The State of Gender Compensation in Venture 2022

This year's report takes a deeper look at how investors' compensation has changed year-over year by AUM and how women’s representation at each position has changed. It also examines how the introduc...

Black VCs Can Make a Bigger Impact With Institutional & Individual Investors’ Help

The share of venture capital dollars managed by Black men and women is less than 1% for each, and Black founders have raised only 1.2% of venture dollars, according to Crunchbase. Geri Stengel profile...

The Other Diversity Dividend

A new study shows that diversity significantly improves financial performance on measures such as profitable investments at the individual portfolio-company level and overall fund returns....

A Rolling Fund May Be Just What Women And BIPOC Venture Capitalists Need To Raise Funding

Sourcing funding for diverse VC emerging managers is a struggle. Lisa Morales-Hellebo and Brian Laung Aoaeh, general partners and cofounders at REFASHIOND Ventures, think outside of the box to address...

European Women in VC

European Women in VC: Analyzing the Role and Importance of Women as Check Writers and Start-up Founders...

An Early-Stage Supply Chain Tech Venture Capitalist’s Take on ESG and Impact Investing Considerations

Although it's hard for early-stage startups to meaningfully measure ESG and impact outcomes, these considerations can still be taken into account when making investment decisions. Brian Laung Aoaeh sh...

Let’s Talk LP Diversity

LP diversity has been a popular topic of conversation lately, but substantive analysis has been hamstrung by the lack of data. Sapphire's Beezer Clarkson finally sheds some light on the true outlines ...

Who Are the LPs that are Investing in Underrepresented-Led VC Managers?

Many LPs are actively backing underrepresented managers (primarily women-led firms and people of color) through direct mandates or an increased focus and preference toward investing in underrepresente...

A Conversation on LP Demographics

This Twitter thread from Kia Kokalitcheva of Axios kicked off a highly relevant (and candid!) conversation on LP demographics. Journalists, GPs, and LPs all jumped in to have their say....

Ten Leading VCs Team Up On A $50 Million Fund To Back Underrepresented Investors

Would-be venture capitalists looking to raise a fund for the first time often face a chicken-and-egg problem: to raise money, they’re expected to demonstrate a track record of promising startup inve...

What happens when a VC partner has a baby?

Having a baby is a daunting prospect for many VC partners. What happens to board seats? Or dealflow? And what do LPs say?...

Solving VC’s ESG Puzzle

“How does a venture firm ‘do’ ESG with early-stage startups?” This is a common question from venture firms, limited partners, academics, and the media — and the answer is, well, not so obvio...

Diverse and emerging fund managers in the private market asset class

Aakar Vachhani of Fairview Capital shares the LP perspective on the She-VC podcast....

Diversity across the growth stage investing landscape

Hunter Somerville of Greenspring Associates shares the LP perspective on the She-VC podcast....

Annual VC Human Capital Survey

The third edition of Deloitte's VC Human Capital Survey assesses the state of the US VC industry workforce, with a special focus on DEI. Results from this edition were benchmarked against findings fro...

A new fund aims to provide diverse investors the opportunity to build wealth

For years, women, people of color, and allies in Silicon Valley have been working to diversify who receives venture capital funding. But that issue runs parallel to another: Who has the opportunity t...

Deena Shakir from Lux Capital speaks about firm culture, solving the diversity issue, and how portfolio management is a team sport

Deena Shakir is a General Partner at Lux Capital, a firm founded in 2000 and has since raised $2.5 billion. Lux invests in emerging science and deep technology startups such as Auris Health, Cerulea...

#ESGinVC: Promoting a collective effort to share ESG frameworks, practices and visions in Venture Capital

The venture capital industry has been maturing and standardization across the globe has taken shape. However, when we started thinking about how to formalize our investment principles to encompass our...

DIVERSITY EQUITY & INCLUSION: DARYN DODSON – TRAINING AND ACTION AT ILLUMEN CAPITAL

Daryn Dodson is the founder of Illumen Capital, a venture fund of funds that seeks to invest in the best impact fund managers and takes them through a process to reduce implicit bias in their business...

Diversity in VC: Learnings from an LP Audit and how we can make this better together

This winter, Women in VC, the world’s largest community of female venture investors, released a report on “The Untapped Potential of Women-led Funds.” The research was stark, if not surprising....

Table Stakes 2020: A Study Analyzing Equity Distribution By Gender, Race & Ethnicity, & Geography

Owning equity in a successful company can make a material impact on one’s financial well-being and ability to grow wealth.  Read the full report....

#ESGinVC: Promoting a collective effort to share ESG frameworks, practices and visions in Venture Capital

As investors in early stage Venture Capital funds, at BFP we obviously ask ourselves what our role should be as a GP for our investors and as an LP for our portfolio managers. But as a team with dif...

How (And Why) To Make Venture Funding More Equitable

Despite a growing awareness of the inequities in venture funding, along with the massive untapped financial opportunities from investing in underestimated founders, the stark discrepancy between wh...

The Untapped Potential of Women-led Funds

Here’s the inconvenient truth: the funding stats for female founders are not improving. Even with an influx of initiatives aimed at building awareness and closing the funding gap, women are still be...

Announcing the Black Venture Institute

Today, we are thrilled to announce our newest and largest program yet: the Black Venture Institute. We’ve been busy working on this initiative all summer with incredible partners that include Oper...

Is impact investing having an impact on investing?

Last week, I joined colleagues from the impact investing community for a panel discussion at the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) Summit, New Horizons to tackle the ques...

