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Kyrie Irving starts a consultancy providing coaching and mentoring services to black and female owned companies – and works with a new venture capital firm to provide the money.

Brooklyn Nets star’s new firm, KAI 11 Consulting, partners with Lockstep Ventures, a venture capital firm that, with Irving’s help, raised $ 25 million to invest in about 20 companies. The two companies plan to work together on every investment to thrive and grow.

“Traditional business growth opportunities have disproportionately excluded various minorities, hugely restricted access and created suspicion,” Irving said in a statement. “The KAI Eleven Consulting business model aims to provide a fairer process that removes systemic barriers to entry.”

Her first investment includes $ 250,000 in seed capital for Fleeting, an Atlanta-based, black-owned commercial freight forwarding company committed to employing women and people previously incarcerated. In addition to a three-month training program for a commercial driver’s license for new hires, Fleeting offers incentives for female truckers and family members by offering flexible working hours and access to shorter journeys.

Lockstep was co-founded earlier this year by Michael Loeb, Marcus Glover and Bonin Bough, who hosted LeBron James-created Cleveland Hustles, a local television series about investing in local businesses to improve troubled neighborhoods.

Kyrie IrvingNBAE / Getty Images

Bough said investors on the Cleveland Hustles show poured $ 1 million into local businesses and ended up doubling their money while improving the community.

“I’ve never seen anything … that really makes an impact on social change unless it’s tied to an economic return,” said Bough.

Lockstep has developed a plan to invest in companies that address racial disparities in health, criminal justice, financial literacy, and education. On the latter, Bough said the company is interested in distance learning companies that help students in underperforming schools.

Bonin Bough (L) and LeBron James appear in “Cleveland Hustles”NBCUniversal

Bough said meeting Irving, a philanthropist who bought a house for George Floyd’s family, was like a blind date.

“Kyrie heard what we were up to and thought there might be mutual interest and ultimately there was undeniable synergy,” Bough told The Post.