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Both Things Can Be True: Bias and Bad Fundraising Advice

This is going to be BIG.

I’m a female founder. I don’t have a technical co-founder. These are all of the things I heard from a founder that I recently backed. She was pitching for a pre-seed round of $400k. So what about all of the above statements—things that founders widely hold to be true barriers to fundraising? This isn’t surprising.

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What minority founders must consider before entering the venture-backed startup ecosystem

TechCrunch

Sesie Bonsi is the founder and CEO of Bleu , a financial technology platform focused on enabling touchless payment experiences. But most venture-backed startups are “still overwhelmingly white, male, Ivy-League-educated and based in Silicon Valley,” according to a study conducted by RateMyInvestor and Diversity VC. Sesie Bonsi.

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Dispatches from the Road: Q2 2022

Revolution

miles to visit founders, college campuses, co-investors, ecosystem builders, and communities in rising cities. What we did: Rise of the Rest Vice President, Mahati Sridhar , touched down in ChiTown to participate in P33’s VC Desk?—?an an event connecting coastal investors with Chicago’s most innovative startups.

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What I did on my summer vacation: The First LP Close ($3.5mm) of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures

This is going to be BIG.

Back when I was pitching my previous startup to investors, it had never really dawned on me that they had experienced what I was going through--and that a VC firm was essentially a startup. VCs pitch for money, too. No one ever thinks about VCs having to pitch, who they pitch to, or how it works.

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Entrepreneurship In Latin America

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

It is a little known part of my career, but for a brief period from 1997 to 2001, I was part of a small group of investors who helped to create a startup ecosystem in Latin America. ” So began a five year investment partnership between Flatiron Partners (our VC firm) and Susan’s Latin American private equity business.

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Kenya’s Pariti raises $2.85M led by Harlem Capital to develop startup ecosystems in emerging markets

TechCrunch

Pariti , the Kenya-based community-led marketplace building the digital infrastructure for startup ecosystems in emerging markets, has raised $2.85 We’re thrilled to be working with Harlem Capital,” co-founder and CEO Yacob Berhane said of Harlem’s participation. million seed, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today.

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After a record 2022, 8 investors explain why it’s ‘still just Day 1’ for Africa’s startup ecosystem

TechCrunch

It turns out that while later-stage investors, mostly international VC firms, grabbed headlines by writing immense checks, pre-seed and seed-stage investors were instrumental to the growth of the continent’s tech ecosystem. Having 1,000 active investors is not enough,” said Stephen Deng, founder and partner of DFS Lab. “We