Hey there!
Bison Venture Partners, a new company I founded with my fellow MBA candidates at Howard University, is raising startup funds through a Community Round. This means that we've opened an opportunity for our friends, family, and community members to become *investors* in our startup!
So, what's the problem we're solving? Well, research by Morgan Stanley tells us that "Investors report capitalizing multicultural and women-owned businesses at 80% less than businesses overall." This has been deemed a "blind spot" in which "Multicultural and women-owned businesses could account for $6.8 trillion in gross receipts if they matched their percentage of the labor force and business revenues were equal to traditional firms. This would represent nearly 3X the current output, with a missed opportunity of $4.4 Trillion." (See: The Trillion-Dollar Blind Spot by Morgan Stanley)
As a team of award-winning entrepreneurs & investors, we see this as a huge opportunity to capitalize where others have failed to see value. Our framework involves putting our talents to use by creating, scaling, and investing in a future that benefits everyone.
We're starting by...
1) Raising our startup funds from the community by leveraging regulation crowdfunding, which we view as a gamechanger for our community. Anyone, regardless of net worth, is now able to become an angel investor in a private company on a mission to be a vehicle for change. *It's important to note that this is not a donation, and we've officially filed paperwork with the Securities & Exchange Commission. This is an official raise, and all investors should assess the risks, while expecting a return on their investment.
2) We're building a platform called "HBCU.market" which aims to become the largest tech-enabled marketplace amplifying CPG brands founded by students and alumni of Historically Black Colleges & Universities. We currently generate revenue from our own coffee product, as well as our apparel brand. We've got some exciting developments to share very soon, but need your help to cover our software costs needed to plug into the back-end of other existing stores. Today, you can visit HBCU.market to read the stories of other entrepreneurs with innovative brands and shop with them on their external ecommerce stores. Once we implement the new software, you'll be able to shop these brands and more directly through our marketplace.
3) We're actively consulting & partnering with early-stage startups and small businesses in our community to get them investment ready and set up their own regulation crowdfunding campaigns. It's important for us to lift as we climb and help other multicultural entrepreneurs leverage these opportunities to raise the capital necessary for growth. We’ll be sharing these campaigns with our community as well.
Our Ask
1) If you haven't invested already, the minimum investment for our current raise is just $100. You can view the terms of the raise, as well as the perks for larger investments, on our Wefunder campaign. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page to view our current pitch deck, which outlines our phased approach to growing our company.
2) If you've already invested, please share our campaign with your network! This is how we show the true power of a collective group coming together to achieve a common goal. Please post our link on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn: https://wefunder.com/bisonvp
If you have any connections with PR & Media outlets, please feel free to connect us, tag them, or share on our behalf!
IMPORTANT: Our campaign is set to close on August 22nd, and we need your help to hit our goal. We need to raise an additional $15k to keep all of the funds we've raised thus far.
We're incredibly grateful to the 100+ investors who've committed to our community round thus far. It truly means the world that you believe in our team, our vision, and our potential to create a positive change in the world as a for-profit enterprise.
As always, please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or recommendations. I'm happy to hop on a call to discuss anything further.
Our company is being built on the African proverb that states “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” So, are you ready to Join The Herd?
With gratitude,
Garry
Help us raise $15k by Friday?