Reporting on the State of Venture Capital, My Hometown, and the Elephant in the Room: War
Stretch Four Insights Volume 17
Happy Saturday,
What a week it was out there, as you receive this I am heading to the baby shower to celebrate my wife and our firstborn son who will be joining us very shortly. Meanwhile, Ukraine/Russia are in an all-out war.
Celebrating becoming a father is setting in and my mom is in town, so there's a lot going on if you know my mom. At the last minute, she let me know she wants to go see 82-year-old Smokey Robinson in Oakland tonight, so that is pretty much my weekend.
I hope your all’s weekend is going well.
Keeping it brief this week by highlighting three themes:
Two reports from Pitchbook and The Information on the diversity, or lack thereof, in venture capital
My hometown church in Blacksburg, South Carolina
The Geopolitical Impact of War
Let’s dive in.
Two reports on venture capital:
Black VCs could face bigger hurdles in venture market slowdown | Alexander Davis
I went down a rabbit hole this week with two reports on the state of diversity in venture capital. Pitchbook’s piece focused on black fund managers. In my line of work, your next round of funding is always on your mind. After, nearly five years in this line of work I tend to have low expectations for diversity amongst the people I am raising money from. Pitchbook highlights the hard facts — black people are raising far less money as investors. Endowment funds like Stanford’s ($40 billion) are dedicating “peanuts” to diverse managers and with a $100 million commitment to people of color. There is a long uphill battle to see some form of even distribution to black fund managers which mean less money for founders of color.
The Most and Least Diverse Venture Capital Firms | Mahira Dayal
While Pitchbook’s focused on fund managers, The Information did an in-depth report on the least and most diverse venture capital firms. They focused on the overall diversity in venture capital funds with more than $250 million under management. This was a telling report, you get to clearly see which venture capital funds are not concerned with having non-white or non-Asian representation within their firms. This report shows, what you feel when you live in the venture/startup ecosystem, no one gives a damn about racial diversity. Gender diversity presents more hope as there are several white women and a few Asian women rising to prominence at large funds but the story is much bleaker for black and Latin women. This report is impressive because focusing on only funds with a certain amount under management calls out most of the big-name funds within the ecosystem.
My advice to founders is always, do not focus on race focus on capital and getting as much of it as you can to build your business.
Back to my roots:
A rock-solid testament | Kim Smith
One of my family friends paid homage to the church I grew up in. I am from a small town 40 minutes outside of Charlotte. It is so small, I tell people I am from Charlotte which is where I moved when I was 14 and where my mom and stepdad reside these days. This article shed light on my home church and how it was constructed.
The church burned to the ground shortly after Hopewell was sold to the Black farmers who struggled to make a living for their families on rocky, barren soil near the South Carolina/North Carolina border. They decided to rebuild the church in 1915 and in 1932 remodeled it to include a rock exterior.
I knew there was history to the rock church I grew up in but this made it clear what that history was. As I have devoted more time to reading about our history, African-Americans, this year, this encourages me to find these stories, read about them, and be able to tell them.
Taking Stock of Tech Amidst a Geopolitical Crisis | Eric Newcomer
The cause and effect of the war have implications for us all. While I read as much as I could on the matter at hand between Russia and Ukraine — “I ain't got the answers.” Outside of a few group chats debates and conversations with my wife and my mom who is in town I can not really say much about what is happening. Newcomer’s piece highlights a few of the implications and how the war is affecting the economy and the market as a whole.
What’s Next
ModernTax
We brought on two new engineers this week and are going live with the new client we signed up for in January and adding three more staging accounts. I have been in deep product management mode this week as we align our roadmap with what our customers and prospects want. Ahead of the birth of my son, March will be heavily focused on hiring and fundraising.
Stretch Four
While I continue to work on an upcoming long-form, I am doing research on another one I think will be insightful to the community.
That is all for this week, now it is off to the baby shower.
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Back to the trenches.
Best,
Matt