Case Study: Fundr Successfully Supports Founders of Color Showcase

Founders of Color (FOC) Showcase is a collective of investors, angels, funds, VCs, and others who all invest in scalable companies led by founders of color. Founded in 2020 by Alicia Robb and Next Wave Capital, the FOC Showcase is an initiative that focuses on mobilizing funding for underserved founders building scalable, impact-driven companies. In the United States, less than five percent of venture capital in the

goes to companies with female, Black, and Latino CEOs, and the FOC Showcase aims to change that. Over the past two years, the Showcase has brought in over $1.3 million in funding for its founders.

In 2022, the third annual FOC Showcase was supported by Fundr’s platform from start to finish. The Showcase is known for its industry-best due diligence practices. This includes a detailed nomination process from the companies’ current investors and two stages of judging prior to the showcase itself. After the event, there are due diligence follow up calls that help facilitate due diligence reports. Starting with a pool of more than 50 applicants, this process narrowed down to 16 semifinalists and five finalists.

Evaluation

After the initial judging, Fundr then provided an additional layer of evaluation by deploying its algorithm to gain additional insights on the companies, and get them ready for investment. The Fundr Score™ is created by Fundr’s AI-driven algorithm that evaluates startups on 90 pieces of data points that investors use to assess startups during the due diligence process including team, traction, market, company and a founder personality assessment. Fundr’s algorithm was able to identify four out of the five selected finalists whose startups achieved the top Fundr Scores™ of the applicants. This indicates that Fundr could reasonably replicate and therefore shorten similar evaluation and judging processes.

Due Diligence

The due diligence phase requires significant data and reporting from startup founders to potential investors. Fundr is serving as the one-stop-shop for hundreds of participating investors to review data rooms, one-pagers, and due diligence reports for each finalist all in one place. Combined with the initial evaluation score, this provides a robust view of each startup and streamlines the usually arduous process of collecting, storing, and reviewing content from multiple sources.

Close

The goal of the FOC Showcase is to help close the funding gap and galvanize investment for its finalists. . Fundr is also helping with this stage of the process by tracking investor interest and creating Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) to facilitate funding. Fundr’s platform manages document signing and processes funds, saving the investors and startup founders hours of administrative work. Post-investment, Fundr will track the ongoing progress of the startups via monthly reports that go out directly to each of their investors.

Fundr’s platform can be your one-stop-shop for showcases, pitch competitions and everyday investments. If you’re ready to get started, drop us a note at hello@fundr.ai.