Shared Impact

We invested in the inaugural fund for Apis & Heritage Capital Partners (A&H), an impact-focused private equity firm that tackles the nation’s racial wealth gap by using the tools and best practices of employee ownership. A&H buys great small- and medium-sized businesses with significant workforces of color then converts those companies to 100% employee-owned, enabling workers of color with the opportunity to build wealth, communities with the opportunity to preserve jobs, and founding owners with the opportunity to exit responsibly.

We support Beam, formerly Edquity, an anti-poverty technology platform that helps students and low-income people improve financial security by receiving emergency funding and accessing resources that help them meet basic needs. Founded by David Helene, a former education nonprofit executive, Beam has distributed over $100M in emergency aid to 100,000 students across the nation.

We invested in Bright Ventures, a venture capital fund that focuses on funding early-stage companies led by founders who prioritize diversity and inclusion while building products that promote worker agency, financial and mental wellness. Bright’s mission is to generate investor returns by defining, investing in, and building the future of how diverse people live and work with wellbeing in mind. General partner Lenore Champagne Beirne’s coaching practice and focus on mental health serves as a key differentiator in connecting with transformative leaders and holistically supporting them in their ongoing growth.

Debut Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in Black, Latinx, and Indigenous founders. Debut’s vision is to invest in companies and founders focused on building products and services for traditionally overlooked and underserved markets. The founders, Pilar Johnson and Bobak Emamian, have experience in product and people operations that helps its portfolio companies navigate initial challenges in starting a company.

We are backing a network of women, minority and BIPOC-led funds that increase equitable access to capital for underrepresented founders and companies. By fostering mutually enriching relationships, we work to shape investor mindsets and promote greater wealth generation for founders and funders who are increasing diversity in entrepreneurship. Our partners include Urban Innovation Fund, Reach Capital, Ruthless for Good, Plain Sight Capital, Debut Capital, Genius Guild Greenhouse Fund, RareBreed Ventures, Impact America Fund, Innovate Capital Growth Fund, Apis & Heritage and Founders First Capital Partners.

Founders First Capital Partners helps support small businesses led by women, people of color, LGBTQ+, military veterans and companies in low to moderate income areas by offering revenue-based funding. This funding is more flexible than traditional bank debt, allowing for payments to vary based on monthly revenue, and it helps minimize the use of predatory loan products. Founders First’s innovative performance platform provides structured growth education, coaching, financial health and post-funding advisory, along with operating and execution support, to position diverse-led companies for premium-wage job creation. A Series A investor in Founders First Capital Partners, Spring Point Partners also partnered with founder Kim Folsom to bring their innovative platform to the Philadelphia and South Jersey region.

Today, financing for small businesses is shrinking and needs to better meet the communities of color not well served by current lending policies and practices. Honeycomb, an online loan crowdsourcing platform, changes the status quo by recruiting individuals to address the small business lending gap through their own investments. To date, Honeycomb has facilitated investment of $11 million in 175 local crowdfunding campaigns and engaged 11,000 individual investors to bring greater support to businesses in over 30 states.

Raven Indigenous Capital Partners is the first venture fund owned by Indigenous people that invests in Indigenous entrepreneurs. Raven aims to revitalize the Indigenous economy with credibility, accountability, and transparency. Indigenous people in the US and Canada struggle to remove impediments to economic inclusion, growth, and wealth. Founded as a solution, Raven follows traditional Indigenous protocols: working for the well-being of people and the planet and acknowledging our responsibility to the next Seven Generations and weaves that into its investment process.

We’re proud to support founder Aaron T. Walker as he connects innovative women, nonbinary and BIPOC change makers with nurturing mentorship and capital. He and his team have invested $5M in 100+ leaders through the Camelback Fellowship. Through the Ruthless for Good Fund they are investing in 25 pre-seed and seed stage companies. The founders they support are leading the way in education, the future of work, and improving access to opportunity and well-being for historically under-invested communities.