The Power Of Diversity
When non-profit StartOut and Socos Labs launched their Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) survey in March 2021, the main goal was to address the talent and resource gap at a time when the US needed every region and every community to reach its full potential to kickstart the US economy post Covid-19.
As Andres Wydler, StartOut’s executive director said at that time, “we need to understand every community’s contributions and unrealized potential today. What is unseen cannot be addressed”.
And here we are… Their Inclusion Impact Indexes data insights show that over the last 20 years, $940B in exits could have reached $1.6T if all entrepreneurs had received equal access to resources. Consequently, more inclusive access to resources for women entrepreneurs would have created over 1.3 million additional jobs in the US. Check their inclusion impact index on this link.
It is an undeniable fact… Diversity is strength and power.
Since I work at Kiwitech, I am proud to have brought 35 Startups with over $9M in equity to Kiwitech’s portfolio, where 49% of the founders are from a diverse background.
Entrepreneurs are the heroes of our economy. “Despite the challenges of the pandemic, female founders continued to outperform — exiting quicker and at higher valuations” shown in PitchBook latest All In Female Founders in the US VC Ecosystem report. I definitely look forward to seeing more diverse role models in the mainstream!
Increasing diverse founders access to capital
One of the common hurdles entrepreneurs I speak to face is access to capital, so I’d like to share here some public and useful resources.
- Female Focus Angel groups & Accelerators
LaunchPad2x, SoGal, Astia, Chloe Capital, Golden Seeds, Portfolia, Pipeline Angels, Stella Angels, Female Founder Alliance, Enrich Her
- Community driven organizations
Hello Alice Small Business Center, Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, Black Girl Ventures, Women Founders Network, Spring Entreprise
- Public resources & Investors that will look at diversity
SEC access to capital, The Capital Network, Investors database
A lot of different flowers make a bouquet
Nature can teach us a lot about the value of diversity. If you plant all the same trees in a park, in the event of one gets a disease, you run the risk of seeing all the trees getting the disease. Planting different varieties helps in survival.
As leaders seek to address the issues of climate change, especially since the COP26 in Glasgow, it is the time to take a holistic view that considers diversity and inclusion principles.
COP26 president, Alok Sharma, stated that we need to work together to deliver a cleaner, greener world.
Well… “The future depends on what we do in the present” (Mahatma Gandhi). So, let’s make 2022 the best year ever.
Happy holidays!
