Announcing Chicago Blend: Tracking, Supporting and Increasing DEI in Chicago VC and Startups
A few months ago a group of Chicago VCs and I started talking about ways to help our firms and the companies we invest in build diverse teams and inclusive environments. A lot of us are making some progress individually, but we know the power of this venture community is greater than any one firm or individual on its own.
Inspired by our friends at NYC Blend, today we launched Chicago Blend, a collaborative effort of venture capitalists in Chicago who know that diverse teams and inclusive environments are critical foundations for both the startups we invest in and our own venture firms.
The Chicago Blend Board (John Tough, Energize; Kristi Dula, Pritzker Group VC; Gale Bowman, IrishAngels Ventures; Jackie DiMonte, Hyde Park Venture Partners; Devon Leichtman, Origin Ventures; Ryan Mundy, Techlete Ventures; Elizabeth Coston McCluskey, Impact Engine; and myself, Chicago Ventures) believes that Chicago has an opportunity to be one of the most diverse and inclusive startup ecosystems in the world. We batted around a lot of ideas but ultimately realized, before putting any initiatives in place, we needed to understand what the state of our ecosystem looks like.
Today, we’re launching three projects to figure that out:
(1) DATA COLLECTION: The State of Chicago’s Venture Firms
We’ve collected data across Chicago’s venture firms and have posted that anonymized data on data.world and in google docs.
We collected information for 348 employees at 70 Chicago based-firms that have made at least one venture investment within the last year. These firms include venture funds that are $5MM+, family offices, angel investment networks, and a handful of other investors that also do venture deals.
Here’s a summary of what we uncovered:
GENDER
👉🏻 Roughly 3/4 of the industry is male
👉🏼 There are more males at the executive level (86%) compared to non-executive (58%)
👉🏽 There are also more males on the investor side (82%) compared to non-investor (35%)
👉🏾 There are slightly more females in companies with smaller fund sizes (34% for funds <$15MM vs. 26% for funds >$15MM)
👉🏿 There are more females in angel groups (44%) and family offices (32%) versus VC (24%)
👉🏻 There are more males with a tech and other focus (~75%) and less with a general focus (58%)
👉🏼 There isn’t a significant deviation from the overall results when looking at Midwest versus broader US focus
👉🏽 First time funds have slightly more women (31%) versus non-first time funds (26%)
ETHNICITY
👉🏾 86% of the industry is white
👉🏿 There is a larger white presence at the executive level (91%)
👉🏻 There is slightly more racial/ethnic diversity at smaller funds of $5–15MM (20%) and larger funds of $100MM+ (19%) versus mid-sized funds of $15.1–99.9MM (9%)
👉🏼 The ‘other’ company type (e.g. fundless sponsor) is 100% white (Note the small base size of 10)
(2) DATA COLLECTION: The State of Chicago’s Venture-Backed Startups
We want to understand what the makeup of all startups backed by Chicago investors “looks like.” We’re looking for answers to questions like “how many women work in tech and product?” and “How many underrepresented minorities have board seats?” We are working with Chicago’s VCs to collect this info by the end of 2018.
(3) RESOURCE LIBRARY
We are the central hub for all things related to Chicago tech diversity, equity and inclusion, and have built a database of resources, affinity groups and community in Chicago. We share resources like parental leave policies, local affinity groups, and best practices in recruiting and retaining talent. View it here.
WHAT’S NEXT?
After our data collection is complete, we’ll identify two to three specific initiatives to help fill some of the largest gaps. We aim to have a summary of the startup data as well as the specific initiatives to share by end of 2018. We plan to revisit this data collection on an annual basis to track progress.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
If you’re a Chicago VC, sign on to be a VC Supporter. We’ll ask you to help us collect your portfolio company data and support future initiatives to help fill the gaps we identify. Share the Resource Library with your portfolio companies, and read through the resources yourself.
If you’re a Chicago startup, encourage your VCs to sign on as a VC Supporter. Check out the Resource Library for ways to get started with DEI or supplement your existing efforts.
We also encourage the rest of Chicago’s tech and civic communities to get involved, please drop us a line at info@chicagoblend.org or on Twitter at @Chicago_Blend with other resources and groups we should share. You can also sign up to stay informed about our progress here.
IN CLOSING
We know DEI work can feel daunting. We also know the hardest part can be starting. We care deeply about this work and about Chicago’s tech ecosystem, and while we don’t have all of the answers, we hope we can help lead the effort for our community to work together to affect positive change.
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