📢 HCP Newsletter: Black History in VC & Breaking Down Barriers – February 2023
Harlem Capital’s monthly recap on our portfolio companies, industry news, events & beyond! 🏎️💨
The Headlines 🗞️
Empowering Innovators and Investors: Celebrating Black History Month
Happy February! And more importantly, Happy Black History Month ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏾
Today and every day, Harlem Capital celebrates Black excellence, history, entrepreneurship, innovation, culture, and success.
As we celebrate Black History month, it’s essential to recognize the many contributions of Black entrepreneurs to the business world.
From the pioneering efforts of Madam C.J. Walker in the early 1900s to cutting-edge technology startups of today, Black founders have been instrumental in shaping today’s entrepreneurial landscape. Harlem Capital is grateful every day to back and work alongside incredible Black-owned companies 🚀
The Untold Story of Black Pioneers in Venture Capital 🪄
Did you know that one of the first Black-owned VC funds grew to be one of the nation's most profitable minority-owned VC corporations in 1982?
HCP Managing Partner, Jarrid Tingle, and intern, Tori Orr, released their report highlighting 52 Black-founded and owned venture capital firms from 1970 through 2019.
Check out the post here and take a journey through history to learn about the founding of MESBIC Ventures in 1970 all the way to Equal Ventures in 2019. We promise you won’t regret it!
A Guide to Navigating VC and Finance Without Losing Your Mind ☮️
Harlem Capital’s Henri Pierre-Jacques, started a Twitter thread to share valuable life lessons he’s learned on his professional and personal journey.
He touches on everything from navigating the nebulous world of venture capital as a Black man, personal finances and faith, the math behind seed stage funds, voting on deals as a VC, and much more!
There’s truly something for everybody in this ongoing thread. Make sure to check it out 👇
Portfolio News 🏆
Lots of Exciting Stuf 💸
Stuf, a next-generation self-storage startup partnering with landlords to monetize their underutilized commercial real estate, recently announced their $11M Series A financing round led by Allegion Ventures and Altos Ventures with participation from Harlem Capital and Wilshire Lane Capital 🎉
Huge congratulations to the incredible team at Stuf, especially Founder and CEO Katherine “Kat” Lau who came up with the idea for Stuf after realizing self-storage was an industry ripe for disruption.
Check out the full story in Yahoo Finance here.
The Future of Pay Transparency 🔮
Assemble is a compensation management platform that helps forward-thinking organizations build and execute best-in-class compensation strategies to attract, retain and motivate top-tier talent. Co-founder and co-CEO Lisa Wallace shares her insights on pay transparency and digital compensation as a Forbes EQ Brandvoice columnist.
Breaking Barriers, Building Empires: Black Founders & Investors to Watch 👀
It’s no secret that Black investors and entrepreneurs are underrepresented at firms across the United States. Just 3% of US venture capital partners are Black, according to a survey by Deloitte and NVCA. And a little over 1% of all VC investments go toward Black founders.
Pitchbook’s 2023 Black Founder and Investors to watch list features Harlem’s very own Henri Pierre-Jacques along with many founders in our portfolio including Ade Adesanya, Nathalie Walton, Ablorde Ashigbi, Morgan DeBaun, Yaw Aning, Cashmere Nicole, and David Potter
Check out the full list here and congratulations to everybody! 💪🏿
Interested in working at one of the startups in our portfolio? 💻
We might be biased, but working at these companies is sure to be an exceptional experience!
Search job openings across the Harlem Capital network here.
Harlem Capital Related 🚀
Capital for All: A Comprehensive Report on Q4 2022 Diverse Fundraising
Did you know that Q4 2022 diverse fundraising volume reached its lowest point since 2020?
For more eye-opening statistics like this, check out Harlem’s Q4 2022 U.S. Diverse Fundraising Insights Report.
Funding Gap Widens: VC Investment in Black Founders Down 50% in 2022
While venture funding in the U.S. overall dropped nearly a third in 2022 — from about $337 billion to roughly $214 billion — Black-founded startups were hit disproportionately by the decline, according to new Crunchbase data. Such startups saw their share of the market drop from 1.5% in 2021 to only 1.1% last year.
Our own Nicole DeTommaso was interviewed in the report: “I would say it’s not a surprise. Generally what happens is diverse founders are hit the most in a downturn.”
The Black Investors Changing the Game for Diverse Startups
Harlem Capital is honored to join top investors on the list of Black VCs changing the diverse venture ecosystem. Check out the full list here.
🚨 Jobs in VC 🧑🏾💻
As always, don’t forget to check out Nicole’s February VC jobs roundup on Twitter👇
Helpful Resources 💯
Get a comprehensive pulse check on 2022’s financing trends.
Track the performance of emerging, publicly traded financial technology companies.
A quick primer on how vSaaS is performing in the public markets.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! See you all next month for more updates 👋
And don’t forget to follow us @harlemcapital on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to stay up to date on all things HCP, including upcoming opportunities with the team 👀