Diversity VC is an international assessment and certification program that sets a benchmark for best practice and sends a signal that Btomorrow Ventures is a D&I leader.
“Not only is this a fantastic achievement for us, but it’s a step in the right direction toward driving change across the whole venture capital community,”
says BTV’s Senior Legal Counsel, Peter Wozny.
"Investors like BTV are hugely influential in our industry as they get to pick which idea gets funding to be put into action, by removing things like unconscious bias, these early decisions we are making set in motion a ripple effect to encourage more entrepreneurs with more fantastic ideas."
As part of the assessment process, Diversity VC looked at BTV’s internal HR policies, our investing protocols and our portfolio community.
We are immensely proud of this recognition of both our values and our work because D&I are central to what we do here at BTV.
We know that VC has a diversity problem, so part of our mission is to make funding available to under-represented founders. We also aim to make all of our colleagues and portfolio founders feel that they can succeed, whatever their background, identity or lived experience.
The Diversity VC Standard also evaluates where dealflow originates and how it is tracked and assessed. The Standard identifies what VCs can do to expand the demographics of founders in their pipeline and across their portfolios. This is done by examining both the investment process and providing practical recommendations for how existing portfolio companies can implement their own D&I policies.
“We are improving the way we recruit and treat our colleagues, but also the way we scout future investments and encouraging our portfolio companies to adopt the same principals and beliefs, wherever they are across the globe,” adds Peter.
BTV is proud to join more than 40 funds across Europe and North America who have currently gained certification, and will be proudly displaying our Level 1 certification seal across our website and both external and internals Comms while continuing our work in the field of D&I.
We don’t see this certification as the end result of our push for D&I in Venture Capital, but merely as one small, but important, step on a much longer journey. Our work in this field will continue.
Some more about the Diversity VC Standard…
The assessment and recommendations that form the Diversity VC Standard are evidence-led and based on research from the Harvard Business Review, Deloitte, McKinsey, Diversity VC, and Diversio. The Standard has been developed in partnership with Diversio, the world’s leading D&I solution provider for investors, and One Tech. Diversio works with industry bodies including ILPA and the Investor Leadership Network (ILN) and is the technology provider for LPs and GPs globally. The Diversity VC Standard is strongly supported by the ILN and endorsed by The Rose Review. The project is powered by Diversio and OneTech with input from their respective specialists.
You can find out more about the Diversity VC Standard here: https://www.diversity.vc
