#i have to wonder if this general lack of substantive experiences contributes

[monster-noises]

The dawning and unfathomable horror of looking around realizing... Well I haven't really done much have I?

[perfectirishgifts]

Future Capital Enables A Diverse Cohort Of Investor To Close The Funding Gap

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/future-capital-enables-a-diverse-cohort-of-investor-to-close-the-funding-gap-2/

Future Capital Enables A Diverse Cohort Of Investor To Close The Funding Gap

Marlon Thompson, Founder, Future Capital

2020 is the year when events have altered our view of society and has accelerated substantive change. The pandemic sounded the alarms to the systemic racism and social injustices in the disparate treatment that has plagued the Black community in the wake of George Floyd. It’s also surfaced the disproportionate access of minority and economically disadvantaged communities to resources. This moment in history has become the catalyst that has brought an urgency to remedy these problems now.

Marlon Thompson, Founder of Future Capital understands this is a crucial time to create lasting change by enabling and equipping a new cohort of investors: minorities, women, and LGBTQ with the necessary tools to bolster economic empowerment.

Thompson is an angel investor, a startup founder and has long been an advocate for diversity in business. He has spent the past 4 years creating pathways to success for underrepresented leaders in the startup ecosystem.

This data is not new. Public information on the funding gap has presented the same grim picture for years. According to Rate My Investor Between 2013 and 2017, 77 percent of venture-backed founders were white while 1% were black. Only 0.2 percent of these venture-backed companies were led by black women. In addition, less than 1% of US funds went to LGBTQ leaders. According to Black.VC as of 2018, 81 percent of VC firms have no black founders.

In July, 2020 a public spreadsheet was released that listed black founders who received VC backing. The updated list includes 173 companies. However, the data showed that while a large number of VC firms have invested in black-founder startups, 75% had only one Black founder investment. James Norman, in concert with Transparent Collective, who helped compile the list stressed,

“That most VC firms on the list of groups that put capital into a single Black-founded startup highlights the lack of capital deployed to Black-founded startups in general”

Thompson has developed and run diversity initiatives supporting founders and investors at an accelerator and venture capital space. For him, all of this adds up to a damaging gap in the amount of available funding for startup founders who are not white and who are not male.

“The funding that a startup receives in the first 10 years of its life can directly affect the company’s chances at succeeding long-term. It’s no wonder that a host of underrepresented leaders in the venture capital community have challenged this seemingly relentless tilt towards a single demographic.

I believe the root of this revolving door of lookalike founders is the insular nature of the venture capital community. Investors are inherently motivated, financially and socially, to close deals with members in their immediate networks. This is based on conscious and unconscious biases that create significant disadvantages to large swaths of the business community. Whether they’re intended, these biases create barriers to entry that disproportionately affect minority founders.”

This has been perpetuated for many years. Thompson points to the fact that prior to 2020, the quest for diversity in the VC world has become a micro-industry in and of itself.

“Before 2020, you could count on one hand the number of funds over $50Million devoted to underrepresented founders. Following the protests in response to the killing of George Floyd earlier this year, venture firms scrambled to find ways to support black founders. Despite its reactive nature, this wave of attention and support for minorities in venture capital has opened a unique window of opportunity for the demographics in the venture industry to shift in a meaningful and permanent way.”

The lack of founder diversity in start-up technology also contributes to this funding gap. Thompson points to a study by First Round that illuminates Silicon Valley’s influence: the “halo” effect with founders who have worked from Google, Apple, Facebook, MS or Amazon will more likely land “pre-money valuations 50% higher than their peers”. In addition, where you go to school matters: the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech. However, as Thompson points out, for black students or women, none of these universities fall within the top 5 engineering schools.

The funding gap is rooted in history.  Brookings Institute uncovered the “networth of white American families to be 10 times that of black families” that originated from historic discrimination emanating from the nation’s 200 years of slavery thru to “Jim Crow laws and the establishment of Black Codes” that further disenfranchised the black population and enforced racial segregation in the southern US for over a century. Further, through geographical redlining, where minority communities with historically higher mortgage defaults, experienced disproportionate access to government services and basic access to housing, employment and credit. Because of the historical oppression, it is less likely a black founder will have the initial capital to invest through family wealth.

