👊🏽 POC celebs, unicorns, speaking up, Women's History Month, VC demographics, sex, money and more
A bi-weekly newsletter of curated resources for early-stage founders, funders, and friends.
Welcome to Lolita’s Newsletter! We share up-to-date and nugget-sized practical resources and advice for early-stage founders, funders, and friends. We are at 7,217 members. To access exclusive content, office hours, join our Slack community, and get your pitch deck reviewed become an annual subscriber or gift a subscription.
Latest
US companies added +300K jobs in February. States are reopening (see interactive map). Everyone is going wild over NFTs (see link to learn what they are). And, last week, Maria Salamanca made Partner at Unshackled Ventures (go Latinas!) and a majority stake of Jay Z’s Tidal was bought by Square (money + culture ✨).
Rabbit hole
Yeah. I went down the rabbit hole of POC celebs investing in unicorns.
Did you know? Jay Z invested in Savage x Fenty through his $85M Marcy Venture Partners. Snoop Dogg invested in Klarna and Robinhood (IPO ahead). Nasir Jones invested in PillPack (acquired by Amazon in a billion-dollar deal) and in Coinbase (IPO ahead).
It’s only a matter of time before we hear about Latina celebs - Jennifer Lopez (invested in Acorns), Eva Longoria, Sofia Vergara (invested in Dispo), and Salma Hayek - investing in companies with billion-dollar exits.
Reflections
Even good people with good intentions can hold bias for others. And, for those of us who encounter bias on a daily basis, it weighs on us heavily but not as much as when the perpetrator doesn’t see it or invalidates that bias has occurred (because it was unconscious bias). To avoid unnecessary pain (to ourselves and to others), I encourage everyone (me included) to be mindful of our fallibility as human beings, be kind, have uncomfortable conversations to address bias, and read (check-out The Memo by Minda Harts) or get bias training (see Joelle Emerson’s Paradigm programming).
David Oyelowo: We all have cultural bias, racial bias. One of the difficult things around this subject matter is to deny that we have places we go to subconsciously, and unless you consciously decide that that's wrong and you've got to do something about it, especially if you're in a position of power, it won't change.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I was the recipient of a pretty bad case of unconscious bias recently. I’ll spare you the details but it was awful. In the end, I garnered the courage to speak up and have a series of difficult conversations. I did it in the name of progress and to advocate for these facts:
investing in underestimated founders is not a charitable activity
caring for the underestimated communities and seeking outsized capitalistic returns are not mutually exclusive
members of underestimated communities can be giving AND savvy investors
And on that note, happy Women’s History Month!
✨ Lolita Taub
link.tree | twitter
ICYMI: You're invited to my Div Inc talk on Breaking Through the Bias on 3/11 and Clubhouse room on building an engaged community on 3/10. Crunchbase featured me. Startup-Investor Matching Tool intros have resulted in 21 checks (~$3.5M!).
Congrats!
Congrats Don Thompson for raising $70M for Cleveland Avenue to invest in Black and Latinx startups. Eric Bahn, Elizabeth Yin, and Shiyan Koh for raising $33.6M for Hustle Fund. Kristen Sonday and Ablorde Ashigbi for launching the Long Jump Fund. Aaron Levie reaching an $800M run rate at Box. Maria Salamanca for making Partner at Unshackled Ventures. Frederik Groce and Pascale Diaine for becoming Partners at Storm Ventures. Elise Smith for raising $3.2M for Praxis. Sarah Duggleby for raising $3M for Venus Aerospace (one of her checks came from an intro from the Startup-Investor Matching Tool!). Jenny Gyllander raising $2M for Thing Testing. Lyn Johnson and Sara Sparhawk for raising $1.5M for West Tenth (portfolio co). Yelitsa Jean-Charles for having Healthy Roots Doll (portfolio co) doll Zoe selling out at Target.
Funders
NVCA x Deloitte | Get the latest VC Human Capital report
Harlem Capital | Know the 305 Black + Latino founders that raised $1M+
BLCK VC | Read about Mercedes Bent of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Katherine Wu | Get an inside look into aspects of VC life that don’t get talked about
Gabby Goldberg | Learn how to assess early-stage consumer companies
Pledge x HBCU | Underestimated aspiring VCs: apply for a paid internship by 3/19
Startup-Investor Matching Tool | Receive thesis-aligned and customized deal flow
🌈 Want to invest in women and people of color emerging fund managers? Sign-up here.
Founders
First Pitches | Learn about Cindy Gallop’s pitch that led her to a $2M raise and learn about how she’s working to improve our sex lives
Lolita Taub | Get your pre-fundraise checklist + a fundraising CRM template
Geri Kirilova | Read this before signing up for an accelerator program
Sarah Kunst | Get perspective on how much equity you should give up in your angel round
Guide | Where Black Female Founders Can Find Resources, and More
Goldman Sachs | Underestimated founders: apply to join GS’s accelerator by 3/29
📚 Want more resources? Here are courses + services for you.
Community-Driven Cos
Lolita Taub | Find the right community-driven startup accelerator for you
Greg Isenberg | Consider that the Chief Community Officer is the new CMO
Alison James | Nerd out on what is and what is not a community
Mac Reddin | Learn about the companies that are doing community right
Clubhouse | Join me on our 3/10 convo on creating an engaged community
🙌🏽 Building a community-driven co? Submit your co to The Community Fund.
Money
Lolita Taub | Find your next Latinx investor in this thread
Google for Startups | Black founders in Europe: apply for <$100K by 3/21
BVCC | Black + Latinx founders: apply for $20K by 3/16
Founder Institute | Black founders: access +700 accelerators, investors and more
Founder Grants | Access +80 grants for founders
Equity Crowdfunding | Raise up to $5 million on Republic
Non-dilutive capital | Create a profile to find non-dilutive capital on INTRO
👋🏽 Want investor intros? Sign-up for The Startup-Investor Matching Tool.
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