Black-Led VC Firms and Non-Black VC Firms

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  3. Black-Led VC Firms and Non-Black VC Firms

According to our research, a lot of the Black-led VC firms cannot measure to the biggest VC firms in the US. Except for Base-10, all the other bigger Black-led venture capital firms invest anywhere between $100,000 and $500,000, while VC companies like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital can invest upwards of $5 million per company. There is also quite a big difference in the fund size between the bigger Black-led VC firms in the US and the non-Black VC firms. Most Black-led VC firms have a fund size of several million up to several hundred million, while the biggest VCs in the US have billions in assets under management.

Black-led VC firms

Base-10

Harlem Capital

  • Harlem Capital was founded in 2015 by Henri Pierre-Jacques, Jarrid Tingle, Brandon Bryant, and John Henry.
  • They have an agnostic approach to the area of investment but their ultimate goal is to support minority-led start-ups.
  • Since their inception, they have invested in 23 companies from 11 different industries.
  • They usually invest between $500,000 and $1 million in seed and Series A funding rounds.
  • In 2019, they gathered a $40 million investment fund, with which they aim to invest in over 1,000 minority and women-led ventures in the next 20 years.

Backstage

  • Backstage is a micro VC that aims to help underrepresented founders find the right amount of funding to realize their ideas.
  • The VC does not invest in any specific industry vertical, but focuses exclusively on start-ups led by women, people of color, and LGBTQ+.
  • They have so far invested in over 140 start-ups since their inception in 2015, using their $5 million investment fund.
  • They invest anywhere between $25,000 to $100,000 per company.
  • In 2019, they announced that they will be raising another $36 million fund to help underrepresented founders.

DreamIt

  • DreamIt Ventures is an early-stage accelerator program that specifically helps minority-owned startups.
  • They help companies in three industry verticals: healthtech, urbantech, and securetech.
  • Each company has to undergo a 14-week training through their Dreamit Access program.
  • Since their launch in 2008, DreamIt Ventures has helped almost 300 early-stage companies, which have been able to raise an additional $800 million in funding after they completed the accelerator’s program.
  • The combined value of the companies under their management exceeds $2 billion.
  • DreamIt usually invests up to $500,000 per company.
  • They most recently raised an additional $12 million to their investment fund. They are also backed by the $3 billion Water Street Tampa redevelopment project

Digitalundivided

  • Digitalundivided is a social start-up that aims to help Black and Latinx women succeed in their ventures.
  • While the company is a social venture and not a true venture capital firm, they have invested heavily in women-led start-ups.
  • Their Doonie Fund gathered $150,000, which allowed DID to invest $10,000 into 1,500 women-led start-ups.
  • They have continued the to invest up to $10,000 into minority-owned women ventures since then.

Precursor Venture

  • Precursor Venture is an early-seed VC firm based in San Francisco.
  • The firm focuses mainly on companies that develop fintech products, digital technologies, or edtech.
  • They have invested in over 136 companies in nine different verticals.
  • The VC firms typically commits between $100,000 and $250,000 per company but they do reserve the possibility to invest more if the company shows promise.
  • So far, the company has completed two investment funds. The first one raised over $15 million, while the second one raised $31 million.
  • They have also started a third fund, with the goal to raise at least $40 million to help founders from a wide variety of “backgrounds in terms of gender, race, academic experience and life circumstances.”

MaC Venture Capital

Non-Black VC firms

Andreessen Horowitz

  • Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, is one of the more recent additions to the venture capital industry.
  • Nonetheless, since its inception in 2009, it has invested in more than 830 companies, with over $12 billion assets under management.
  • They primarily focus on biotechnology companies, cryptotech, consumer products, and enterprises that range from early-seed to later-stage ventures.
  • The firm have raised 17 funds to date, with the last one gathering over $2 billion. 
  • A16z typically invests around $4 million per company.
  • They also recently launched the Talent x Opportunity Fund, rapidly raising $2.2 million in donations for underserved and minority founders.

Benchmark

  • Benchmark is a leading VC firm that focuses on early-stage technology start-ups.
  • The firm has invested in over 600 companies that develop enterprise software and services, communications, security, semiconductors, mobile computing, consumer services and financial services.
  • Some of their biggest success stories include Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, and WeWork.
  • While their investment range varies from $100,000 to $15 million, they tend to invest $3 to $5 million initially and expect to invest an additional $5 — $15 million after the company has lifted off the ground.
  • They have had nine funding rounds, usually around $400 million. Their latest funding round raised $425 million.
  • Benchmark also recently announced that it has starting raising money for its tenth investment fund, which is expected to raise another $425 million.

Sequoia Capital

Index Ventures

Accel

  • Accel is one of the most influential VCs in the US, with a portfolio featuring investments in companies such as Facebook, Slack, Atlassian, Dropbox, and Spotify.
  • Accel mainly focus on seed and early-stage ventures, with a focus on SaaS companies, but they have also invested in the security, consumer products, digital developer and marketplace sectors.
  • They have invested in more than 1,460 companies since 1983.
  • Their total assets under management surpass $12 billion over 29 investment funds, with their latest funding round raising over $2.5 billion.
  • They usually invest anywhere between $1 million to $4 million in early-stage start-ups.

Intel Capital

  •  Intel Capital is the venture capital arm of Intel, which was founded in 1991.
  • It has invested in 1,582 technology companies of varying sizes.
  • The venture capital firm focuses primarily on technology start-ups in robotics, artificial intelligence, and autonomous technology.
  • In 2019 alone, Intel Capital invested $466 million in 25 new start-ups, bringing up the total of their investments to roughly $13 billion.
  • Since 2015, Intel has been heavily investing in under-represented founders, devoting close to $300 million to start-ups led by women and minority leaders.
  • They have noted that they invest anywhere between $5 million and $10 million per company.

Kleiner Perkins

Khosla Ventures

  • Khosla Ventures is led by one of the most successful investors in the world, Vinod Khosla.
  • Khosla Ventures mainly invests in software start-ups of varying sizes, ranging from pre-seed to Series F funding.
  • The VC firm has invested in 770 companies across 17 different verticals since 2004.
  • With its latest fund, the company has over $5 billion in assets under management. Their last funding round raised over $1.1 billion.
  • While the company invests anywhere between $100,000 and $20 million, depending on the stage of the company, most of their investments are for more than $1 million.
July 16, 2021
Pitching New Business

Glenn Trevor

Glenn is the Lead Operations Research Analyst at Research for Finance with experience in research, statistical data analysis and interview techniques. A holder of degree in Economics. A true specialist in quantitative and qualitative research.

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