Derrick N. Ashong is founder and CEO of amp.it. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

As an African immigrant entrepreneur who fled coup d'états in my home country of Ghana and grew up partly in the Gulf War-era Middle East, I have little trust for politicians. Due to the popularity of the "president for life" model in so many of the places I grew up, I'm used to politicians not addressing my concerns. But Elizabeth Warren gave me new hope last month.

As part of her plan to close the racial wealth gap, Warren wants to allocate $7 billion in federal funding to a Small Business Equity Fund that would help entrepreneurs and small business owners from underrepresented communities. If enacted, the policy would effectively make the federal government the nation's largest investor in minority-run startups.

Warren referenced an important statistic in her plan, which was posted on Medium: "[T]he average black-owned business only gets 3% of what a similar white-owned business receives in outside investment shortly after founding." In tech, it's even worse.

I know what that looks like from the inside. Despite having graduated from Harvard and establishing myself as a leader at the nexus of tech and media, it took me four years to raise the first $1 million in seed funding for my startup.

From the outside, it seemed white entrepreneurs continually received the benefit of the doubt, while no matter what hoop I jumped through to prove my credibility, few investors would consider taking a risk on my company.