Diversity VC Digest ☕🤑
Your (monthly) digest of all things DEI in venture capital (July’s edition)
Welcome to July’s Diversity VC Digest. Your take on all things diversity, equity and inclusion in venture capital. A jam-packed, but (slightly) more compact missive this month, taking into account the unofficial ‘summer hiatus’ and team holidays over here at Diversity VC HQ.
We are collaborating with The Equality Group on their Honordex ranking. Joint research between our two organisations showed that VC funds that implemented Diversity VC’s “Standard” scored higher than VC funds that have not gone through this process. This is incredible validation for Diversity VC Members’ commitment to driving equality, diversity and inclusion in venture. Special mentions to Diversity VC Member Funds who placed Top 10; Balderton (#7), Kinnevik (#1), Anthemis (#8) and Atomico (#3).
We launched our 🔦Community Spotlight🔦 series, and if you haven’t already check out the first interviews to get to know Harry Briggs
and Janneke Niessen, Partner @ Capital T.🔎 A series of in-depth interviews to get to know key venture capital players. Those in the Diversity VC community who understand the positive power of DEI in investing and how they are using that to their advantage to remain on top.
🤌 Join us as we get to know key venture capital decision makers as you have never heard from them before. From what drives them and what moves them, to more personal insights, including the rules they live by, their favourite technology, and the legacies they want to leave behind.
July is/was Disability Pride Month. We are proud to be celebrating Disability Pride Month. Not least because Disability Pride Month starts conversations and raises awareness among people who are not part of the disabled community on how to be better allies and what they can do in support.
We were proud to support the launch of the Access2Funding Report launched this month from the incredible Clu team. Not least because headlines like this are still all too familiar: The challenges of building out a startup as an LGTBQ+ founder - Fierce Healthcare.
A recurring topic for our Diversity VC community is accessible and inclusive recruitment practices. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/e56tuekZ
We were thrilled to be at the launch of the British Business Bank "What Works" Report and be there to support their findings. Diversity VC is excited to signpost our Member Funds and investors towards this accessible guide focused on actions to close funding gaps for women, ethnic minorities, those from lower socio-economic backgrounds and all overlooked founders and fund managers.
The guide lays out three actionable pathways:
💡 Promote diversity at the top (LP's could be empowered to hold GPs truly accountable, for example)
💡 Fostering inclusion in the pipeline (particularly exciting at the early stage and for spotting and investing in outsize returns early)
💡 Embracing transparency and accountability
As Theodora T. Newman rightly summarises: "Let's seize this opportunity to drive change, tap into untapped talent, and shape a more inclusive innovation economy."
Congratulations to the team Louis Taylor Caroline English Shanika Amarasekara MBE, and to the Panel members who brought the potential positive impact of this guidance to life so thoughtfully on stage Reece Chowdhry Erika Brodnock Jan Rutherford Ilana Wisby
Policy trends
LP’s demand for liquidity drives VC’s to secondary markets
How PE is paving the way for private wealth
Underestimated start-up founders: The untapped opportunity
Turning intention into action: ESG_VC & BVCA Report
ACCELERATE: a new report with The Inclusion Initiative - Level20
Creating good jobs has not been a core pillar of national government strategies across the OECD, not least in the UK Treasury. But that is starting to change. The Biden administration’s Good Jobs Challenge and the Scholz government’s focus on the dignity of work provide two recent examples of how this shift in economic focus is playing out in other countries. A number of countries have developed a collaborative social partnership approach in response to disruption in the labour market: for instance, the Danish Disruption Council, Germany’s Industry 4.0, the Swedish Job Security Council, the New Zealand Future of Work Forum. Read more
Diversity in venture news
We are collaborating with The Equality Group on their Honordex ranking. Joint research between our two organisations showed that VC funds that implemented Diversity VC’s “Standard” scored higher than VC funds that have not gone through this process. This is incredible validation for Diversity VC Members’ commitment to driving equality, diversity and inclusion in venture. Special mentions to Diversity VC Member Funds who placed Top 10; Balderton (#7), Kinnevik (#1), Anthemis (#8) and Atomico (#3).
How can we make venture capital more inclusive? “People of diverse backgrounds — we see them being the lifeblood of venture capital going to diverse founders.”
BGV Breaks the VC Mold by Turning Diversity into a Competitive Advantage.
Growing understanding that diversity in VC is critical for long term success: AVV’s Hau Ly.
East Ventures Partner Avina Sugiarto says she was underestimated due to her gender in the past.
Venture Partners want to diversify who is a venture capital investor.
Fabrice do Rego on building one of the few Black-led funds in the EU.
Our friends over at Newton Venture Program talk about how the VC formula is holding back diversity.
VC's gender diversity problem has gotten worse says MDI Venture's Shannon Chaluangco.
Funds and funding news
SE Asia's young VC ecosystem has come a long way on diversity: Blueprint Ventures's Huiting Koh.
The beginning of the end of "value add" VC? Sequoia Capital has let go of seven people, or one third, of its team of people who help startups with their recruiting. The move was part of a broader “restructuring” of the firm two years in the making to move away from “support on a one-on-one level to something that could be delivered to more founders simultaneously," the firm tells Forbes.
The Bear Market has nearly been erased less than twenty months after it started. Bloomberg has more here.
Cleaning up ChatGPT takes a heavy toll on human workers; the WSJ takes a look.
With 99 investments in 2022, SFC was named the 'Most Active UK VC fund' by Beauhurst. We're especially proud of the balanced gender ratio we achieved with our investments, as well as our extensive efforts to unearth talent across the regions. Read more
But between the sustainable investing die-hards and the anti-ESG stalwarts, there’s a much bigger set of investors with nuanced views on how to balance investing for profit and investing for purpose, and that they need not be mutually exclusive. More here
Coca-Cola Forms $137 Million Venture Capital Fund to Focus on Sustainability. The Coca-Cola Company just took the wraps off the Greycroft Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, a new venture fund formed with eight of the beverage giant’s worldwide bottling partners. The $137.7 million vehicle will be reportedly be dedicated to sustainability-focused investments. Venture firm Greycroft, with its experience investing in enterprise, health tech, fintech, and consumer startups, will manage the fund. Each participant contributed approximately $15 million in capital commitments to the effort. Thomasnet has more here.
Quench.ai, a London startup that uses AI to search for the most relevant educational video content for professionals, raised a $5 million pre-seed round. Investors included firstminute capital, Tuesday VC, BY Venture Partners, Ada Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Notion Capital, Antler, Sequoia Scout Fund, and Northzone. Tech.eu has more here.
Should VC's pivot their brand-building channel?
Community spotlights
👋 Welcome to our newest members on the road to a full DEI diagnostic as part of the Diversity VC Standard 👋
👋 New members of the Community from Unovis VC
Reach out to say ‘Hello’ and maybe even arrange a coffee ☕️
Future VC
New roles for those in your networks looking for junior, including associate and intern, roles at VC Funds - be a guardian angel and share this link: Future VC Jobs Board
Want to post a role? Get in touch here.
Mark your calendars
D&I dates:
International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples - August 9
World Humanitarian Day - August 19
International Day of Remembrance of Slave Trade and its Abolition - August 23
Grief Awareness Day - August 30
VC Conference dates:
Let us know what we are missing!
Added value…
You can add the Diversity VC 2023 calendar for a list of the conferences and diversity & inclusion days for the year ahead: here
Impact Investing and the SFDR Toolkit
How to make your recruitment processes more accessible
ACCELERATE: a new report with The Inclusion Initiative - Level20
Human Rights and Venture Capital — towards a pragmatic tool