We Expand Capital Access
Partnering with forward-thinking philanthropic investors, we provide flexible, low-cost, and creative financial capital. This creates tangible, sustainable impacts on BIPOC wealth creation, employment, and commerce in Twin Cities communities. Our high-net-worth donors, many of them entrepreneurs themselves, build relationships to connect their social capital on scale. Financial and social capital together makes all the difference.
BIPOC businesses in the Twin Cities face a major hurdle: securing affordable capital. Traditional and nontraditional lenders are too risk-adverse. This creates a “constrained credit box” that restricts BIPOC business owners and widens the racial wealth gap. Perhaps like you, we feel this is unworkable and we want to not just take positive action, but create agency—both for investors and BIPOC businesses.
Startling Statistics:
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Loan denial rates are two times higher for Black applicants than for White applicants.
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BIPOC business owners pay interest rates that are 22% higher than White business owners.
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The average loan to BIPOC business owners is 39% smaller than that to White business owners.
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BIPOC business owners that get funding receive their full amount sought 28% less often than White business owners.
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Less than 2% of venture capital funding goes to Black founders.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF WHAT WE DO
• Activate relationships-based social capital.
• Low-cost, creative capital - 1-5% interest, unsecured, FLEXIBLE repayment.
• Fully personalized lending – we have no “product” that the business has to fit into.
• Leverage partner infrastructure.
• Curate a high-quality pipeline of pre-vetted BIPOC businesses from across the Twin Cities.
• Facilitate mutual relationships between high-net-worth individuals and BIPOC business owners to create opportunities for businesses that have been historically marginalized.
• Aggregate the passion of high-net-worth individuals in an engaging, cooperative, place-based investment process.
If the gap had been addressed 20 years ago:
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13 TRILLION
in additional business revenue in the US.
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770,000
more Black homeowners.
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2.7 TRILLION
in additional income earned by Black Americans.
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6.1 MILLION
new jobs annually, if Black entrepreneurs had access to fair and equitable lending.