Gaingels is an American venture capital firm headquartered in

Burlington, Vermont Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...

. The firm focuses on investing in companies with diverse and underrepresented (including

LGBTQIA+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is an ...

) leadership as well as progressive social values. Pitchbook ranked it as the ninth most active venture capital firm in 2022 globally with 273 deals.

Background

Gaingels was co-founded in 2014 by David Beatty and Paul Grossinger. The name Gaingels is a mix of "gay angels" and "gaining from angels". It started as a small

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

group syndicate made up of LGBTQIA+ investors that would invest in companies founded by those in the LGBTQIA+ community. In 2015, Gaingels did its first deal. in 2018, the founders recognized the lack of diversity in the venture capital scene and how investors would discriminate against company founders who did not fit the traditional mould such as being gay, female or being from a

minority group The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...

. The firm's mission was expanded to foster

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocult ...

through investing and to create a more diverse and inclusive environment in the venture capital scene. The firm which originally focused on just investing in LGBTQIA+ founded and led startups expanded its scope to invest in more companies to bring more diversity to its investments. It would also help its portfolio companies improve its diversity at leadership level. Gaingels' investments have grown from $5 million in 2018 to $50 million in the first eight months of 2020 as a result of its structural change. Gaingels also partnered with other investors allowing it to obtain more deals. In 2020, Gaingels launched its scholarship program to support LGBTQIA+ students. Outside the U.S., Gaingels has offices in Australia, London and Toronto.

Notable Investments

* Binance.US * BlockFi *

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* Grove Collaborative *

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References

External links

* {{authority control 2014 establishments in Vermont American companies established in 2014 Companies based in Burlington, Vermont Financial services companies established in 2014 LGBT business organizations Venture capital firms of the United States