Black Lives Matter

Broadway Angels is spurred to action by the 2020 deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many others. We are encouraged by and commit to support the wave of activism across America and around the world in support of diversity and inclusion, and specifically #BlackLivesMatter.

We founded Broadway Angels ten years ago in 2010 because we, as women investors, felt left out. Technology, developed for a diverse world, was being funded and built through a single lens—by men. Female perspectives, not valued by the male-dominated industries of technology and venture capital, were needed. We wanted the voices of women to be heard. At the time, 7% of partners in venture capital firms were women¹ and only 2% of venture capital dollars went to women founders.² Today, we count more than sixty accomplished women as members and approximately 50% of our investments are in women founders. We hope to inspire women to become both venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

Broadway Angels also believes Black voices are vastly underrepresented yet urgently needed in technology and venture capital. Currently 13.4% of Americans are Black³, but only 1% of partners in venture capital firms are Black⁴ and only 0.2% are Black women.⁵ We would like to help change these numbers so that Black Americans are better represented in venture capital and angel groups—the health of our diverse economy and society demands it, and the world will be better because of it.

We realize that Blacks in America experience a different level of historic and current economic exclusion and personal violence than that experienced by white women, especially women venture capitalists. That leads us to a moral imperative to use our network that supports women-led startups and investors to also support anti-racist, systemic change in support of Black Americans. Broadway Angels condemns racism and hate, and we celebrate diversity and equality.

We commit to the following actions to affect change:

Recruit more Black women members of Broadway Angels. Only 5% of our current membership is Black, substantially above the 0.2% percentage in venture capital as a whole, but clearly under-representative of the US population of 13.7% Black women.⁶ We commit to tracking our diversity statistics and increasing underrepresented groups in our membership.

Invest in more Black entrepreneurs. Our members have invested in only a handful of enterprise companies, consumer business and venture funds started by Black founders. But it's not enough, and we have much more to do here.

Help our portfolio companies recruit Black and other underrepresented people of color to boards, management teams, and engineering teams. We will track progress and hold companies accountable to creating diverse work environments and only consider investing in those that are on this path.

Over the last ten years, as the venture capital and technology industries have become more diverse due to the attention focused on hiring and funding women, venture returns and technology advancements have also accelerated.⁷ While the pace is slower than we would like, progress has been made. We hope in the next ten years, these industries will become even more inclusive, adding Black entrepreneurs and investors in their funding and hiring initiatives. Broadway Angels is committed to making diverse leadership a best practice in technology and its funding.

Sincerely,

References

1 Gené Teare and Ned Desmond, “The First Comprehensive Study on Women in Venture Capital and Their Impact on Female Founders”, Techcrunch, April 9, 2016, https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/19/the-first-comprehensive-study-on-women-in-venture-capital/.

2 Kasee Bailey, “The State of Women in Tech 2020”, DreamHost, March 6, 2020, https://www.dreamhost.com/blog/state-of-women-in-tech/.

3 United States Census Bureau QuickFacts, July 1, 2019 Census, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219.

4 Nitasha Tiku, “Black Tech Founders Say Venture Capital Needs to Move Past ‘Diversity Theater’”, The Washington Post, June 10, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/10/racial-gap-vc-firms/.

5 Arielle Pardes, “Black Investors Call on VCs to Fix Hiring and Funding”, Wired, June 9, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/black-investors-vc-funding-make-hire-send-wire/.

6 Catalyst, “Quicktake: Women of Color in the United States,” March 19, 2020, https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-of-color-in-the-united-states/.

7 Priyamvada Mathur , “21 Charts Showing Current Trends in US Venture Capital”, PitchBook, July 24, 2019, https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/21-charts-showing-current-trends-in-us-venture-capital.