Common Traits Shared by Top GPs, Why Underrepresented Fund Managers Will Produce Superior Returns (Lo Toney)

Lo Toney of Plexo Capital joins Nick to discuss Common Traits Shared by Top GPs, Why Underrepresented Fund Managers Will Produce Superior Returns, and SPACs vs. Direct Listings vs. IPOs. In this episo...

How Valence Aims to Provide Better Access and Funding for Black Founders & Executives

I’m so fricking pumped today. Really, truly. Yeah, Valence announced > $5 million in funding led by GGV and Upfront. That IS a big deal, but I’ll get to that....

Widening the Aperture in Venture Capital: A Conversation about Expanding Diversity & Inclusion in Silicon Valley and Beyond

The data tell the story: Less than 1% of venture capital in the United States is invested in companies led by Black entrepreneurs. Add "female" as a data filter and it drops to 0.2%. Amid reckoning wi...

Venture Capital Realizes that its Race Problem Extends Beyond Each Firm

As firms pledge their support to the Black community and launch diversity initiatives, there is also acknowledgement that the industry is not a meritocracy....

Voices of Women in Venture

'Voices of Women in Venture' is a curated playlist of podcast episodes featuring the voices of female leaders in venture capital....

Diversity in Venture Capital: Taking Action to Actually Change the Ratio

Kim Smith, executive director of the League of Innovative Schools, has worked for many years to address education equity and has a unique perspective on the barriers to entrepreneurship. In this inte...

The questions LPs can ask for due diligence on diversity and inclusion in VC

It is widely recognised that improving diversity and inclusion in the venture capital and private equity industries is the right thing to do. Not only that, but there is strong evidence that increasin...

Reflections on Being a Female Founder

Not a lot is written about being a female founder and CEO. I used to believe that my journey as a startup founder was the same as any other founder's experience, regardless of gender, in that it is lo...

Want To Solve Venture Capital’s Diversity Problem? Start With Pension Funds

For all the well-intentioned talk on social media and beyond about the need for diversity and inclusion after the killing of George Floyd, there is one thing that speaks louder than anything else in ...

Why Smart Investors and Founders Use the “Inclusion Premium”

If you’ve ever thought about spending your money with one brand instead of another because one of them had a better reputation, you’ve got impact investing in your DNA....

Venture Capital Bias towards Women and Rise of Female VC Fund Manager

Venture capital is often called a ‘bro industry’ and the reasons are many. Only 2.2% of the VC money goes into female founded startups....

Since You Asked: Here are the Ways to Get Involved with HBCUvc and to Advance Racial Equity in VC and Technology

On June 1, 2020, the venture capital industry had an awakening. Before this, Black entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and ecosystem builders led conversations, hosted conferences, and wrote thought p...

10 Practices of Sustainable Diversity in VC Partnerships

The last several weeks have been eye-opening into the systemic racism that exists across our society. Unfortunately the recent events are not a new phenomenon — just more visible in a world of socia...

So You Want to Fund Black Founders

I was one of the first Black investors to be promoted to Partner at a venture capital firm. At the time (2015), I was also one of the youngest, having just turned 31 years old....

Potential down market could temper VCs’ promise of more diversity

Venture hiring by definition is exclusive. Legally, investors have to be able to fork out their own capital, ranging from hundreds of thousands to multi-millions, to join as a partner of a fund, mean...

Black Funding Matters: Time for LPs to Really Diversify — Through Diversity

As venture capital’s ultimate source of capital, LPs are driving the industry’s lack of diversity — and they’re missing out on returns because of it....

If you’re not investing in diverse founders, you’re a bad investor

We won’t sit here as we have for so many years with strong faces and encouraging words and pretend that we’re not tired....

Diversity must not be sidelined in the distribution of the government’s £1bn start-up support package

Today, in response to the devastating economic impact of Covid-19, the UK tech community received the welcome news of the government’s new support package for start-ups, providing a £500m injectio...

Deconstructing the Pipeline Myth and the Case for More Diverse Fund Managers

Entrepreneurship is influenced by many factors, including ones that may not seem obvious, like ethnicity and culture. Much has been written about diversity in the startup and venture capital worlds...

The Role Of Limited Partners In Investment Inclusivity

Individuals making most of the large decisions in the investment world – both in venture capital and private equity – are predominantly white, male and Ivy-league educated. This has consequenc...

Data Show that Gender-Inclusive Founding Teams Have Greater Success in Fundraising and Innovation

The glass ceiling is being chipped away more and more each year, but the task of shattering it is far from over. In the ever-evolving realm of startups and venture capital in the United States, we ...

Launching Through the Looking Glass: Underrepresented Limited Partner Views

We could not be more excited to announce a new content series focused on amplifying underrepresented Limited Partner voices....

Why am I launching She-VC with ‘Women in VC’ global community?

Venture capital is often called a ‘bro industry’ and the reasons are many. I was told that I may be the first female General Partner in a sports VC fund and I was shocked that we are still talking...

Fairview Capital 2018 Market Review of Woman and Minority-Owned Private Equity Firms

The universe of woman and minority-owned private equity firms grew and evolved significantly in 2018, rising to 312 at year-end, up from 240 at the end of 2017. The increase represented the largest ev...

Women In Venture

There is a lot of news of late about women in the venture capital industry. Top Tier Capital Partners (“TTCP”) has long been a proponent of diversity – and that is apparent if you look at our te...

Making the System Work For Everyone

When I was young, my dad used to tell me that there was a proverb in Greek that went something along the lines of: “there is a special shame in taking the last morsel of food.” The lesson was an a...