NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

By David Teten

Congratulations; you’ve decided to launch a technology-enabled startup with a positive social impact! Nearly every major Silicon Valley venture-capital firm has now invested in a B Corp; maybe you will be one of them!

The bad news: some venture capitalists have a bias against startups with an explicit positive social impact on the grounds that they have a smaller addressable market, and that the founders are not sufficiently focused on creating shareholder wealth. And of course, effectively all venture capitalists are going to require some equity for their investment.

Fortunately, there are a wide range of organizations that specifically want to support you, not just the VC community.

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