Thompson contends that this unfair advantage sets the stage for perpetuation of practices based on a default to what’s familiar. Track records continue to play a significant role in start-up success. Because early-stage companies do not have history to build investor confidence comfortably, investors will likely bet on repeat founders, and investor referrals, even though the data indicates repeat founders don’t necessarily perform better.

“Securing capital is a matter of life and death for a startup at series A or earlier, which means the decision makers in the early-stage ecosystem have the power to decide which startups make it past the initial stages. The decision-making circles are growing, but they are still small enough to disproportionately cut out entire demographics from the leaderboard in venture capital.”

What is required is combining visibility with decision-making power.  Thompson references the term, “diversity theater”  from investor, Elliott Robinson, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who lamented about the lack of real intention:

“Too often, he said, diversity initiatives serve the firm’s public image, without actually helping black founders, and only come after something tragic has happened to the black community.”

Thompson states, the energy and attention towards diversity in 2020 is positive, which has produced a new wave of research, publicity and commitments from the public and private sector. But increasing mind share is just the beginning. He noted the importance of being cautious when we experience a false sense of completion or progress that these public displays may create.

Whether this trend towards investment in diverse founders is fortuitous or here to stay, is still to be determined. Softbank’s launched their $100M fund  and Andreeson Horowitz’s launch of the $2.2M  Talent Opportunity X Fund for minority owned businesses will set the stage to give greater access, but, as Thompson notes, this is still a drop in the bucket for these private equity giants.

“Respectfully, SoftBank’s $100 billion dollar Vision Fund has sunk more into individual founders than the entire amount of the SB Opportunity Fund and Andreeson has $14 billion dollars under management making the Talent and Opportunity fund less than 1% of their entire investment capacity.”

The missing piece of the puzzle to create a more sustainable market for venture capital investment in diversity is a move away from current investment structures – structures created and defined by the Silicon Valley elite. Thompson has an alternative path,

“It’s evident there is limited space for diverse founders within the existing venture capital structure. It would be misguided for founders to walk away from the money and deep talent pools that large, traditional firms can provide, however we have to create new, self-sustaining networks in venture capital to see lasting, and irreversible change. The current structures are not impenetrable, but this issue must be tackled from every angle.

Nurturing a new, more diverse cohort of investors at every level will initiate renewable solutions to venture capital’s diversity problem. We’ve developed a strong, repeatable framework at Future Capital to do just that. We focus on four core tenets that enable highly-skilled leaders from diverse backgrounds to put their thumb on the scale: investment education, direct investing, new network creation and finding the right vehicle customized to the needs of the investor.”

Future Capital aims to demystify the process to teach new and aspiring investors the stages of investing, while they build their personal investment strategy. They are then fast-tracked into deals and onto the cap table by matching them with the right opportunities. Overtime, this builds a powerful network of visible minority investors that work alongside funds, syndicates and angel groups.

We believe that more diversity at the LP, angel and syndicate levels will all contribute to the expansion of the influence of minority investors that will cascade to influence this domino effect towards economic empowerment in these communities. The ultimate goal is to put decisions into the hands of a more representative group of investors and business leaders for the benefit of everyone.

For Thompson, the path to build Future Capital came out of a desire to bring the familiar to an industry he loved.

“I started Future Capital because I didn’t find anyone that was like me in my industry. As a proud member of the LGTB community and a visible minority, my trajectory into the space always felt implausible to me. After working with some of the top investors and founders in Canada, I realized that my indirect path in venture capital was a common one. With Future Capital, I want to improve the likelihood for minorities to succeed in the venture capital space by increasing their visibility and their capacity to have a substantive contribution.”

What the company provides to emerging cohort of minority investors is an accessible pathway towards investment education, access to an emerging network of highly-skilled leaders, and access to deal pipelines and investment opportunities.

