Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson of Robinson+ Consulting Group has a mission. She works to make the Caucasian and male-dominated world of venture capitalism more diverse and accessible.
So, she founded VC Include. This company strives to equal out the playing field by helping investors across gender, race, and ethnicity lines find various resources and tools.
“We need to invest more into the largest under-leveraged global markets- women, Africa, the African Diaspora,” writes Robinson on her blog. “We can build deep trust by investing, hiring, and enabling high value, under-resourced startups, grow.”
Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson: a long resumé in equality
Robinson’s career in consulting began with Changemakers. This platform focused on tech entrepreneurs. Soon after, she took a position with the State Department and the World Bank. This position focused on fostering that type of entrepreneurship throughout the continent.
This venture, called Appfrica, resulted in more that 300 incubators across Sub-Saharan Africa and the DemoAfrica Conference, “the first tech conference on the continent focused on startups and investment.” It was this experience that she brought to Robinson+ and VC Include.
The Robinson+ Consulting Group focuses on promoting “investment and innovation throughout the African Diaspora and with companies committed to diversity and inclusion in the US.”
VC Include has a similar mission, but even broader. VC is “an exclusive ecosystem and marketplace.” It works towards providing investors and innovators from all gender, ethnic, and racial backgrounds.
“Despite historic underrepresentation in the investment industry, the funds managed by diverse-owned firms have consistently outperformed in private markets,” they explain on the official website. So, VC helps venture capital firms to connect with diverse investors to avoid mission out on “as much as $4 trillion in value.”
Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson learned from her father
Robinson started out in the hip hop music industry. The she had her first exposure to innovation and startup culture. However, due to “misogyny, violence, and unethical behavior that I saw and experienced on a daily basis,” she writes, she left.
In the next stage of her life, Robinson looked to her father. “He was a man who knew how to ‘play the game’,” Robinson continues. The man in question, Dr. Bennett Robinson, was one of the first Black physicists to enter Stanford University. So, he encouraged his daughter to pursue her education as well.
“Both my father and I were mesmerized with the potential of technology,” Robinson writes. “He was obsessed.”
As a result, Robinson received a technological education early in life. With this encouragement, she has since reached great heights in her career. Her background in technology helped Robinson when she began focusing on entrepreneurship. It further helped her as she began her consulting career, working with tech and innovation strategies for major foundations.
VC Include hosts a variety of fellowships to give back to their community
VC Include recently launched the VCI Fellowship for BIPOC First-Time Fund Managers. This will help fund-managers looking to raise between $10-$100 million. “For VCI, and from my perspective, it’s about long-term capital across the lifecycle of funds,” Robinson tells Crunchbase. “And if you get into the ground level of a first-time fund you have to be able to understand what it takes to raise that fund, fund two, fund three.” As such, this fellowship is an investment as a learning opportunity for the recipients.
“It’s education and training,” Robinson sums it up. “The concept is to level the playing field…”
Specifically, the Fellowship includes 50 recipients from all over the world for a fully-funded year-long program. The 2021 application recently closed. Reviews from 2020 participants all underline the human undercurrent in business and venture capital, and the positive experience they had. Additionally, VCI added another fellowship aimed at African Americans in light of last summer’s protests regarding the murder of George Floyd.
Check out VC Include’s official website here.
