Alphonzo Terrell founded Spill, the black-owned Twitter alternative, after he was laid off from Twitter. The platform was created to provide a safer and more inclusive environment for diverse communities.
Last year, Spill raised a $2 million seed extension and grew to around 200,000 users. Today, the platform is celebrating the fact that Emmy-winning actress Kerry Washington has made an investment in the app, according to TechCrunch.
She has been a regular user of the app, hosting live video conversations known to users as “tea parties” for her followers.
“She’s incredibly accessible and knowledgeable, especially around these topics, and is not scared in any way, shape, or form about really engaging with people directly,” said Terrell to TechCrunch. “I think it really does represent the kind of environment we want to cultivate on Spill… We’re all humans here, too. Let’s connect.”
“When I joined Spill as a user, I was amazed and inspired by how safe the community felt. I immediately wanted to support the growth of the platform because safety is a powerful tool to foster honesty, creativity, connection, and community,” added the UnPrisoned star in a statement.
“In a digital world where marginalized groups, especially Black, Brown, and LGBTQIA folks, rarely feel prioritized, Spill stands out,” Washington said, according to TechCrunch. “I’m proud to be part of this community as both a user and an investor.”
Users on Spill are called Spillionaires and can express themselves by easily adding 90 characters of text to an image, GIF, or video. Also, individuals can share, quote, or comment on each post, or “Spill” what they see in their brew, and the Spillboard makes it easy to discover the hottest Spills and latest trends from all over the world, according to Vibe.
Washington is an American actress who started her career as a teenager. She has starred as crisis management expert Olivia Pope in the ABC drama series Scandal and is known for her portrayal of Anita Hill in the HBO television political thriller film Confirmation and her role as Mia Warren in the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere.
She has also featured in movies Ray, Fantastic Four, Django Unchained, Our Song, The Dead Girl, Mother and Child, Night Catches Us, and American Son (2019).
In 2014, Time magazine included Washington in its Time 100 list of most influential people. Also, Forbes named her the eighth highest-paid television actress in 2018.
Some of the awards she has won include the Primetime Emmy Award and five NAACP Image Awards, including The President’s Award.
Besides films and TV shows, Washington has been an angel investor for startup Byte; fundraising company Omaze; and an SMS-based marketing tool known as Community.
The “Scandal” star’s first investment was in female co-working space The Wing, which she said was part of her commitment to “ideas of inclusivity and community, celebrating identity in a really inclusive way, supporting women’s voices, supporting marginalized voices.”
