1. Home
  2. Companies
  3. Zeal Capital Partners
ZC

Zeal Capital Partners

About

Inclusive Investing™ is a market-backed discipline that allows us to cast a targeted, yet wide net when sourcing companies, while keeping outsized returns and impact front and center in our investment decisions.

There’s a lot of talk about demographics and a lack of diversity in venture capital. Inclusive investing is a strategy that proactively addresses this problem.

While we’re pioneering this strategy, the data supporting our thesis is on our side: diverse fund managers earn better returns, and companies with diverse leadership outperform their peers. Inclusive Investing™ goes beyond diversity - it’s a new investment discipline that can transform the way we source, invest in, and scale businesses, and in doing so, create new pathways to prosperity for individuals, businesses, and communities at scale.

Inclusive Investing™ levels the playing field so the best businesses and most talented teams succeed.

A Five-Pronged Approach

Implemented cohesively, these five areas of practice yield an Inclusive Investing™ discipline Zeal is spearheading in the venture world across private markets.

  1. Diverse Fund Managers: Fund managers and the broader team are diverse with complementary backgrounds and skill sets.
  2. Diverse Management Teams: Companies proactively source diverse management teams with complementary skill sets and backgrounds that help portfolio companies outperform.
  3. Geographic Inclusivity: Funds source from a wide range of geographies across the U.S., not just traditional geographic VC “hotbeds”.
  4. Investment Focus: Investment allocation is directed to sectors where fund managers expect continued innovation and opportunity for disruption.
  5. Impact Lens: Investments seek to achieve top tier financial and social returns that impact low-wealth communities and small businesses.

Similar companies

AC

Atento Capital

Our mission is not only to drive returns and create jobs in Tulsa, but also to be an example to the world of inclusion, equality, and equity across all races, genders, educational backgrounds, and socioeconomic statuses. We believe in leading by example and are proud of the diversity of our team and our portfolio. Our Team: The team at Atento Capital shares a common goal of doing both good and well. We want to deliver for our shareholders, but we have an equal focus on doing good by our stakeholders. Each team member has a passion for making the world a better place, and we subscribe to the notion that social change can be driven through economic opportunity. We also believe in an inclusive universe of entrepreneurs that reflects the broader diversity of humanity. And we work with passion each day to achieve our goals and turn our dreams into reality. The founding team has a very diverse background, but we are all generalist investors. Our team is a combination of successful entrepreneurs and traditional finance analysts. All of us are competitive and thrive on the process of improvement. We are honored to work at Atento and feel incredibly grateful to work at the crossroads of entrepreneurship, economic development, finance, and social improvement. For us, work is not a chore, it is a passion, and that is the same mindset we look for in all of our partners.

IA

Impact America Fund

We bridge the financial and cultural divides that have kept low- and moderate-income people of color on the sidelines of the modern economy. We make early-stage investments in tech-driven businesses that create new frameworks of ownership and opportunity within marginalized communities. We also help our founders get traction with institutional investors, who often don’t have the expertise or lived experience in these communities to appreciate the huge opportunities at hand. We know that investing in social impact does not require sacrificing on financial returns. WHY WE DO THIS WORK “IAF came out of a lifetime of straddling two worlds: the world of Section 8 housing, working-class parents, and public assistance where I grew up, and the world of Wall Street and big business that I came to inhabit. It’s about advancing opportunity for black and brown people through foundational change. It’s about building an economy, a world, where people of color are no longer outsiders - where they truly belong.” - Kesha Cash, Founder & General Partner This is morally imperative. Decades of structural racism and oppression have created a major wealth gap for communities of color - and that gap is growing. We are capable of creating a more just and equitable future for these communities, and so that is what we must do. This is smart investing. Traditional investors chronically undervalue or overlook business opportunities in low- and moderate-income communities. This is about all of us. Economic disenfranchisement impacts everyone, not just those of us at the margins. To thrive as a whole society, we must make real economic participation and agency possible for all people of color - entrepreneurs, consumers, workers, everyone. This is personal. Everyone on our team is a person of color, a woman, or both, and many of us come from the kinds of communities our portfolio companies serve. We know what we are capable of, and we live by this truth: “best-in-class” can’t exist without the whole class present. OUR APPROACH “We want to see institutional changes in how products and services are designed, who designs them, and who they are designed for. If we're building companies and products and solutions that affect a community, that community must be drawn into the decision-making process. Is this an unusual or radical proposition? I don't think so.” - Kaiton Williams, Investor & Cultural Technologist speaking before an audience of global corporate directors We invest primarily from Seed to Series B. We focus on companies that are growing quickly, with demonstrated traction in a $1B+ market, and make investments in the range of $250K to $3M. We also provide bridge funding between rounds when we believe that an influx of capital will help a company weather a storm, make key hires, or negotiate better terms. The inherent impact standard. We look for business models whose potential for success is directly linked to their potential for impact at scale. This means that the forces that drive business success must also contribute to increased ownership, opportunity, or other forms of empowerment. We call this connection "inherent impact," and it’s the standard for the depth and durability of the impact we want to have. Lived experience as a competitive advantage. Our entrepreneurs have direct knowledge of the communities, systems, and problems we want to address. This is not an emotional preference on our part. We've learned that founders with lived experience, rather than an outsider's assumptions, have a deeper sense of urgency and are best-equipped to design products with scale and staying power. Technological innovation with thoughtful constraints. Venture-backed startups often achieve their "hockey stick growth" at the expense of the companies themselves and to the communities they intend to serve. We want ethical, inclusive, and sustainable outcomes, so we look for products and services that are built and scaled with careful constraints and dedication to their workers and customers.

