Venturing out
HBCU is in. They're changing the venture capital ecosystem.
Just last week we hosted possibly the second most important interview of the week - right after the one with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. That’s right. We had Ime Essien and Charlton Cunningham from HBCU on Clubhouse with us. If you haven’t heard of them, then it’s about time you did (especially if venture capital is your thing). HBCU is a non-profit organization focusing on bringing more racial and ethnic diversity to the venture capital space. When you think venture capital, you probably think old white dudes. And well…You’re totally right in thinking that. The truth is, people of color and women are underrepresented in venture capital. Out of funded startups, just 1% of them are Black, while 11% of the population of the United States is black. That’s where HBCU comes in - to help underrepresented groups get on the receiving and giving end of funding.
HBCU has only been going at tackling this issue for four years now. The founder of HBCU, Hadiyah Mujhid, was working in San Francisco before realizing there weren’t too many people that looked like her in the rooms she was in, and that there was a huge funding gap issue. Just like nearly every other startup, the original idea was iterated over again and again over the years. The original plan was to focus on upscaling people in their program, but that changed when they realized the real power was where the capital was.
HBCU is most well-known for its fellowship program, where they teach venture capital curriculum, connect fellows with VC mentors, help them find internship opportunities, and expose them to what the industry is like. Probably the most important thing is being connected to people and making friends from all over the country.
That’s just enough for this email. You can listen to the rest of the interview on our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
next up on clubhouse
The Club(house) don’t stop. Tomorrow, Tuesday the 30th at 6 pm est, we’ll be going live with Philippe Noel - co-founder of Fractal, and intern Jatin Mathur. Fractal is a tool to make your other apps run insanely fast by streaming them through the cloud. How fast?
That fast. If you’re not into speed (which is questionable), Fractal uses 10x less RAM when you power your apps through them. Fractal is super young - meaning they’re still in waitlist mode (the perfect time to jump in).
Click the button below to mark your calendar, and we’ll see you there!
internship alert
It’s near April - that means this 2 week lockdown has been going on for over a year. Where’d the time go? Where’d my waistline go? Anyway, here are the hottest internships this summer: