in and they say your phone bill is going to be $98, but you are getting a $150 or $200 bill. I think the final straw for me was a $235 bill, and that is when I said I want my own company,” she told WSFA.
That gave birth to Tesix Wireless, a telecommunications company that announced its launch in summer 2018. “The name [Tesix Wireless] comes from two things: Technology and sixteen because sixteen is when I started my entrepreneurship journey. The name has a personal meaning to me,” Moncrief said.
