BLCK VC is launching a new program to help firms support more Black investors
BLCK VC members including co-founders Frederik Groce and the scout program's mastermind, Sydney Sykes, at center.For all the high-speed growth and innovation that venture capital is supposed to fuel, the industry itself isn’t structured for quick change.Sydney Sykes knows it first-hand. Since last summer, firms have reached out to Sykes for advice on changes they can make fast.
Increasingly, her answer has been a program growing in popularity in VC: the scout. “Firms will hire a partner once or twice a year max, or an investment professional. But scout programs can be as large as you want,” Sykes says. “This seems like a really obvious solution to get more dollars in the hands of Black investors.”
Today, BLCK VC is launching a new program to help firms do that, with two of VC’s big-name firms signed on as partners: Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia. Called The BLCK VC Scout Network, the program will work with up to 20 scouts over a six month period, twice a year. Lightspeed and Sequoia are signed on to sponsor the program’s informational sessions, meetings and events as its partners for the next two years.
BLCK VC defines a scout as someone who receives compensation – either cash or carried interest – to source or invest in startups on behalf of a VC firm. Scouts are typically entrepreneurs or tech executives themselves with an interest in angel investing, but Sykes says the program will consider candidates actively looking to do so who haven’t started yet Both firms had proactively reached out to Sykes and BLCK VC following the death of George Floyd, Sykes says.
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