By Vishal Persaud
58 Black investors changing the venture capital industry with firms that fund diverse startup founders
- DEI has been a hot-button topic as billionaires and lawsuits question whether its needed.
- Black VCs who specifically back startup founders of color are undeterred by these efforts.
- These Black VCs hope to change the industry by investing in more underrepresented startup founders.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion has been a hot topic of conversation lately — especially among billionaires who don’t see the need for it,
DEI initiatives have been intensely scrutinized after the US Supreme Court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions last year, and that’s had ripple effects in the business world. There’s been an ongoing backlash against corporate DEI. And that’s manifested in DEI departments paring down and legal action, like the ongoing lawsuit against the VC firm Fearless Fund by a conservative nonprofit claiming its grant program is discriminatory.
Funds like Fearless Fund and many featured on this list were buoyed by corporate pledges to focus on DEI more in hiring and funding in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in the summer of 2020. But now, nearly four years later, much of that progress appears in danger of being scaled back because DEI has fallen out of favor in parts of the corporate world. Yet, billionaires like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Mark Cuban believe diversity should remain a priority.
For VC firms with investments theses centered on backing underrepresented startup founders, many remain undeterred in light of the grim state of play.
“We will continue doing what we were set up to do,” wrote Claude Grunitzky, the CEO of The Equity Alliance, in a recent newsletter. “If some investors are now getting cold feet over our DEI mandate, over our focus on racial and gender equity, that’s alright. We are not shaking in our boots.”
Many other Black VCs are addressing long-standing DEI issues in the VC industry by slowly moving the investing needle toward more underrepresented founders who have traditionally been overlooked.
Notable investments: Emtech, Bump, SoloFunds, SocialCrowd
What kinds of companies he invests in: Seed stage fintech, SaaS, and commerce enablement startups.
Why he’s on the list: Kevin Moore’s dream 20 years ago was to start his own venture capital firm. He recalled sitting in his work cubicle and jotting down goals. Launching a VC firm was at the top of that list. Last year, Moore realized that dream and launched Serac Ventures, an early-stage firm based in Oklahoma City.
Moore says his childhood was “turbulent” and that he experienced periods of homelessness and financial depravity. But that experience instilled valuable life skills that he hopes to pass on to the next generation of underrepresented startup founders. “Now that I’ve started my own venture capital firm, I have an opportunity to back underrepresented individuals (like me) with the same grit, determination, and mental fortitude that it takes to build something great,” Moore told Business Insider.
Moore developed an interest in finance in his last year as an engineering student at Oklahoma State University After two years as an engineer, he switched fields and became a financial advisor, working at Northwestern Mutual and Morgan Stanley. He later got into VC at i2E, a private not-for-profit in Oklahoma that invests in entrepreneurs, and then at Spur Capital Partners, a fund of funds manager.
Original article: https://www.businessinsider.com/black-venture-capital-investors-firms-invest-diverse-underrepresented-startup-founders/
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