A year ago, BLCK VC, in partnership with Operator Collective and Salesforce Venture, launched a new institute — a new organization that aims to foster more equity and opportunity in the venture capital industry through education and access.
We were inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests to reflect on our own experiences with systemic racial inequity in our community. The venture capital industry has systemic barriers that hinder many Black investors from entering and thriving in the industry: A mere 4% of venture investors in 2020 were Black. And Black founders received just 3% of the overall venture dollars invested last year. We believe it is up to us to join forces and commit to taking intentional action to shift these statistics.
It’s been a year of continued growth and learning. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, we would like to share our progress.
Our goals
We created the Black Venture Institute (BVI) to catalyze the next generation of Black check writers. Our goal was to 5X the number of Black check writers over the next three years. One year in, we’re proud to announce we’re making significant headway.
Our metrics
We measure our impact in multiple ways. Here are a handful of metrics we’re tracking:
We’ve graduated 160 BVI Fellows, bringing us more than halfway to our goal of 5X-ing the number of Black check writers in the ecosystem.
- These BVI Fellows are investing alongside and into each other as angel investors, scouts, venture investors, and limited partners. BVI Fellows credit the Black Venture Institute as instrumental in providing them with the confidence, knowledge, and networks they needed to make their first angel investments.
- BVI Fellows have made more than 300 individual angel investments. BVI Fellows have evaluated more than 1000 new investments.
- BVI Fellows are expanding their reach through their leadership in Cap Table Coalition, which includes Brooke Daniels, Donnel Baird, and Qiana Patterson. Cap Table Coalition mobilized more than $16 million in early-stage investments since it launched in mid-2021.
- More than one-third of our first-year graduates have already progressed into venture capital roles as investors, operating partners, scouts, limited partners, and venture partners. As part of this, BVI graduates have launched three new funds: mvmt ventures by Moaz Hamid, Silicon Hills Capital by Anita Roberts, and Capitalize VC by Tessa Flippin.
We would also like to congratulate Black Venture Institute’s third cohort: We’ve just graduated more than 50 new Black Venture Institute Fellows to mobilize capital! This new cohort joins a community of 160+ BVI Fellows from 20+ states. These BVI Fellows are founders, C-suite executives, product managers, directors, and operators. Individually, they’re leaders in their industries; collectively, they’re changing the industry by rebalancing the venture ecosystem and empowering the Black technology community.
This anniversary marks the beginning of a long journey to create lasting, meaningful change. BVI will continue to be an engine to empower Black check writers and founders across the ecosystem. To accelerate this growth, it’s going to take all of us. We hope you will join BLCK VC in our mission to create more Black investors and, ultimately, increase the amount of funding going to Black founders.
