We are coming to the end of Black History Month, which has been celebrated every October in the UK for over 30 years — a way of acknowledging, celebrating and reflecting on the achievements of those of African and Caribbean descent in the UK.
Within our community of Venture Capital, we are far away from the representation we would like to see, but are optimistic of the progress that is being made. To that end, in celebration of Black History Month, we’d like to elevate the black voices in the industry. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and there are many more black VCs and ecosystem partners doing amazing work behind the scenes. …
Diversity VC is a volunteer-run non-profit partnership that was officially launched 3 years ago today, on International Womens’ Day 2017. At the time of launch, we had a scrappy squarespace website, a makeshift logo, zero subscribers but a strong desire to make a change.
Since then, we have been on a remarkable journey in our efforts to build a fairer, more inclusive Venture Capital industry. We wanted to share our learnings from the last three years, celebrate our progress and look forward to the exciting future ahead for diversity in Venture Capital.
What we have researched
As we first set out to mobilize the industry, no fact-base existed to highlight the degree of homogeneity that VC faced. Fast forward 3 years later and we have published a number of first-of-their-kind studies and partnered with several organisations to illustrate the state of the…
Name any well-known tech brand, Spotify, Dropbox, UIPath, … chances are it started with funding from venture capitalists — investors that take on high risks to put money behind new ideas. Yet, whilst VC might be a dynamic investment industry, the space is still lagging behind across the board when it comes to diversity and inclusion.
That’s why we at Diversity VC, a nonprofit created to tackle this problem, staged an intervention in summer 2019 by launching Future VC, a programme to support highly-skilled professionals and graduates from diverse backgrounds into the UK VC landscape.
In 2017 Diversity VC conducted a research project which found that two-thirds of UK venture funds have no senior women, and just 13% of partners at VCs are women. Two years on an update to the research found that the number of senior women had remained static: still 13%. These issues aren’t unique to the UK. In San Francisco, just 1% of venture capitalists are Latinx, 3% are black, and 18% are women. Starkly, black and Latinx women make up close to 0% of the venture capital industry in Silicon Valley. …
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 increasing diversity will lead to better returns, increased talent retention and more creativity.
However, it is unclear how Limited Partners who invest in VC funds are actively encouraging or assessing diversity and inclusion in the managers they are investing in.
Diversity VC is a non-profit launched in March 2017 with the mission of creating a fairer and more diverse venture capital industry. …
Recent cases of abuse of power and inappropriate / unprofessional behaviour in the Venture Capital and Tech community have highlighted the need to create safe spaces for entrepreneurs and VCs to share their experiences so this behaviour can be identified and addressed. Therefore, we want to create an online safe space in which those who need to share experiences of sexual harassment and abuses of power can do so anonymously and confidentially.
As part of our mission to foster a fairer and more diverse VC industry, facilitating the kind of dialogue is of paramount importance to us.
We are collaborating with other individuals and organisations on this challenge and want your help and input on what format or kind of space space would be most valuable to you. Please email thoughts, suggestions and ideas to info@diversity.vc on contact us directly on Twitter or Medium. …
Black people make up less than 1 percent of Venture Capitalists and the figures for black tech entrepreneurs fare no better. Can these numbers be higher? Absolutely. It’s part of the reason why I decided to support the efforts of Diversity VC. I first came across the group on Twitter back in 2016 and as an ethnic minority who’s interested in both investment and entrepreneurship ecosystems, I immediately reached out to support the mission.
One of the ways we can inspire more diversity in the industry is by promoting talent from various backgrounds and all corners of society. With that in mind, I thought I’d kick off my first blog post with a highlight of black tech talent to watch in 2017. The list is by no means comprehensive and in the coming months I hope to share more. …
Francesca Warner
Over the last months since launching Diversity.VC in April 2016, the team and I have had numerous conversations about the challenges of breaking into the VC industry, particularly without a ‘traditional’ banking or consultancy background, or if in whatever way you are not cookie cutter.
Our mission with Diversity.VC is to make the industry more accessible to a broad range of people; not just those who know someone already working in it. So we’ve collected the resources below that our VC members have found useful for getting a job in Venture Capital. …
TLDR: in Venture Capital, diversity of thought is either missing or not ‘in play’ in 90% of venture firms. In order to improve fund and industry performance, as well as for the benefit of society as a whole, this must be urgently addressed.
Despite talk of inflated valuations and bubbles, it’s a great time to be a Venture Capital investor, especially in Europe. Accel and Octopus have just announced new funds, following hot on the heels of Local Globe, Mosaic and others. Even investment from China is coming. From London to Berlin, Stockholm to Lisbon, Tel-Aviv to Athens, there are many reasons to feel optimistic.
However, Venture Capital is still a sector with one of the most homogenous workforces in the world. …
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