Social Venture Partners Denver has developed a partnership with TARRA, Denver Economic Development & Opportunity, Mile High United Way, These organizations have formed a public / private partnership with the University of Denver Daniels College of Business to research the funding ecosystem in Colorado for women and BIPOC founders.

Our goal is to develop effective solutions to address the unique funding challenges and needs of underinvested entrepreneurs. We will be seeking to understand the following:

• What challenges do women & BIPOC entrepreneurs face when navigating the funding ecosystem for growth capital?
• What ideas and solutions are being implemented to close the gap?
• What tools & resources are effective at closing the gap of knowledge, access and resources to ensure underinvested founders can secure capital to scale and grow? Can we improve them?

We know that equity is access, so we are looking to create direct access to knowledge, information and networks so that underinvested founders can secure capital to grow and scale their businesses. We hope that by developing a research-backed view of the gaps for underinvested founders we will be able to identify opportunities for new and effective programming models and technology solutions to close these gaps. 

This project lasts a span of 2-years and phase one is all about uncovering these gaps. Starting on June 1st, we will conduct a series of 4 roundtable discussions that will convene entrepreneurs, business owners, and leaders from banking, venture capital, angel investment, micro-lending and social impact investment. Want to get involved? Sign up to attend these roundtables!

We thank our sponsors, J.P. Morgan and Colorado Thrives for their support..

You can read more about this project here.

Future Roundtable Dates – 

• June 20 – Microlending / Social Impact Roundtable
• September 15 – Angel Investment Roundtable
• October 13 – Venture Capital Roundtable
• November 10 – Annual TARRA Summit & Data Presentation