diverse-founders
(12)
Backstage Capital Found 200 Companies. The Hard Part Was Funding Itself.
Arlan Hamilton built a venture firm around founders other investors overlooked. Its next test is making that investment thesis support an enduring business.
The Healthcare Fund Betting the Best Founders Are the Ones Venture Capital Missed
Seae Ventures was built by healthcare insiders who saw two blind spots at once: patients the system underserved and founders the funding system overlooked. Its answer is a portfolio designed around access, outcomes and the practical machinery of care.
The Small-Portfolio Bet Behind Mendoza Ventures
The Boston firm is trying to prove that a venture fund can stay institutional, stay hands-on and still widen the door. Its method is unusually finite: three technical sectors, a 12-to-15-company portfolio and more contact than a quarterly board meeting.
Artemis Goes Hunting in the Markets Other VCs Call Uncomfortable
Stephanie Campbell and Diana Murakhovskaya built a $36 million fund on a plain bet: the founders and problems most investors skip - elder care, divorce, food trucks, lactation - are where the overlooked returns hide.
The Fund That Runs Your Marketing Before It Writes You a Check
Fiat Ventures started as a fintech growth shop, not a checkbook. That order - consulting first, capital second - is the whole pitch, and it is why founders let the firm into the room before the term sheet.
The AI Fund Hunting in One Square Mile
milemark•capital is making a concentrated bet: the next useful AI companies will come from founders who know an industry’s pain intimately - and from research hubs that can turn difficult science into durable businesses.
The Firm Indiana Built to Fund Its Own Future
For 15 years, Elevate Ventures has written the first check for Indiana startups from Gary to Evansville. In 2025, the state that helped create it started asking hard questions about the books.
Simon Glass
Simon Glass is the founder and CEO of Qodeo, a UK and US based platform that uses proprietary algorithms to match entrepreneurs with venture capital and private equity firms - with a deliberate focus on diverse, regional and female founders who sit outside the traditional venture network. A Cambridge BA, MA and MBA who trained in corporate finance at London Business School, Glass spent years in venture capital (including Amadeus Capital Partners, the first backer of ARM), banking, academia and media before building Qodeo to end what he calls the needle-in-a-haystack approach to finding investment. The platform now tracks tens of thousands of organizations and connects 20,000+ entrepreneurs with 7,400+ investors across multiple markets.
Carolina Huaranca Mendoza
Carolina Huaranca Mendoza is co-founder and General Partner of First Close Partners, a fund-of-funds backing venture firms led by underrepresented managers. She got her start in M&A banking, built Girls Who Code's Clubs program from zero, became a Principal at Kapor Capital where she designed the firm's first LP strategy for diverse emerging managers, and now writes checks into 100+ funds worldwide.
Jinlin Wang
Jinlin Wang arrived in the United States in 1996 with $50 in his pocket and a borrowed one-way ticket to pursue a PhD in electrical engineering. Three decades later, he is General Partner at Foothill Ventures, an early-stage fund that has backed seven seed-stage unicorns - five of them founded by Chinese immigrant engineers. Wang's career spans big tech (PeopleSoft, Oracle, Yahoo, Microsoft), startup founding (Auryc, acquired by Heap in 2022), and venture investing through three successive funds totaling over $311M. He holds 7 patents and a cross-disciplinary worldview shaped by Tsinghua University, the University of Connecticut, and Stanford - a combination that informs his conviction that the most interesting startups sit at the edges between fields.
Steve Reale
Steve Reale is General Partner & CFO at Ulu Ventures, a Palo Alto-based seed-stage venture firm with $400M+ AUM known for backing diverse founders using a rigorous, data-driven decision analysis framework. A Kauffman Fellow (Class 14) with a CFA designation and 25+ years of Silicon Valley experience spanning equity research, early-stage startups, and venture investing, Reale brings an unusually analytical lens to seed-stage bets - applying probability-weighted risk modeling borrowed from pharmaceutical R&D and oil & gas exploration to evaluate founders and markets. His portfolio work spans 10 unicorns including Guild Education, BetterUp, and Figure.
Lucas Hoffmann
Lucas Hoffmann is a Partner at Outlander VC and Head of Business Operations at HavocAI, a maritime autonomy company. A Wake Forest and Emory Business School graduate with corporate roots at ExxonMobil and Delta Air Lines, he pivoted to venture capital in 2021 and built a pre-seed and seed investing practice focused on AI, SaaS, hardware, robotics, fintech, and govtech. He also founded RiskyBreakfast, a media and content venture, and was recognized as a Siemens National Semifinalist in 2010 for ALS research conducted at Columbia University Medical School.