Through this venture, Thompson is betting on activating a completely new cohort of leaders on an alternative asset that will change the way they understand business.  Future Capital will lay the infrastructure to enable self-sustaining networks that breed diversity at multiple levels: among founders, fund managers, general partners, angel investors and board members, among others.  Finally, they will track their progress and contribute to the mounting evidence that shows that investing in diversity yields better business returns.

For Thompson, he has set his sights fairly high but he is optimistic:

Venture capital is one of the last industries to mandate diversity, but it could be the first to develop a sustainable model for permanent change. Female founders typically outperform all male teams by 60%. The numbers in venture capital are so low, that we don’t yet know what the potential of a consolidated, genuinely diverse cohort of investors could be. I not only want to find out, I want to contribute to the much-needed change. The sky’s the limit on this one!

From AI in Perfectirishgifts

[marineeducation-blog]

DO WE NEED TO REGULATE TRAINING FOR MARITIME TRAINERS?

Operations and training is highly regulated in the maritime industry. Yet there is comparatively little regulation in the amount and type of training which maritime instructors must have. Is this a fundamental flaw? Maritime trainers help ensure the successful transfer of the skills and knowledge needed for safe operations. Then why are instructors largely unregulated? Or as a counterpoint, is the current system adequate? Is additional regulation unnecessary and even counter-productive?

This is not a new issue for the maritime industry. To some it is a wonder that the teachers of our children are required to undergo two to four years of specialized formal education, yet the teachers of adults are often completely unregulated. After all, even if an instructor is a world-renowned expert in their field, does that give them the ability and knowledge to successfully transfer that knowledge to students? We’ve all met people who are experts, but who are woefully unable to teach.

This blog post reviews and summarizes the comments made by Captain Quentin N. Cox, from the Warsash Maritime Academy, in his paper: “Is it time to require the Training for Instructors course to become mandatory under STCW?”. The paper presents arguments for both sides, and lets the reader make a conclusion for themselves.

 Current Requirements by the STCW

Let’s begin with a review of what is required of instructors by the STCW. Here is what Capt. Cox has to say on the issue:

“There is specific detail in paragraph one of the section when requiring that “all training and assessment of seafarers for certification under the Convention (STCW) is:

1.    structured in accordance with written programmes, including such methods and media of delivery, procedures and course material as are necessary to achieve the prescribed standard of competence and

2.    conducted, monitored, evaluated and supported by persons qualified in accordance with paragraphs 4, 5 and 6”.

Paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 refer to persons having an appreciation of the training programme, an understanding of training objectives and be qualified in the task for which the training is being given. The Code requires assessors to have similar qualifications and guidance and practical experience in assessment. There are further but similar requirements of familiarity and experience for those involved in training and assessment using simulators.

So, these requirements of the code might be translated loosely as having knowledge of a subject and have received guidance on how to deliver training.”

Capt. Cox goes on to examine what it means to “have an appreciation…and understanding” according to the STCW. The code does not give an explicit requirement but does elaborate further that instructors and assessors should:

·         be appropriately qualified and experienced for the particular types of training

·         have received appropriate guidance in instructional techniques (with the IMO Model Course 6.09 Training course for instructors as an example)

·         have appropriate knowledge of training methods

·         have gained practical assessment experience under supervision of an experienced assessor (with the IMO Model Course 3.12 Assessment, Examination and Certification of Seafarers as an example)

·         have full understanding of the assessment system, methods and practices

Capt. Cox concludes that as far as the STCW is concerned:

… the only requirement in this list, over and above appreciation and understanding, is for experience. It appears to be left to the employing institution to decide if an individual possesses the appropriate qualifications and experience, and the Member States Administrations to monitor this.

 Who Makes the Best Teacher?

Capt. Cox goes on to discuss the difference between academic experience and industry experience. Which is more likely to generate a better instructor?

He reaches the conclusion that either could make excellent instructors, so long as they receive guidance and practice in the art of training.

I could not agree more. To some degree, there are those who are “born trainers” and others who, for the benefit of all involved, should never be allowed to stand at the front of a class. However, guidance, training and experience all help to improve the performance of instructors.

And while it would be foolish to believe that an experienced seafarer without an academic background cannot make an outstanding instructor, it would be just as foolish to believe that a knowledgeable academic has nothing to offer trainees. In my original field of Computer Science, neither experience nor academic foundation can trump the other. Both have a critical role to play and learners benefit from and appreciate instructors with both. The maritime industry is no different.

 The Difference Between Regulation and Good Practice

Any discussion on regulation cannot be complete without observing the difference between regulatory requirement and good practice. After all, almost no amount of regulation can create excellence as quickly as competitive demand or company culture.

Capt. Cox reflects that, as is often the case when there’s a clear difference between regulatory requirement and best practice, many employers view instructor training as obligatory in their own company policies. These employers include not just shipping companies, but training institutions as well. Many require their teaching staff to have completed the Training for Instructors course and even obtain a Certificate of Education or Postgraduate Certificate.

He goes on to state:

“It might be said that this is what distinguishes the responsible operator from the rest, that they voluntarily take the option of enhancing their staff training, rather than stick purely to the minimal requirement. Even then, if they want to remain competitive in the chartering marketplace, then they’ll need to enhance their reputation and commercial appeal by acceding to additional options, frequently required by charterers and in many cases this does not mean additional ship equipment and procedures but additional, optional training as well.”

The question, of course, is how can we turn all operators into “responsible operators”? Perhaps regulation is the key to at least set a minimum standard. Capt. Cox briefly argues both sides:

 Regulation of Instructors – For or Against?

Capt. Cox wisely does not attempt to reach a conclusion on this issue. After all, such a conclusion could only be reached after a tremendous amount of reflection, communication and collaboration. Instead, the point of Cox’s paper is to provide fuel to the discussion. As such, he provides arguments on both sides:

Arguing Against

Capt Cox quotes Houghton, 2012, as follows:

“Some model courses are apparently intended to motivate and encourage some of the less energetic companies and flag states by giving them minimum standards to work to – standards which are at the threshold of what is acceptable. However, one unintended consequence is that they actually give average-performing organisations an excuse for not doing anything substantive. So training gets relegated to a relatively junior manager or superintendent” (Houghton 2012).

“So by making our Training for Instructors course mandatory, one school of thought appears to be that the industry is merely advocating mediocrity and that such a move will by no means enhance or increase standards.”

 Arguing For

On this point, Capt. Cox contributes:

Whilst the more worthy operators arguably do not even need the motivation of legislation at all, it is probably the irresponsible and less scrupulous outfits which do need the net of regulation behind them.

He then supports his argument by quoting Wilson, 2005:

“Much of the current training around the world, whether done at sea or ashore, already fails to deliver genuinely competent seafarers that can consistently perform at best industry practice standards. Part of the problem is that there are too many trainers with good technical expertise who are incompetent teachers and others who lack the technical expertise to teach”. (Wilson 2005)

 Conclusion

We have all seen our share of outstanding practitioners who are incapable of teaching. We have also seen the even worse case of poor practitioners who are put into a teaching role and can “neither do, nor teach”. How do we guard against this? Is it legislation, culture, competition, or some other mechanism? As Capt. Cox indicates throughout his paper, it is a very difficult question to answer, but one which should absolutely be reflected upon, discussed and debated.

[perfectirishgifts]

Future Capital Enables A Diverse Cohort Of Investor To Close The Funding Gap

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/future-capital-enables-a-diverse-cohort-of-investor-to-close-the-funding-gap/

Future Capital Enables A Diverse Cohort Of Investor To Close The Funding Gap

Marlon Thompson, Founder, Future Capital

2020 is the year when events have altered our view of society and has accelerated substantive change. The pandemic sounded the alarms to the systemic racism and social injustices in the disparate treatment that has plagued the Black community in the wake of George Floyd. It’s also surfaced the disproportionate access of minority and economically disadvantaged communities to resources. This moment in history has become the catalyst that has brought an urgency to remedy these problems now.

Marlon Thompson, Founder of Future Capital understands this is a crucial time to create lasting change by enabling and equipping a new cohort of investors: minorities, women, and LGBTQ with the necessary tools to bolster economic empowerment.

Thompson is an angel investor, a startup founder and has long been an advocate for diversity in business. He has spent the past 4 years creating pathways to success for underrepresented leaders in the startup ecosystem.

This data is not new. Public information on the funding gap has presented the same grim picture for years. According to Rate My Investor Between 2013 and 2017, 77 percent of venture-backed founders were white while 1% were black. Only 0.2 percent of these venture-backed companies were led by black women. In addition, less than 1% of US funds went to LGBTQ leaders. According to Black.VC as of 2018, 81 percent of VC firms have no black founders.

In July, 2020 a public spreadsheet was released that listed black founders who received VC backing. The updated list includes 173 companies. However, the data showed that while a large number of VC firms have invested in black-founder startups, 75% had only one Black founder investment. James Norman, in concert with Transparent Collective, who helped compile the list stressed,

“That most VC firms on the list of groups that put capital into a single Black-founded startup highlights the lack of capital deployed to Black-founded startups in general”

Thompson has developed and run diversity initiatives supporting founders and investors at an accelerator and venture capital space. For him, all of this adds up to a damaging gap in the amount of available funding for startup founders who are not white and who are not male.

“The funding that a startup receives in the first 10 years of its life can directly affect the company’s chances at succeeding long-term. It’s no wonder that a host of underrepresented leaders in the venture capital community have challenged this seemingly relentless tilt towards a single demographic.

I believe the root of this revolving door of lookalike founders is the insular nature of the venture capital community. Investors are inherently motivated, financially and socially, to close deals with members in their immediate networks. This is based on conscious and unconscious biases that create significant disadvantages to large swaths of the business community. Whether they’re intended, these biases create barriers to entry that disproportionately affect minority founders.”

This has been perpetuated for many years. Thompson points to the fact that prior to 2020, the quest for diversity in the VC world has become a micro-industry in and of itself.

“Before 2020, you could count on one hand the number of funds over $50Million devoted to underrepresented founders. Following the protests in response to the killing of George Floyd earlier this year, venture firms scrambled to find ways to support black founders. Despite its reactive nature, this wave of attention and support for minorities in venture capital has opened a unique window of opportunity for the demographics in the venture industry to shift in a meaningful and permanent way.”

The lack of founder diversity in start-up technology also contributes to this funding gap. Thompson points to a study by First Round that illuminates Silicon Valley’s influence: the “halo” effect with founders who have worked from Google, Apple, Facebook, MS or Amazon will more likely land “pre-money valuations 50% higher than their peers”. In addition, where you go to school matters: the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech. However, as Thompson points out, for black students or women, none of these universities fall within the top 5 engineering schools.

The funding gap is rooted in history.  Brookings Institute uncovered the “networth of white American families to be 10 times that of black families” that originated from historic discrimination emanating from the nation’s 200 years of slavery thru to “Jim Crow laws and the establishment of Black Codes” that further disenfranchised the black population and enforced racial segregation in the southern US for over a century. Further, through geographical redlining, where minority communities with historically higher mortgage defaults, experienced disproportionate access to government services and basic access to housing, employment and credit. Because of the historical oppression, it is less likely a black founder will have the initial capital to invest through family wealth.

Thompson contends that this unfair advantage sets the stage for perpetuation of practices based on a default to what’s familiar. Track records continue to play a significant role in start-up success. Because early-stage companies do not have history to build investor confidence comfortably, investors will likely bet on repeat founders, and investor referrals, even though the data indicates repeat founders don’t necessarily perform better.

“Securing capital is a matter of life and death for a startup at series A or earlier, which means the decision makers in the early-stage ecosystem have the power to decide which startups make it past the initial stages. The decision-making circles are growing, but they are still small enough to disproportionately cut out entire demographics from the leaderboard in venture capital.”

