On this episode of the Behind Her Empire podcast, hear from Nisha Dua, co-founder and general partner of BBG Ventures, a NYC-based seed fund investing in consumer tech startups with a focus on women and under-represented founders.
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<li>Dua shares tips on how to make big career leaps and why she decided to leave law.</li>
<li>After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Nisha discusses why she had to make a career change & re-evaluate what success looks like.</li>
<li>How Dua gained the confidence to take on a new opportunity in business despite having no "formal" experience.</li>
<li>How a business she was running led her to founding BUILT BY GIRLS.</li>
<li>How Dua's varied career path led her to venture capital and launching her own fund.</li>
<li>Dua explains how founders should think about raising money & why venture capital isn't for everyone.</li>
<li>After seeing over 7,000 pitches, Nisha explains key themes that make a great founder.</li>
<li>How to think about storytelling when you're a founder and why it's critical in your business.</li>
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<strong></strong><em>"M</em>y advice is to all women: Just because you haven't done something, that doesn't mean you're not qualified for it." -- Nisha Dua<em></em>
</blockquote><p>
<strong><em></em>Nisha Dua </strong>is co-founder and general partner at BBG Ventures. She also founded the #BUILTBYGIRLS movement which teaches young women to be part of the tech-enabled economy through a series of offline and online programs on the fundamentals of venture capital. Nisha was previously the general manager of AOL's millennial site, Cambio, and chief of staff for the AOL Brand Group, working on strategy, operations and special projects. Prior to that, she was a management consultant for Bain & Company, advising companies across Tech & Telco, Financial Services, and CPG. She cut her teeth as an M&A and securities lawyer at the Australian law firm Blake Dawson. Nisha also consulted for edtech startup Learn with Homer.
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Women entrepreneurs in Southern California are more likely to receive early-stage funding from the nation's top 100 VC firms than if they live elsewhere, according to an exclusive new look at a report on U.S. VC investment in diverse founders.
The report, previewed Wednesday at dot.LA's summit, was conducted by RateMyInvestor in partnership with Diversity VC. It looked at investments under $100 million made by the nation's 100 most active VC firms by deal numbers during 2018 and 2019. It also accounted for the "perceived" race and gender of founders, said Bennett Quintard, co-founder and COO of RateMyInvestor.
<p>The survey fills a glaring gap in official data around the racial makeup of companies receiving VC-backed investment. Earlier this week, <a href="https://dot.la/women-in-venture-capital-2648494064.html" target="_blank">dot.LA reported</a> that VC investment in all-female founded companies in L.A. dropped 70% in the third quarter compared to last year, while all male founded companies saw a 385% bump, according to an analysis of PitchBook data. But PitchBook does not track data around race.</p><p>Of the total capital invested nationally, about 5.5% went to 429 founders and 187 startups in Southern California.</p><p>The report found 84% of capital in the U.S. went to male founders. But in L.A., female founders fared better. The percentage of all-female teams that received funding is almost twice as high as it is nationally. Female and mixed-gender teams were likely to receive larger seed and Series A checks than the national average, and mixed-gender teams tended to raise more money than single-gender teams. </p><p>Women who received capital were more likely to have an Ivy League education than men — 20% versus 12.75%. And everyone was more likely to be white. Of the 429 L.A. founders, only two were LatinX and nine Black.</p><p>"To be honest with you, I'm not surprised, and I'd be surprised if anyone was surprised by the data," said Eyana Carballo, manager of global commercial strategy & IP at BCG Digital Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Boston Consulting Group.</p><p>"'I've seen VCs really increased portfolio diversity by investing in gender and gender equity, from board and founder representation to, honestly, target-setting: percentages of funding reserved for women-led startups," she said. "But diversity isn't a side hustle, nor is how we attack it. We tend to attack it like in a singular monolithic way. I would love to see firms and stand up to solve more structural and institutional diversity by weaving more equitable solutions into every business outcome."</p><p>Anthony Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Vinovest said that "it takes years for an ecosystem to change at the Series A or later stage." He added: "It doesn't seem like those founders that maybe have started their company a little bit earlier, have seen that support."</p><p>Other issues that crop up among racially diverse founders is the inability to access the same "friends and family" capital and networks many white founders start off with. On the flip side, "disenfranchised communities of color" are often left on the sidelines in terms of getting opportunities to write checks to create generational wealth, Carballo said.</p><p>Quintard acknowledged that "Asia is a massive, massive place" and that the data should include a better breakdown of data that differentiates between Asian Americans from different geographic areas.</p>
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'We Can’t Let Data Stop Us': Why Funding Inequity Isn't Deterring These Female Founders, VCs
Oct 27 2020
Women entrepreneurs, especially those of color, don't have the same buy-in from investors as their male counterparts, but that shouldn't deter them. That's the advice of four women startup founders and investors during a panel on equity at The dot.LA Summit.
"We can't let the data stop us, especially as women," said Morgan DeBaun, founder and CEO of Blavity, who said she hit roadblocks six years ago when trying to get her media company geared toward Black millennials funded.
The panel, "Locked Out in Lockdown," also featuring Bonfire Ventures principal Jennifer Richard, Halogen Ventures General Partner Jesse Draper and Suma Wealth co-founder and CEO Beatriz Acevedo, explored the deep inequities that remain for women.
<p>Earlier this week, dot.LA's Tami Abdollah, who hosted the event, <a href="https://dot.la/women-in-venture-capital-2648494064.html" target="_self">reported</a> that VC investment in female-founded companies in Los Angeles dropped 70% in the third quarter compared to last year. Meanwhile, all male-founded companies saw a bump of 385%. </p><p>"As our country is going through a movement, after Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, there has been a much bigger emphasis on diversity of race," Richard said. "Of course I want more women to have access to capital, but when you look at the access to white women versus Black women, it's still very different. There's no equality until everyone is getting it." </p><p>The investment world is largely dominated by white men and has been under fire for failing to diversify. Pitchbook has no data on people of color, a point panelists said underscores just how far female founders and investors of color are from reaching equity. </p><p>Draper, who invests in early-stage, female-funded tech companies, said backing diverse companies is a smart investment that few firms are making. In September, she published published an article on Medium called<a href="https://medium.com/@jessecdraper/investing-in-women-isnt-a-fucking-charity-ceabe8918b9c" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> "Investing in Women Isn't a Fucking Charity.</a>" </p><p>"VCs are all out there to make money," she said. "We're greedy, greedy people. If you want to make money, invest in women." </p><p>Draper said although she wants to see more investment in women-led companies, she realizes that this is a hard road for anyone and that founders need to be ready for rejection. </p><p>"I often do have CEOs come pitch me and say, 'Well everyone said no already'," Draper said. "Well who's everyone? Go pitch 100 and come back to me. If you're a startup founder, you have to keep going. It's a grind." </p><p>Acevedo said she often found herself pitching to investors who hadn't been exposed to the Latino community from which she comes. She said she often finds herself explaining her experiences to them. But, she doesn't view it as a negative, rather she sees an opportunity to expose investors to the community that she wants to serve. </p><p>"I thought, 'there's no one like me'," she said. "Nobody knows what I know better, nobody has my upbringing. Being me is my superpower. My experiences, my immigrant status, what my parents went through with their finances that now I'm trying to solve for my community. Be proud of everything that others might perceive as a weakness." </p>
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