In 2021, in partnership with Silicon Valley Bank, BLCK VC launched our first State of Black Venture Survey to take a look at the landscape for Black investors. What we found was confirmation of the general assumptions we already had:
- Venture Capital is majority white and male.
- Black venture investors who are reaching partner level (while the numbers are very small) are the biggest lever in further increasing inclusion and representation in venture.
- Black fund managers face outsized barriers in raising capital (46% smaller fund sizes) than their non-Black peers.
- As with most studies (if they do their job) the findings result in both learnings and more questions than answers.
From the release of the Report, as we continue conversations around the key learnings, we have the following hypotheses for the State of Black Venture v2:
- The Black VC community is more impactful than we imagined.
- Black investors are THE leaders in changing the venture ecosystem. The scale of innovation and growth is both a result of systemic barriers and this scale and growth is the outperformance of white peers.
- Black men’s and Black women’s experiences in venture are vastly different.
- The State of Black Venture Report must double-click into the successes and systemic barriers experienced specifically by Black women in venture capital
- Black investors are starting their own funds for a myriad of reasons, regardless of the obvious racist barriers, they will ultimately endure.
- Whether a lack of opportunity within their current venture firm, having a “Partner” title but no actual check writing authority, or having success as a founder or operator, Black investors remain inexorable in our pursuit of impact and returns through venture capital
- The opportunity for Black venture investors is more boundless than limited.
- The Black venture community continues to revolutionize the VC ecosystem in more ways than we were able to capture in our first report. The second survey will allow further analysis to uncover and illustrate the vastness of opportunity within both the Black VC community itself and in the partnerships with allies.
The State of Black Venture Survey is out now!
Many thanks to the State of Black Venture Report taskforce:
Sarah Millar; DiversityVC
Aisling Carlson; Seio.io
Aya Spencer, Sonia Koshy; Kapor Capital +Kapor Center
Candice Morgan, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Partner at GV (Google Ventures)
Maryam Haque; Venture Forward (NVCA)
Damian Anderson; Crunchbase
Yoon Sun Hur, Penn State
This report would not be possible without our partners from Silicon Valley Bank:
Jeremy Rich, Courtney Karnes, and John China
Why we need your help and participation:
We can only improve upon what we can track, and we can only track what we can measure.
At BLCK VC, our mission is to transform the venture capital industry by advocating for policy change, creating programs to engage and connect new and experienced Black investors, and creating meaningful partnerships with vision-aligned allies.
We compare the data collected from the State of Black Venture Survey with the research conducted by our partners (Crunchbase, DiversityVC, SVB, Kapor, Penn State, etc), to create specific and actionable insights around recruiting, investing in, advocating for, and allocating capital to Black investors within VC.
Who should contribute to the State of Black Venture Survey:
If you identify as Black investor of any kind, your participation is essential. Please take the survey here.
If you do not identify as a Black investor, please help us by amplifying the report to your networks.
The insights from the State of Black Venture Survey will help us influence public policy, and create programming specifically addressing the racist systemic barriers faced by Black investors in VC.
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