IC

Illumen Capital

Illumen Capital has developed a 10 year bias-reduction program for fund managers, designed to help managers make better decisions, expand their investable landscape, and maximize and protect every dollar invested. We apply cutting-edge research to reduce racial and gender bias, and help our managers identify, evaluate and invest in entrepreneurs who have been overlooked and underestimated. We hold fund managers accountable for investing in and growing the impact companies of the future. We evaluate managers to invest in through a diligence process that emphasizes both impact and financial return. We deliver bias reduction coaching and curriculum to managers, ultimately aimed at driving capital to entrepreneurs - and communities - that have long been overlooked and undervalued. We cultivate a synergistic and robust network of GPs, LPs, consultants and researchers designed to create a learning environment on issues of racial equity and investing.

DF

Double Feather Partners

We are an international venture capital firm based in Japan that identifies fundamental social issues in Africa through research into the African market and deep involvement in the startup ecosystem. We currently provide services to support African markets and startup ecosystems through special projects such as Acceleration Programs, Accelerator Support Programs, & our Africa Innovation Fund. Mission DFP’s mission is to help solve complex socioeconomic issues in emerging markets by providing risk capital and management consulting services to impactful projects and ventures. VisionMaximize economic impact while solving fundamental issues via social impact. Be a trustworthy change-maker in emerging markets. Connect resources and stakeholders globally to collectively address fundamental issues in Africa with maximum socioeconomic impact. Keep Africa on the agenda of our network to keep directing interest and capital towards transformative projects and ventures. Maintain a professionally and individually diverse team to foster more perspectives and interconnectedness in problem-solving and innovation.

RC

Rethink Capital Partners

We specialize in real estate and venture capital with impact at the core of all we do. We believe that by focusing on real solutions to our most pressing challenges, our investment approach seeks to deliver strong financial performance alongside societal impact. We are a firm united by a belief that capital can help transform society for the better. Our platform supports entrepreneurial fund managers backing innovations across sector verticals. As pioneers deploying impact capital across asset classes, we have consistently demonstrated that investing with purpose drives tangible business outcomes. We back innovations that work to improve lives and allow people to flourish. Together, our strategies touch almost every facet of daily life: from food and nutrition to access to healthcare, affordable housing to quality education, and financial well-being to combating climate change. By focusing on introducing innovation to our most critical sectors, our investments are poised for long-term value creation. We believe that driving change and generating alpha go hand-in-hand. We have built and continue to grow an extensive network of like-minded partners on this journey.

DP

DBL Partners

DBL Partners is a double bottom line venture capital firm and pioneer of the impact investing category in venture capital. As the largest impact investor in the venture capital asset class by AUM, we invest in companies that can deliver both top-tier venture capital returns and enable positive social, environmental, and economic impact. DBL has been investing for over a decade and a half with the belief that a company’s financial performance (The First Bottom Line) and positive social impact (The Second Bottom Line) not only complement each other but enhance each other to drive performance and success.