By Sarah VanderWalde
The worlds of philanthropy and investing are converging. On Thursday morning April 26, the Jewish Foundation of Memphis, in partnership with BNY Mellon, Village Capital, and the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, hosted a panel discussion on the inequities in the venture capital process and how to fund ideas that create sustainable change.
Charles Jalenak, President of the Jewish Foundation of Memphis board, welcomed over 70 Memphis community members to the program. The Foundation holds events like this for its Professional Advisory Group (PAG) throughout the year. Members of the PAG include attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, insurance agents and trust officers.
Scott Barron, Associate Wealth Manager at BNY Mellon, introduced the keynote speaker, Ross Baird, CEO of Village of Capital, who traveled to Memphis from Washington DC.
Ross Baird began his presentation by talking about the civil rights movement and how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated for income equality. Baird quoted Dr. King saying “Now, our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For what does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?”
In his new book, The Innovation Blind Spot, Baird highlights investor blind spots and new strategies in finding, developing, and investing in entrepreneurs where most people are not looking. Two percent of startup investment goes to women and one percent goes to people of color. 98.7% of venture capital/private equity investors are white men, yet 30% of the top quartile are women and 20% of the top quartile are people of color. Baird points out that solving real problems is also good business. Unfortunately in today’s business landscape, most investors do not see this. This led to the panel discussion moderated by Leslie Smith, president and CEO of Epicenter.
Leslie Smith is a nationally recognized entrepreneurial and business development leader who moved to Memphis from Detroit to start Epicenter in 2015. Epicenter is the nonprofit hub for the greater Memphis entrepreneurial movement.
The panel consisted of two female entrepreneurs — Dr. Esra Roan, CEO of SOMAVAC Medical Solutions, and Kayla Graff, CEO of SweetBio. Dr. Roan, an engineer by profession, talked about leaving her tenured professorship at the University of Memphis to jump into the unknown world of starting a new business. Graff worked in corporate America in Minneapolis and Silicon Valley before moving to Memphis. When asked about barriers, both entrepreneurs mentioned funding and fundraising as their biggest hurdle. This circled back to Ross Baird’s presentation where he cited statistics for the percentage of funds invested in female owned startups – a mere two percent.
The investor on the panel was Jan Bouten, Partner at Innova, and former executive of two startups with more than 15 years of experience at seed and early-stage venture capital firms. Bouten prides himself in investing in innovative ideas and products. Bouten cares deeply about Memphis and is excited for the startup growth in Memphis, which can ultimately address local issues.
The panel closed by taking a few questions from the audience. Attendees walked out with a copy of Ross Baird’s book, Innovation Blind Spot, and a few extra copies remain. To request a book or ask any questions about the event, please contact Sarah VanderWalde, Endowment Development Manager, at the Jewish Foundation of Memphis. She can be reached at svanderwalde@jcpmemphis.org or 901-767-7100.