HBCUvc | Meet the Partners Citibank & Toyota Ventures
Event Information
Join us Thursday, November 18th from 12-1pm ET to meet HBCUvc Partners, Citibank CIF, and Toyota Ventures! They'll be introducing themselves to HBCUvc community and sharing details about open roles at their firms. You'll also have the ability to ask questions and learn more about their firms.
Agenda (Times below in ET)
12:00-12:30p Welcome and Q&A on Toyota Capital, Partner, Lisa Coca, and Analyst, Nihal Maunder
12:30-1:00p Welcome and Q&A on Citibank, SVP and Investing Principle, Christa Williams,
Host Firms:
Opportunity: 2021 Communications Manager and Full-Time Analyst Roles
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Toyota Ventures is Toyota’s first standalone early-stage venture capital firm.
Toyota Ventures Frontier Fund invests in artificial intelligence, autonomy, mobility, robotics, cloud technology, smart cities, digital health, fintech, energy, and materials. As part of Toyota’s ongoing efforts to accelerate carbon dioxide reduction, they also invest in startups that are creating scalable solutions for carbon neutrality, as part of the Toyota Ventures Climate Fund.
The Citi Impact Fund is implemented as a partnership between our Global Public Affairs, Global Spread Products/SPRINT, and Citi Ventures teams.
Through their $200 million Impact Investment Fund, they are using their own capital to make equity investments in "double bottom line" U.S.-based private sector companies that are applying innovative solutions to help address some of society's most pressing challenges.
Investments, which could be as high as $10 million, will primarily be made in companies that have demonstrated proof of concept, built an existing customer base, secured prior rounds of funding, and exhibited the potential for scale in multiple markets. A portion of the fund is designated for earlier-stage seed investments. We are actively seeking opportunities to invest in businesses that are led or owned by women and minority entrepreneurs to help combat the gender and ethnic gap that exists in the startup world. As part of this commitment, early-stage seed investments are allocated to businesses that are led or owned by women and minorities.
The Impact Investing Fund team leads their Black Entrepreneurs Investment Initiative, a $50 million capital commitment from Citi to reduce the wealth gap by creating equitable access to venture capital funding for Black founders. The initiative was announced in September 2020 as a part of Citi’s $1 billion Action for Racial Equity Initiative. In the six months following, Citi made six early-stage equity investments in tech-enabled ventures led by Black founders.
Citi’s team of investors seek out tech-enabled startups with defensible moats and validated markets in high growth sectors. We primarily, but not exclusively, invest in four verticals: Workforce Development, Sustainability, Financial Inclusion, and Infrastructure. The team typically coinvests alongside other investors in the venture capital ecosystem, making equity capital commitments ranging from $250,000 to $10 million across the Seed to Growth stage.
Our Speakers:
Lisa Coca
Lisa Coca is a partner for Toyota Ventures where she leads the firm’s Climate Fund, which focuses on investing in innovative solutions for carbon neutrality.
Prior to Toyota, Lisa served as a managing director and entrepreneur-in-residence with Intel’s emerging growth and incubations division where she led teams creating disruptive new businesses. Lisa was also a founding member of GE Ventures, responsible for launching and leading the enterprise software investment practice, as well as the EDGE program, a platform for portfolio companies to leverage the global scale, expertise, and resources of GE.
Previously, Lisa developed her passion for climate as the global sustainability and Ecomagination leader for GE real estate where she launched a program to leverage technology and operating best practices to reduce the environmental impact of its assets and improve financial performance. She has also held multiple roles focused on strategy, innovation, and new businesses. Lisa started her career as a financial analyst on Wall Street.
She serves on the boards of BizWorld and the Girls Middle School. She is also an independent board director for Broadscale Acquisition Corporation. Lisa graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with Honors and earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Nihal Maunder
Nihal Maunder is an analyst on the investment team, responsible for sourcing startups, evaluating opportunities, and working on internal technical projects.
Prior to joining Toyota Ventures, Nihal worked at Johnson Controls’ innovation lab alongside the artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning team, where he built full-stack solutions. He also co-founded a startup in the talent acquisition space and participated in the FreeVentures and SkyDeck startup accelerator programs at the University of California, Berkeley.
Nihal received a bachelor’s degree in data science from UC Berkeley.
Christa Williams-Collett
Christa joined Citi’s Impact Fund in February of this year. As an SVP and Investing Principal, she leads equity investments out of the fund’s Financial Inclusion and Capability vertical. She is also leading the fund’s Black Entrepreneur’s Investment Initiative, a program borne out of Citi’s $1bn “Action for Racial Equity” commitment focused on increasing access to venture capital for Black founders. She is also leading the Impact Fund’s fund-of-funds strategy.
Prior to joining Citi, Christa worked as an equity research analyst at Jefferies and an investment banker at RBC Capital Markets and J.P. Morgan where she eventually led IPOs for venture-backed companies, most notably Chewy (NYSE: CHWY), Dynatrace (NYSE: DT), and Jumia (NYSE: JMIA). Christa has spent years volunteering her time to causes focused on equity in education and politics. In 2008, she campaigned on behalf of the Obama Administration, leading community discussions and registering hundreds to vote. Christa is based in San Francisco. She has an MBA from Columbia University in New York and a BA from Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI.