38 - Accelerating investment into diverse emerging fund managers

The Impact Investing Podcast

Today there is a growing recognition that we need to get far more capital into the hands of people who have been systematically excluded from entrepreneurship. Historically capital has disproportionately been allocated to a very narrow slice of entrepreneurs who are ivy league educated, white men. Meanwhile, women, people of colour, LGBTQ and Indigenous communities, and many others have been systematically excluded.

And while today there is a growing number of funds, incubators, and accelerators that have been established to get capital into the hands of a much more diverse group of entrepreneurs, we still have a long way to go.According to RateMyInvestor and Diversity VC's second "Diversity in U.S. Startups" report, "VC-backed startups in the United States are still significantly male (89.3%), white (71.6%), based in Silicon Valley (35.3%) and Ivy-educated (13.7%)."

Part of the problem is that those who allocate capital to entrepreneurs (e.g. fund managers) are still mostly represented by wealthy white men. According to our next guest's research, of the roughly $70 trillion of investment assets in the United States, just about 1% is managed by diverse asset managers.

In this episode, we're joined by Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson, Founder & CEO of VC Include. What distinguishes Bahiyah's efforts are that while others are focused on supporting diverse entrepreneurs, Bahiyah's efforts are focused on supporting diverse fund managers. Bahiyah's expertise in leading technology, investment, and social impact initiatives since the early 2000s culminated in her creating VC Include in 2018 to build platforms and programs for diverse emerging managers globally. VC Include was established to meet the market opportunity by building an ecosystem of women, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ fund managers.

During the episode, we discuss who and why certain groups of people get systematically excluded from the private equity industry, conscious vs unconscious bias, the moral imperative, structural inequalities, and how VC Include supports diverse emerging fund managers to overcome the hurdles that prevent them from raising and managing more capital.

Resources from this episode:

• VC Include website, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Gender Lens Investing In and By Private Market Funds, During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic: a View from Capital Connect written by Bahiyah and Suzanne Biegel