VCs Promised to Help Black Founders – My Experience Shows a Different Reality
I&#x27;m so glad she wrote this, and that she named names!<p>As a female founder (not black though), we went through a similarly congnitively dissonant process. A-List investors who would publicly talk about supporting female founders would behave the worst (esp. female investors, Hi Aileen!), investors whose entire brand was around supporting ethical startups (or insert any similar alternative movement) would be the least interested in that aspect (Hi Spero Ventures!) All of that, along with a healthy dose of rudeness.<p>In our experience, those at the very very top of the totem pole gave us the fairest chance, and those below them, were the very worst. In the end, it was hard no to feel that an investor&#x27;s Twitter persona was a sham, in the end they would invest only in the hottest SAAS startup by an ex-Googler.<p>FWIW, I know my experience was not alone. There are tons of now well-funded female founders who will echo this sentiment. I just wish there was a way to have a public list of those who walk the talk and those who just tweet the walk..<p>EDIT: Adding something from thread below to focus more on solutions, and providing perspective on why what is happening is not enough.<p>&gt;...What is frustrating about these investors (and YC) is that it all is very surface level. I&#x27;m sure they believe they are doing the right thing but all of their assumptions, ideas, pipelines, and teams, all are informed by those biases. And there isn&#x27;t enough being done to deconstruct that. For example, what does it mean to say &#x27;too early&#x27; to an under-represented founder? who is the comparison to? How many of your last X investments or team members came from Stanford or ex-FAANG?<p>&gt; Let&#x27;s put in place processes, time allocations, smaller programs. And let&#x27;s put all of this in place first for those raising their first rounds - the angel or the mythical pre-seed.