2017 Diversity Data for Capital Factory
We know that there is a systemic discrimination problem in the tech industry caused by hundreds of years of institutional racism. We know that the facts show that businesses perform better with diverse teams. We know that we want to work in a place full of diverse people that is welcoming of many different viewpoints. We know that things won’t get better without intentional effort. We know we can do better.
Diversity isn’t just an end in and of itself. I do believe that our focus on improving diversity and inclusion is straight up the right thing to do — but that’s not all it is. Diversity in tech and in business leads to greater chances of success. It leads to better ideas and more creativity. It leads to better products, better strategy, better marketing, bigger valuations and faster growth. It leads to better company cultures, and high-performing teams that consistently win.
Something I’ve learned that it is important for white men like me to say aloud and repeatedly is this: Diversity and inclusion are generally approachable terms. Far more difficult to say are things like “systemic discrimination” and “institutional racism.”
These realities are a hidden (and sometimes not-so-hidden) hand that influence how businesses are built in Austin and everywhere else. What we have to acknowledge is how insidious this stuff is. We have to commit to change for the long haul, not just this month or this year, and we have to commit to change at an infrastructural level.
Those words — “systemic” and “institutional” — acknowledge how deeply entrenched inequality is in America, and thus, how committed we must all be to building bridges and pathways. Talent may be evenly distributed but opportunity most definitely is not.
We are trying to be intentional about gathering data. We have some data on all of our members and more data on our Accelerator startups, but we know that it is incomplete. Our 2017 annual report listed 30% diverse members, 25% female members, and 50% diverse investments. Here is some more detail into how we came up with those numbers. Diverse in this context means “not a white male,” members are coworkers in our community and investments are Accelerator startups.
I can already see some room for improvement on how we measure this and appreciate your feedback about how else we can improve the 2018 annual report.
Digging into the numbers a bit, let’s break down the “non-white” category further. Of our 61 Accelerator startups in 2017, 8% had at least one Black founder, 13% had at least one Female founder, 16% had at least one Asian founder, 21% had at least one LatinX founder.
These numbers look pretty good compared to most of our peers and others in the tech industry, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.
Hopefully this sets a baseline. We know it’s not perfect, but it’s a place to start and we’ll try to keep getting better. We’ll try to collect better data so we can break it down different ways.
“Diverse” and “non-white” may not be the best benchmarks. It seems like what we’re really looking for is “traditionally under-represented” groups. Blacks are. Women are. LatinX are. I’ve heard some people question whether or not Asians should be included — in our case Asian includes Indian and Chinese. In most cases they are immigrants.
Words are powerful. Words are important. We need to use the right ones to describe this so that we’re effective at our goal of increasing awareness and access.
This isn’t a contest to get the best numbers. There is no way to “win” and no one to compare to but ourselves. We publish these numbers so that everyone knows that it is important and because we know from experience that measuring things is the first step to improving them.
Everyone who works at Capital Factory knows that diversity and inclusion is a top priority. Eugene Sepulveda was co-chair of the LGBTQ Council for President Obama. We have a very diverse staff that is 70% female and also includes veterans, people of color, gays and lesbians. We have a Director of Diversity and are currently hiring a full time Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator.
We try to make sure everyone else knows it, too.
- Mellie Price, our Director of Diversity & Inclusion, helped create and host the Austin Community Inclusion Council.
- We partner with Code 2040, Bunker Labs, DivInc, Huston-Tillotson, Women@Austin, Women Who Code and other great organizations who bring diverse people into our community.
- We highlight progressive startups and scaleups who are “doing it right” like Aceable and WP Engine.
- We organize Blacks in Tech and Women in Tech summits.
- Our events team has a directive to try and host every diversity related event that we can and to support them in any way possible.
- We put our money where our mouth is with multiple $100,000 investment challenges for diverse founders each year.
Our Texas Startup Manifesto is helping improve diversity at Capital Factory. Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio are all more diverse cities than Austin and as a result we’ve added more Black and LatinX founders to the Accelerator. Houston is the most diverse city in the country!
Here are some of the biggest opportunities we have for improving:
- We need more Black founders, mentors and angel investors.
- We need more Women founders, mentors and angel investors.
- We need more Women founders getting funded.
- We need more Women and People of Color on the Capital Factory leadership team.
- We need more Women, Blacks, LatinX in accelerator company advisory and board roles.
- We need to improve how we report on these stats.
Have you ever felt uncomfortable or unwelcome at Capital Factory? Do you have ideas about how we can make our community more diverse and inclusive? We are listening.
Thank you to Eugene Sepulveda, Georgia Thomsen, Heather Brunner, Josh Jones-Dilworth, Mark Phillip, Mellie Price, and Preston L. James, II for reviewing and contributing to this post.
