In 2019, Dominic Lau, a associate at Ripple Ventures, a Toronto-based VC agency, was searching for methods to assist startup founders and VCs from underrepresented teams. His reply was the RippleX Fellowship Program, geared toward instructing and mentoring graduate and undergraduate college students centered on entrepreneurship or breaking into the VC trade. To that finish, there must be 50% gender range and a minimal of fifty% BIPOC in every cohort.
Since its founding, this system has advanced whereas staying true to its mission of serving underrepresented college students. For instance, it just lately finetuned its admissions course of to make the system extra equitable. And final yr, Ripple X began a separate fund for startups launched by college students, in addition to different founders who aren’t in this system. “DEI is actually in our DNA,” says Nazuk Thakkar, program supervisor, who can be an affiliate at Ripple Ventures.
A Two-Observe Cohort
Open to undergraduate and graduate college students in North America, the RippleX Fellowship program runs 3 times a yr through the faculty semester with two tracks—one centered on entrepreneurship, the opposite on changing into a VC. The distant program, open to 25 college students in every cohort, contains biweekly discussions, workshops with consultants, and hands-on tasks. For would-be founders, subjects embrace such topics as product-market match and the fundamentals of time period sheets. Those that wish to be VCs find out about the right way to consider a startup and the right way to break into the trade, amongst different issues.
There’s additionally a free public course open to anybody, together with individuals who aren’t college students or are situated outdoors of North America.
A New Fund
In 2022, the fellowship launched the Fellow Fund, a separate fund which invests $25,000 to $50,0000 in some pupil startups, relying on the stage of the corporate. It’s additionally open to first-time and underrepresented founders who aren’t in this system. Fifty p.c of investments are allotted to founders who establish with underrepresented teams.
To date, the fund has made two investments in startups launched by entrepreneurs who took the general public course: Artemis, which is creating an information modeling device for enterprise, and Waive the Wait, which has a platform that helps docs with day by day duties, geared toward decreasing burnout.
Finetuning the Utility Course of
Over the previous yr, this system additionally has refined the method for reviewing candidates. For instance, a four-person overview staff, all alums, is comprised of solely folks of shade, with 50% gender range. As well as, reviewers don’t have a look at faculties or GPAs. And so they ensure that each applicant is screened by every staff member at a unique step within the course of.
With a complete of over 1,000 college students within the 13 cohorts provided thus far, there’s an 80% ethnic range charge and 50% gender range, in response to Thakkar. This system additionally has helped underserved founders elevate round $50 million in VC funding and positioned 50 college students from underserved backgrounds into VC roles, she says.
Thakkar attended a cohort in 2021 whereas she was a pupil at Smith College of Enterprise at Queen’s College in Kingston, Ontario, decided to interrupt into enterprise capital. Now, along with serving to to run the fellowship program, she’s additionally a VC at Ripple Ventures.