The VC Fund Closing Equity Gaps — and Making Money

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Much of the business world has bought into the idea of stakeholder capitalism. But Freada Kapor Klein and Mitch Kapor say that doing some good by doing well isn’t enough when the business impact still creates negative effects and broader disparities overall. Freada, with a background in social justice and empirical research, and Mitch, an entrepreneur and investor who got his start making early spreadsheet software, strive to invest in ventures that close the distance between those with wealth and privilege and those without. The founders explain their metrics and decision-making process at Kapor Capital. The profitable firm explicitly invests in tech startups serving low-income and underrepresented communities. Freada and Mitch wrote the book Closing the Equity Gap: Creating Wealth and Fostering Justice in Startup Investing.

Transcript

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0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR IDA cast from Harvard Business Review, I'm Kurt Nickish.
0:49.4	Doing well by doing good is now a popular idea in the U.S. economy as well as other parts
0:54.8	of the world.
0:55.8	That phrase, it can hide a lot of complexity.
0:58.7	Because a company might make a product to solve a gender inequity problem, but that
1:03.0	product could also contribute to global warming.
1:06.5	When we think about impact investing in the kinds of companies people want to be funding,
1:11.2	today's guests say it's not just about thinking about who is better off, but also who is
1:16.0	worse off.
1:17.3	The companies that are truly going to create the future, they say, don't make those
1:21.0	gaps bigger but smaller.
1:24.3	The Cape War Klein and Mitch Cape War are investors and founders of Cape War Capital which invests
1:29.8	exclusively in impact startups and they wrote the book, closing the equity gap, creating
1:35.7	wealth and fostering justice in startup investing.
1:39.0	Welcome.
1:40.0	Delighted to be here.
1:41.4	Thank you for having us.
	...

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