ATLANTA, October 25, 2021 – Addressing systemic racial inequity in the business world, the Peachtree Minority Venture Fund launched this fall as an innovative resource to support entrepreneurs. Created by The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Goizueta Business School, the fund was started and will be run by students – and is the first of its kind focused on empowering underrepresented founders.
The students will research hundreds of entrepreneurs and make investment recommendations to a committee, composed of Goizueta faculty, staff and alumni.
Research shows that while venture capital investments have quadrupled in the past ten years, the growth has not supported underrepresented minority entrepreneurs.
- Women and minority founders receive less than 3% of capital investments.
- Only 1% of VC-backed founders are Black and less than 2% are Latinx.
- Black entrepreneurs are rejected for loans at a rate almost 20% higher than white entrepreneurs.
Goizueta Business School assisted in the creation of the $1 million fund. The Peachtree Minority Venture Fund is expected to make its first investments in 2022, with investments ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. Students will be named managing partners, senior associates and analysts. They will take a class focused on the fund in which they will receive technical financial training in venture capital investing within a curriculum focused on systemic racial inequities in business.
Humza Mirza is a Goizueta MBA student and one of the four managing partners of the inaugural cohort. He shares, “After moving to Atlanta during the rise of the racial and social justice movement following the death of George Floyd, it was important for me to help lead a cause that puts real dollars towards alleviating the hurdles underrepresented minorities face every day.”
Robert Kazanjian, the Asa Griggs Candler Chair and professor in Organization & Management and academic director of the center, says, “Through the fund and the academic course experience, Goizueta students will attain a deep understanding of how unconscious bias, the lack of diversity among venture capitalists, and the structure of investors’ personal networks all contribute to these inequities.”
Additional information about the fund including how businesses can apply can be found here –emory.biz/peachtree.
About Goizueta Business School at Emory University:
Business education has been an integral part of Emory University’s identity since 1919. That kind of longevity and significance does not come without a culture built on success and service. Emory University’s Goizueta Business School offers a unique, community-oriented environment paired with the academic prestige and rigor of a major research institution. Goizueta develops business leaders of today and tomorrow with an undergraduate degree program, a Two-Year Full-Time MBA, a One-Year MBA, an Evening MBA, an Executive MBA, an MS in Business Analytics, a Master of Analytical Finance, a doctoral degree, and a portfolio of non-degree Emory Executive Education courses. Together, the Goizueta community strives to solve the world’s most pressing business problems. The school is named for the late Roberto C. Goizueta, former Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company. For more information, visit goizueta.emory.edu.
Emory University is recognized internationally as an inquiry-driven, ethically engaged, and diverse community whose members work collaboratively for positive transformation in the world through courageous leadership in teaching, research, scholarship, health care, and social action. The university consists of an outstanding liberal arts college, highly ranked professional schools, and one of the larger and more comprehensive healthcare systems in the Southeast.
