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Off Balance #34
Nothing Ventured - In conversation with Christian Tooley, queering Venture Capital at i3 Investing
Aarish Shah
May 07, 2024
In partnership with
👋🏾 Hi friends!
As promised, every other week for the time being, I’ll just be dropping a short edition of Off Balance into your inbox, showcasing my latest Nothing Ventured podcast in case it had slipped your attention (in which case what are you doing?! Subscribe wherever you get your pods so you never miss another episode 💪 )
I’m well underway writing about all the things I’ve learned from the last couple of decades as founder, CFO and CEO, so sign up for early access to Off Balance - The Book and feel free to share with anyone else you think might enjoy it 😄.
Now let’s get down to business…
Queering Venture Capital 🌈
In this episode of Nothing Ventured, I sat down with Christian Tooley, the founder of i³ investing, the first, and only, registered organisation in the U.K. and Europe solely dedicated to queering venture capital - for both LGBTQ+ founders & investors.
His ‘day’ job is at Bain & Company where he leads a team across EMEA for Bain's Venture Ecosystem focussed on venture capital as a service. Christian is an Ada Ventures angel a fellow of the Newton Venture Program and was previously a scout with BACKED VC.
Here are three key takeaways from my conversation with Christian:
Intersectional Incredible Founders: Christian highlighted the importance of supporting intersectional incredible founders who bring a unique perspective and resilience to the entrepreneurial journey. How by focusing on diversity and inclusion, we can foster innovation and create a more equitable startup landscape.
Unlocking Queer Capital: Christian shared insights into how i3 Investing is partnering with Crunchbase to spotlight LGBTQ+ founders and provide them better access to capital. By creating a platform for queer entrepreneurs to connect with investors, Christian believes it is possible to begin to bridge the funding gap and support diverse businesses.
Historical Perspective on LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurship: Christian challenged the notion that LGBTQ+ entrepreneurship is a recent phenomenon, citing examples from ancient cultures where diverse gender roles and identities were accepted. By acknowledging the historical presence of queer individuals in entrepreneurship, it is possible to combat stereotypes and promote inclusivity in the startup community.
In this episode, we also talked about:
🤑 Taking the dusty world of consulting into the sexy world of venture.
🧑🏽💼 Whether you take the corporate out of corporate venturing.
💸 Angel investing with Ada Ventures in post product, pre revenue companies in the UK.
🏳️🌈 From the day job to the gay job - launching i³ investing
⚧️ Unlocking queer capital.
🙋🏽♀️ Defining Intersectional Incredible Founders.
🤝 Partnering with Crunchbase to put a spotlight on your diversity.
Check it out!
If you have any feedback, or if there’s something you’re desperate to see me include, just reply to this mail or ping me online - I’m very open to conversations.
(If you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn, maybe read this post I wrote and make sure to start your request with “Off Balance” and, more importantly, tell me why you’d like to connect 💪🏾)
Don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe to Nothing Ventured on Apple, Spotify or YouTube, it really helps more people see what we’re doing - you can find links to these (and more including my Office Hours) right here!
This edition of Nothing Ventured is brought to you by EmergeOne.
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If you’re a growing startup that knows it needs that strategic financial knowhow, drop your details here to see how we can support you as you scale 🚀
As always, my office hours are open, if you’d like to chat about anything finance, tech or venture releated, just grab some time 😊.
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I hope you found Off Balance #34 useful. As always, I’d love to get your feedback and understand the sort of topics you would love to hear about.
Just hit reply to this mail or drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know 😊
🚀And that’s a wrap for this edition of Off Balance - I’d appreciate your feedback so just reply to this email if you’ve got something you’d like to say.
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That’s it from me so until next time…
Stay liquid :)
Aarish
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