BIPOC STANDS FOR BLACK, INDIGENOUS, AND PEOPLE OF COLOR.
According to the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), over $244 billion was spent on R&D from VC-backed public companies, and 75% of the largest U.S. VC-backed companies would not even exist or achieve their current scale without an active VC industry. California is one of the hottest markets for VC firms and Bloomberg reported that Silicon Valley has reshaped the Venture Capital Industry.
Despite this, a report from Harvard Technology Review revealed in March 2023 that Silicon Valley’s lack of diversity has long been something that people have highlighted as well as worked on improving, but this has continued to be an issue. Venture capital firms have continued for decades to fund and elevate founders of the same background: white, male, computer science students from elite institutions like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. The lack of racial diversity in this industry is incredibly apparent when you see that only around 1.2% of total venture capital funding in the US was raised by black founders in 2022. VC dollars to BIPOC startup founders fell more than 50% in 2022 according to Crunchbase data.
However, this disparity in funding and the lack of diversity amongst startup founders has been frequently brought up as a problem people are focusing on solving.
LNB Accounting would like to be part of the solution by recognizing SF Bay Area VC firms that are led by or focused on serving the BIPOC community of entrepreneurs.
Yash Hemaraj Nominated for Category 3: BIPOC Individual of the Year.
BIPOC Individual VC of the Year
This category recognizes an individual VC who made a difference within his/her VC firm by creating a social and economic impact in the BIPOC community.
We selected the nominees based on the profile below:
- Individual venture capitalist located within the Bay Area (North, South, East Bay, including Sacramento).
- From the BIPOC community.
- has funded 5+ companies in his portfolio.
Here are the nominees for this category: (watch the introductory video)
- Yash Hemaraj, General Partner, BGV
- Portfolio companies: Folloze, Tagnos, Macrometa, Totango, and Blendid
- Co-Founder of Arka Venture Labs
- Among the 1st engineers at SpiderCloud Wireless
- Tanvi Lal, Investor, Intuit Ventures
- Part of a great team that invest $2-10 million in Series A-C rounds in companies
For more information click here.
