Halogen Ventures Launches Diversity Fellowship
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
Halogen Ventures, the Los Angeles early-stage firm that focuses on female-led consumer tech startups, announced it is launching a fellowship to focus on gender dynamics and address the lack of equity and diversity in the overwhelmingly white, male world of venture capital.
Ten fellows have been selected from across the country for the virtual fellowships, from schools that include UCLA, Harvard and Notre Dame. The program includes introductory coursework on all aspects of venture capital, including guest lectures from top employees at Silicon Valley Bank and Amazon Web Services.
"We have already proven that investing in women is not an impact play, it's smart business," said Jesse Draper, founding partner of Halogen VC. "As we look at the Venture Capital landscape in 2020 and beyond, we are excited about the opportunity to prove out that diversity breeds success; that is diversity of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, race, and life experiences. With over 40% of our female founded portfolio companies led by BIPOC founders, we know this to be true. We look forward to teaching the next generations to look at investing through a diverse lens."
Since Draper founded the firm in 2015, Halogen has invested in over 60 female founded companies including The Skimm, Glamsquad, Hopskipdrive, ThisisL and Eloquii.
Deloitte estimates just 14% of investment partners at U.S. VC firms are women and only 3% are Black.
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