What is required is combining visibility with decision-making power.  Thompson references the term, “diversity theater”  from investor, Elliott Robinson, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who lamented about the lack of real intention:

“Too often, he said, diversity initiatives serve the firm’s public image, without actually helping black founders, and only come after something tragic has happened to the black community.”

Thompson states, the energy and attention towards diversity in 2020 is positive, which has produced a new wave of research, publicity and commitments from the public and private sector. But increasing mind share is just the beginning. He noted the importance of being cautious when we experience a false sense of completion or progress that these public displays may create.

Whether this trend towards investment in diverse founders is fortuitous or here to stay, is still to be determined. Softbank’s launched their $100M fund  and Andreeson Horowitz’s launch of the $2.2M  Talent Opportunity X Fund for minority owned businesses will set the stage to give greater access, but, as Thompson notes, this is still a drop in the bucket for these private equity giants.

“Respectfully, SoftBank’s $100 billion dollar Vision Fund has sunk more into individual founders than the entire amount of the SB Opportunity Fund and Andreeson has $14 billion dollars under management making the Talent and Opportunity fund less than 1% of their entire investment capacity.”

The missing piece of the puzzle to create a more sustainable market for venture capital investment in diversity is a move away from current investment structures – structures created and defined by the Silicon Valley elite. Thompson has an alternative path,

“It’s evident there is limited space for diverse founders within the existing venture capital structure. It would be misguided for founders to walk away from the money and deep talent pools that large, traditional firms can provide, however we have to create new, self-sustaining networks in venture capital to see lasting, and irreversible change. The current structures are not impenetrable, but this issue must be tackled from every angle.

Nurturing a new, more diverse cohort of investors at every level will initiate renewable solutions to venture capital’s diversity problem. We’ve developed a strong, repeatable framework at Future Capital to do just that. We focus on four core tenets that enable highly-skilled leaders from diverse backgrounds to put their thumb on the scale: investment education, direct investing, new network creation and finding the right vehicle customized to the needs of the investor.”

Future Capital aims to demystify the process to teach new and aspiring investors the stages of investing, while they build their personal investment strategy. They are then fast-tracked into deals and onto the cap table by matching them with the right opportunities. Overtime, this builds a powerful network of visible minority investors that work alongside funds, syndicates and angel groups.

We believe that more diversity at the LP, angel and syndicate levels will all contribute to the expansion of the influence of minority investors that will cascade to influence this domino effect towards economic empowerment in these communities. The ultimate goal is to put decisions into the hands of a more representative group of investors and business leaders for the benefit of everyone.

For Thompson, the path to build Future Capital came out of a desire to bring the familiar to an industry he loved.

“I started Future Capital because I didn’t find anyone that was like me in my industry. As a proud member of the LGTB community and a visible minority, my trajectory into the space always felt implausible to me. After working with some of the top investors and founders in Canada, I realized that my indirect path in venture capital was a common one. With Future Capital, I want to improve the likelihood for minorities to succeed in the venture capital space by increasing their visibility and their capacity to have a substantive contribution.”

What the company provides to emerging cohort of minority investors is an accessible pathway towards investment education, access to an emerging network of highly-skilled leaders, and access to deal pipelines and investment opportunities.

Through this venture, Thompson is betting on activating a completely new cohort of leaders on an alternative asset that will change the way they understand business.  Future Capital will lay the infrastructure to enable self-sustaining networks that breed diversity at multiple levels: among founders, fund managers, general partners, angel investors and board members, among others.  Finally, they will track their progress and contribute to the mounting evidence that shows that investing in diversity yields better business returns.

For Thompson, he has set his sights fairly high but he is optimistic:

Venture capital is one of the last industries to mandate diversity, but it could be the first to develop a sustainable model for permanent change. Female founders typically outperform all male teams by 60%. The numbers in venture capital are so low, that we don’t yet know what the potential of a consolidated, genuinely diverse cohort of investors could be. I not only want to find out, I want to contribute to the much-needed change. The sky’s the limit on this one!

From Venture Capital in Perfectirishgifts