New York-based venture capital firm Harlem Capital has closed an oversubscribed $40 million debut fund. The company plans to use the money to invest in 30 diverse startups.
When the firm was founded in 2015 by Jarrid Tingle and Henri Pierre-Jacques, its mission was to invest in 1,000 companies started by people from diverse backgrounds. It usually invests between $250,00 and $1 million. As of 2019, Harlem has already invested in eight companies including dog wellness plan startup Wagmo and menstrual products manufacturer Aunt Flow.
Harlem considers itself as industry agnostic and prefers seed and early-stage investments. It avoids capital intensive businesses such as hardware, biotech or cannabis and while it has an investment focus on diverse founders, its investment criteria are fiscally-focused. Harlem looks for companies with an attractive valuation, strong revenue and investment realization in four to seven years. It prefers investing in companies that already have some momentum.
The venture capital firm defines diversity as women of any race and people of color such as Native Americans, Latinx, Black and other people from underrepresented groups. Harlem uses direct emails around 50% of the time to reach out to these diverse founders.
To widen its reach, the firm has teamed up with seed accelerator Techstars. Under their partnership agreement, Techstars will send Harlem 500 deals over the next five years. According to Pierre-Jacques, Techstars is the most diverse top tier accelerator and around 50% of the companies in its programs are minorities.
