Overlooked Ventures Diversity Stats Update 2022

The venture capital funding stats for 2021 came in, and while we’re not surprised, we are disappointed.

Nearly two years ago, the industry pledged to support diverse founders. While the total amount of VC dollars allocated to Women, Black, Latinx, and other diverse founders increased overall, the percentages remained the same. Let us explain.

2021 was a record-breaking year for venture capital. PitchBook found that US venture investment reached $300 billion, almost 2x the previous year. Although there are plenty of dollars to go around, most recent data shows the following funding stats:

• Women founders only secured 2%
• Black founders received just 1.2%
• Latinx founded companies secured 2.1%

It’s unfortunate that we’ve seen little to no progress when it comes to funding diverse founders. However, many great venture capital firms and investors are changing the face of VC by having important conversations and putting money into historically overlooked founders.

Overlooked Ventures is dedicated to backing startups led by diverse founders. As a part of our commitment to being transparent and founder-first, we are publishing our updated diversity and fund statistics.

In case you’ve never heard of Overlooked Ventures or need a reminder, here is our thesis:

Overlooked Ventures invests in early-stage companies with one or more historically ignored founder(s). Fund I is a $50MM pre-seed/seed-stage fund investing in ~50 industry-agnostic startups in tech, tech-enabled, with check sizes between $100–500K.

Since we started the fund in May, Overlooked Ventures received 1535 inbound applications from startups seeking funding. We do not accept any warm intros, and all startups can apply through the Airtable form on our website. In a previous post, I outlined how Overlooked manages dealflow, and what we do to level the playing field for all founders.

Here’s a breakdown of Overlooked Ventures’ inbound fundraising submissions (as of Feb 7, 2022):

90% of our 1535 startup applications identified as having one or more historically-ignored founders. That’s 1380 startups, proving there is no pipeline problem.

Overlooked Ventures is proud to receive applications from all over the world. 70% of submissions were from domestic startups (located in the United States) while the rest came from other countries such as Germany, Switzerland, North and South Africa, the UK, Brazil, India, and many more.

For fund I, we are only able to invest in startups that operate in the U.S., but applications still come from coast to coast. Over 96% of applicants came from areas outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, confirming that people are building great companies all over the place.

At Overlooked Ventures, we invest in early-stage startups because we believe in giving founders what they need to get their idea off the ground. That being said, most of our applicants have a working product and early traction already. Below is a breakdown of the stages our applicants are in:

As for the types of companies that apply for funding from Overlooked Ventures, we receive submissions from a variety of markets including CPG, B2B, B2C, FinTech, and more. Overlooked Ventures is industry-agnostic and happy to review deal flow from any market.

Now that we’ve gone over who applied for funding with Overlooked Ventures, it’s time to share the statistics behind our portfolio companies.

In total, Overlooked Ventures has deployed capital into 8 startups. We officially announced 6 companies, with news of 2 more coming soon. Meet the Overlooked Ventures portfolio company founders!

• Juan Medina of Lalo // Stage: Pre-Seed
• Rhian Beutler and Kelly Vaughn of Govalo // Stage: Pre-Seed
• Demetrius Curry of College Cash // Seed
• Nima Roohi, Kavitha Gnanasambandan, and Naman Gupta of Blooming Health // Stage: Pre-Seed
• Megan Gray of Moment AI // Stage: Pre-Seed
• Naza Shelley and Sali Hama of CarpeDM // Stage: Pre-Seed
• 2 more we can’t reveal just yet!

Our portfolio companies are all unique, but here are a few key characteristics:

• 5 solo founded companies
• 3 companies with more than one founder
• 6 companies with at least one woman founder
• 5 companies with at least one Black founder
• 2 companies with at least one Latinx founder

A further breakdown of our portfolio diversity and market segments.

Part of our mission is to invest in untapped talent, and one way we do that is by being the first institutional check for startups. Overlooked Ventures is proud to be the first institutional check for four of our 8 investments!

Learn more about each of the companies and their founders Read each of the announcements here: Lalo, Govalo, Moment.ai, Blooming Health, College Cash, and CarpeDM.

Overlooked Ventures also prioritizes diversity at the limited partner level.

OV’s limited partners, or the individuals/organizations that invest in our fund, come from a variety of different backgrounds. We are proud to have 60% of our LPs be women and 32% Black and POC.

Ready to join us?

We’d love for you to be a part of the OV family! If you’re a startup founder, apply for funding here. If you’re interested in being an OV LP, express interest using this form.