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About

Screendoor is an investment vehicle designed to back emerging managers raising their first fund or scaling from a previous angel investment vehicle to building an ongoing firm. We focus on underrepresented managers, a group we believe can deliver superior financial returns and serve as a wedge to increase diversity in the tech community more broadly. Screendoor starts with a meaningful capital commitment to help you get the fund closed, but continues beyond the wire transfer to also provide community and mentorship from experienced venture investors.

Our origin

As early-stage investors having all built our own venture firms, we’re often approached by newer practitioners for advice on raising their first funds. We’ve also each worked to increase diversity within our respective portfolios and realms of influence. Now, as a coalition, we intend to combine these two elements - mentorship and meaningful capital - to accelerate diversity within venture.

We believe a venture community that more closely resembles the demographics of our society will bring better economic returns and opportunities. We assembled a group of prestigious institutional LPs that agrees, and they’ve already provided more than $80 million in commitments to Screendoor.

Our strategy

We believe that by backing underrepresented emerging managers we can catalyze a virtuous cycle where those dollars back a broad group of founders, who then hire diverse teams. When those startups succeed, the Screendoor managers will continue to grow their investment footprint, the exited founders will become angel investors and the experienced employees will start their own companies.

This is the motion which has created tremendous wealth in our industry but which has not been widely enjoyed or accessed in a truly meritocratic fashion, no matter what myths we tell ourselves about Silicon Valley.

Our process

Screendoor looks to back emerging managers with commitments approaching 10% of their total fundraise (approximately $500k - $7.5m per fund). We estimate that over the coming years, Screendoor will make 19-20 such investments in firms that have at least one Managing Partner from an underrepresented segment.

All Screendoor managers will have access to a community of experienced venture investors for mentorship, a number of educational and networking events, and ongoing peer support. All founding Venture Advisors are also investors in Screendoor and none of us are drawing fees or carry from this vehicle.

If you’d like to apply for funding, learn more about investing in Screendoor or just have any questions, contact us.

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