JFF Ventures

We are a nationally-ranked venture capital firm and accelerator that brings together startup founders, investors, corporations, job seekers, universities, musicians and artists. The gener8tor platform includes more than 75 programs spanning startup accelerators, corporate programming, speaker series, conferences, skills accelerators and fellowships. gener8tor believes that everyone deserves opportunities, regardless of race, place or gender. And that is what we consider our mission. Why do we do it? Our mission is to be the best partner for a community to invest in its best and brightest. We envision communities achieving measurable and transformational growth through programming that enables equitable access and opportunity. We do what we do because we care about our communities. At gener8tor, everyone belongs. We don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk. Our goal is to close equity gaps for founders, continually improve the workforce, and foster relationships with diverse communities and organizations that are dedicated to DE&I. From the culture of our own company to the experience of our programs and participants, we strive to create an inclusive and safe environment for everyone.

ECMC Foundation is a national foundation working to improve postsecondary outcomes for students from underserved communities. ECMC Foundation makes investments in two focus areas: college success and career readiness; and uses a spectrum of funding structures, including strategic grantmaking and program-related investments, to invest in both nonprofit and for-profit ventures. Launched in 2018, ECMC Foundation’s Education Innovation Ventures (EIV) program provides catalytic, risk capital to early-stage ventures working to increase postsecondary educational outcomes and economic mobility among learners who face systemic barriers. Through program-related investments, EIV’s capital generates impact alongside financial returns, which are recycled to fund further impact initiatives and drive changes in educational attainment and economic mobility for learners. Investment Strategy and Objectives EIV provides flexible, risk capital to early-stage ventures and entrepreneurs working to seed innovations, prove new models, and enable ventures to scale their impact. Our early-stage investments are designed to support ventures focused on improving postsecondary persistence and completion and/or job attainment at family-sustaining wages, specifically for learners and jobseekers who face systemic barriers to economic mobility. Since launching in 2018, EIV’s investments have allowed the Foundation to tap into the creative power of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors through social enterprises working on college persistence and success, alternative postsecondary education financing, career exploration, upskilling and training, and equitable hiring initiatives. The investment thesis builds upon learnings from the Foundation’s grantmaking portfolios on College Success and Career Readiness. EIV makes several types of investments: Direct Investments: the Foundation invests capital into social enterprises that serve learners and jobseekers Fund Investments: capital is deployed to funds that reinvest capital into social ventures Donor Advised Funds (DAF) Investments: capital is sent through a donor advised fund and invested into social ventures Education Innovation Venture’s Five-Point Model EIV considers ventures that demonstrate a commitment to delivering intentional, sustained and measurable social impact, and align with the Foundation's mission of inspiring and facilitating improvements in postsecondary education for underestimated learners. We look for the following criteria in our investments: Impact: A measurable strategy for driving educational outcomes and economic mobility for students from underserved backgrounds and markets; a commitment to sharing lessons learned with the greater education sector. Risk & Innovation: Early-stage ventures with transformative and disruptive products and services that address an unmet market need. Scalability: Ventures with sustainable business models using market-based approaches that need access to patient capital in order to achieve scale. Leverage: Ventures that test new and bold ideas with the potential to attract additional sources of capital to grow impact. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Intentionality around building a diverse and inclusive body of leadership and practicing strong internal social governance. Special Initiative: Innovative Financing Models Beginning in 2021, ECMC Foundation will invest up to $2.5 million through Education Innovation Ventures into short-term training and education programs that use alternative financing models to accelerate the upskilling and retraining needed for America’s unemployed workforce to find gainful employment and attain family-sustaining wages. Learn more about why we are investing in Innovative Financing Models.

We envision an inclusive economy that thrives with innovation by realizing the value and potential of each of us. Our Mission: Building the Future Together We aim to transform people, companies, and industries in order to build a more equitable and inclusive economy. We work with today’s leaders to create long term growth by integrating diverse perspectives and dismantling personal, organizational and systemic barriers to inclusion. We are creating a new class of companies by investing in the next generation of inclusive ventures We believe that an inclusive economy thrives with innovation by realizing the value and potential of each of us. We build an inclusive economy alongside companies and people like you. We believe in the possibility of a brighter future. Let’s Build The Future Together We pledge to build a brighter future. We envision an equitable, entrepreneurial future, and we come alongside diverse leaders to build that future together.

Investing in Ambitious Start-ups Changing the future of work. Whether providing access to work opportunities, improving career development, enhancing diversity and inclusion, providing financial stability, supporting wellbeing, or fostering flexibility, worker-centric transformation is possible. Our portfolio companies provide solutions that add up to a positive impact on workers and improve value for employers. Our Approach. High-Conviction, Hands-On Investors to Early-Stage Companies We establish relationships throughout the venture lifecycle and, depending on the stage of the business, apply different investment strategies and support. We encourage shared learning and synergies across our portfolio, and provide relevant advice and hands-on value-add in the following areas: Team development & leadership alignment Go-to-market & sales process build Governance & business process development Commercial strategy Product & technology strategy Our Values. Our Values Guide Our Culture Across NoBa and our portfolio, it’s essential we embody our values, practice what we preach and create an example for the venture ecosystem to walk the talk. Honesty: Pragmatic honesty enables trust. Collaborative: Demanding collective excellence. Difference Makers: Prideful risk-taking for impact. Agile: Logic-driven speed creates efficiency. Disruptive: Challenging the status quo.

GSV Ventures is a multi-stage venture capital firm investing in the most important founders and leaders across the global “Pre-K to Gray” digital learning and workforce skills landscape. Investments include ClassDojo, Clever (exited), Coursera, Degreed, Gradescope (exited), Guild, Learneo (formerly Course Hero), Nearpod (exited), PhotoMath (exited), Physicswallah and QuillBot (exited) amongst other notable investments in education technology leaders positioned to achieve disproportionate gains. GSV Ventures manages over $1.0bn in assets across three funds and several SPVs, and partners include Michael Cohn, Adam Freed, Jason Horne, Michael Moe, Luben Pampoulov, Deborah Quazzo and Tiffany Taylor. Critical platforms for GSV Ventures’ investing activity also include the All Eyes on India Summit and the world-renowned ASU+GSV Summit, drawing some of the globe’s most prominent speakers including Tencent Co-founder and Yidan Prize founder, Charles Chen; Stanford Dean, Dan Schwartz, Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Sal Khan, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Arne Duncan, Bari Weiss, Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein, Sheryl Lee Ralph, amongst many, many others.

Roble Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm working to foster equitable human progress. 80% of our companies are co-founded b women or underrepresented founders. We invest in entrepreneurs building human enablement technologies and have a proven playbook that has helped entrepreneurs generate over $8B in market value (3 unicorns) by following a mission-driven approach that fosters human progress. Some companies in our portfolio: Udemy, Kahoot, Adaptive Insights.