Underrepresented Founders of Growing Businesses based in the Chicagoland area: Receive a Capital-Raising Strategy from Kellogg MBA Students this Winter 

We invite you to apply for you and your company to benefit from the work of a team of Kellogg MBA students this winter if you:

- are a business leader or founder who is Black, Latinx, or another underrepresented minority in the US and/or are differently abled, an immigrant, or a member of the LGBTQ+ community;

- are based in the greater Chicagoland area;

- are ready to grow and scale your company;

- are working to target your capital-raising approach and preparing to succeed in raising VC or growth-stage capital.  

As more corporations and investors look to deploy capital for investment in minority-owned businesses, it is critical for both the target companies (that’s you) and investment firms to have strategies and frameworks to increase their capacity to access and deploy capital.  

Kellogg is preparing for its Winter 2023 Venture Equity MBA class, in which teams of students will focus in on the following central questions: 

1. How can investors shift the ways in which they evaluate the opportunity of investing in underrepresented founders, and see past biases in the market to find and support opportunities that are currently being overlooked?
2. How can underrepresented founders take into account how investment prospects are evaluated (and why underrepresented founders are under-invested in) in order to present their strongest case to potential investors and access capital for growth and scale?

Founders will work with teams of Kellogg students to understand the shortcuts relied on by investors as they seek to determine their interest in, and the value of, ventures presented to them. Students and founders will learn frameworks and approaches to ensure that an underrepresented founder’s venture receives measured consideration.  

Participating founders will receive a final project from the student teams at the end of the 10-week course. These final projects will be either a deal memo or a capital-raising strategy memo (depending on the needs of your business) complete with assessment and strategy for you and your team to take and use in your fundraising. 

The faculty for this program are William Towns (who has managed more than $800M in capital aimed at reversing economic disparities and racial discrimination in the Chicago area), and Joe Dwyer (leader of an early-stage venture investment firm in Chicago).  

Please fill in the form below to tell us a little bit about yourself and your business. We look forward to learning more and to considering you for this opportunity. Applications close November 30, 2022.

Email ventureequity@kellogg.northwestern.edu with any questions.