When you think about diversity in the startup ecosystem, one area that could be overlooked is the limited partner pool. These are the folks who contribute to the larger funds or individual investments. They don't necessarily have the same influence over deals that VCs do, but they are a key piece that provides the cash to grease the startup funding framework. Having more heterogeneity in this part of the system ultimately helps bring more diversity to cap tables.

One of the reasons that LPs aren't more diverse is likely due to the fact that the VC firms themselves typically aren't. If the partners at investment firms are seeking limited partners, they are probably going to reach out to their own networks, and that tends to be people who look like them and run in the same circles. Since the vast majority of VC partners are white and male, it's a hard pattern to break. In fact, it takes a concerted effort to get people involved who have been left out of deals in the past.

This isn't just about diversity for diversity's sake, either. It's also about wealth creation, who's being included and who's being left out. While venture investing often involves many misses, when a deal hits, it can bring generational-changing wealth for the investors who got in early. If the cap table is confined to mostly white men, that leaves out a lot of people who have been historically underrepresented across society.

A number of folks with access to deal flows are attempting to change this on their own, some as a side hustle, working to bring in a more diverse set of people to the investor pool. As an example, last year we wrote about Amanda Robson, a partner at Cowboy Ventures, who has started in an informal angel network of women and non-binary folks, who have means but have never been asked to be included in deals before.

"I had a number of friends who had recently within the past couple of years become VP-level at different companies, and they had an interest in angel investing, and they had the means to at that point, but they didn’t have access," she told us at the time.