I started my career in VC 3.5 years ago as an associate at TechNexus. TechNexus is a seed stage VC firm which uniquely and successfully positions itself as a strategic growth partner to corporations. Over the past few years of working in the VC industry, I’ve made it a point to develop networks of organizations and other VCs that fund and support companies at the earliest stages.
Prior to joining TechNexus as an investor, I was the founder of La Plataforma, a social impact fintech platform that sends international money transfers throughout Latin America for the unbanked. As a founder, my team and I participated in numerous accelerators and then raised a $50k pre-seed round in 2019.
As a Black, woman founder, raising capital was a challenge to say the least. Despite going to Stanford for undergrad and Columbia Business School for my MBA, very few were willing to take a chance on me.
The difficulty of raising capital for La Plataforma was never something I attributed to my race or gender. Everyone said entrepreneurship is hard and raising capital is a slow process, so I just assumed it was equally hard for everyone.
Fast forward to 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the light it shed on racial inequities, I realized that capital raising was exponentially harder for me, and other Black founders and Womxn founders like me, simply because of my race and my gender. Only 1% of venture backed companies have a Black founder. Furthermore, Black women raised 0.0006% of all VC funding over the past decade.
Realizing, retroactively, that my race and gender, combined, put me at a nearly insurmountable disadvantage, I’ve compiled a database of organizations that are actively deploying capital to Black, Latinx and Womxn led companies at the earliest stages.
Database focused on venture scale businesses:VCs and Orgs Funding Black, Latinx and Womxn led VenturesA new tool for teams & individuals that blends everyday work apps into one.www.notion.so
Database focused on SMBs & Lifestyle businesses:Orgs Funding Black, Latinx & Womxn led SMBsA new tool for teams & individuals that blends everyday work apps into one.www.notion.so
I’ve developed these databases through my experience navigating the VC industry as a founder and early-stage investor. I want Womxn of Color who choose to tackle the entrepreneurial journey for themselves to realize success and have doors opened for them based on their unique ability to see problems that have historically been ignored and build solutions to those problems that have historically been underfunded.
(If I missed your org or VC, contact @tessaflippin on twitter to be added.)