Astia, a twenty year old organisation dedicated to levelling the investment playing field through intentional investment in women-led companies, has released the findings from a three-year pilot, which was launched when Astia first uncovered a racial bias within its investment decision-making process.
Astia Edge, Our Failure to Invest in Black Founders and What We Have Done About It, highlights that investment, advocacy and access are critical to levelling the playing field for Black female founders, and the pilot demonstrated a 22-times leverage on invested capital, along with portfolio companies raising >USD5 million in outside investment.
Three years on since the pilot launched, Astia has implemented its learnings which is how, today, the Fund portfolio is 50 per cent Black female CEOs and and 17 per cent of the capital deployed since the pilot by the Astia Angels has gone into companies with Black female CEOs.
