WEVE Acceleration is dedicated to celebrating and uplifting the voices and experiences of groups that are marginalized in tech and entrepreneurship—namely: women, Black and Brown men and women, and Latinos/Latinas. As a startup accelerator, we are uniquely positioned to enable access, elevate voices, and channel resources to these groups. One of the ways we address the crucial issue of diversity is through our mentor network, where we are always striving towards gender and race parity.
In our current community, 30% identify as non-white, and 25% identify as female. In 2021, 38% of our sessions were women-led, and there are no “manels”, ever. We ran 2 programs in partnership with the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, and for the first program, 50% of the curriculum sessions were women-led. 40% of the second program sessions were led by women. WEVE also ran a program with the Canadian government, in which 40% of the mentor sessions were female led.
Our community today*
*Statistics extracted from a sample size equal to 30% of our network
Some of our goals for 2022 include onboarding a minimum of 6 new venture capital funds that invest in minority groups. We are also actively working towards building a mentor network that is 50:50 men-to-women, and doubling the number of Black and Latinx entrepreneurs, VCs, and mentors in our community.
By expanding our network diversity we hope to break biases in network patterns that perpetuate systems of racism and oppression. It’s one small step in our sphere of influence. We look forward to updating you at the end of 2022 on our progress, and hopeful achievement, of these goals.
