The Social Impact Partner Spotlight collection highlights varied Cisco non-profit group companions which are serving to remodel the lives of people and communities. This weblog options Cisco’s partnership with Astia and Kiva, in honor of the unimaginable work these organizations are doing to advance funding alternatives to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color-owned companies within the United States and globally.
Cisco Social Innovation Investments (SII) and the Cisco Foundation companion with nonprofits globally to put money into equitable and revolutionary tech-enabled options that present significant and scalable impression, particularly in underserved communities. Supporting alternatives and partnerships that stage the enjoying area for promising however typically neglected entrepreneurs and corporations is a key driver of Cisco SII and the Cisco Foundation’s means to make long-lasting impression on a neighborhood, nationwide, and world scale. Learn extra about two of Cisco’s companions, Astia and Kiva, who’re main impactful work in offering alternatives and sources for entrepreneurs and their companies– and find out about methods to help each organizations.
Astia
“Astia’s investment team came to the table with the expertise, they made calls on my behalf and took investor meetings with me – they breathed life into the funding process. Within a mere four months of Astia saying yes, we had significant investors on our cap table, and we achieved an oversubscribed round.”
– Tanya Van Court, Founder & CEO, Goalsetter
Less than 3% of enterprise capital is invested into women-led startups with ladies CEOs, and a mere 0.3% is deployed into corporations led by Black or Latina ladies. Astia is a world pioneer investing in revolutionary, women-led corporations. With a status for innovating on the enterprise capital mannequin, Astia is a beacon of success for buyers and entrepreneurs. Its mission is to stage the funding enjoying area for corporations led by ladies, with a selected emphasis on doing so for Black and Latina CEOs. To deal with the intersectionality of race and gender, Astia established a transparent focus by way of an effort referred to as Astia Edge, a program designed to redress the funding imbalance. Learn extra about their findings and focus on this Bloomberg interview with Astia’s CEO and obtain the Edge whitepaper.
Cisco funding and strategic steering have enabled the event of an underlying know-how platform, Astia Connect. Via Connect, 5,000+ consultants across the globe join with 1,000+ corporations annually, elegantly eradicating bias from the funding decision-making course of by leveraging technical instruments and confirmed processes. Connect permits multistage, community-driven screening (Expert Sift™) and connections. Cisco’s help has enabled Astia to scale its impression from working with dozens of entrepreneurs annually, to serving lots of of corporations annually.
In 2023, Astia reviewed 1,033 corporations, together with these led by 100 Black ladies and 46 Latina CEOs. This represents greater than $2.2B in funding alternatives. The present Astia Fund portfolio corporations characterize:
- Employees: 54% ladies, 36% individuals of shade
- Leadership: 70% ladies, 30% individuals of shade
- Board: 61% ladies, 39% individuals of shade
- Solutions addressing 14 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals
Successful outcomes of a few of these corporations embrace:
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Tanya Van Court, Founder & CEO, Goalsetter (in orange shirt) collaborating in a panel dialogue Candesant: in 2023 launched Brella SweatControl Patch, FDA cleared, for the therapy of extreme underarm sweat, forging a brand new path ahead for aesthetic clinicians and the sufferers they deal with. Brella acquired the 2023 Allure Magazine Best of Beauty Breakthrough Award
- Goalsetter: Nationally acknowledged for its real-world strategy to family-focused monetary training, Goalsetter is a goal-based financial savings and good spending platform that gives households with each partaking academic media and the foundational instruments for constructing wealth and was chosen by Apple as one of many prime 24 apps for 2024 of their unique function, “Our Favorites: 24 Apps for 2024.” with Tanya Van Court being honored by in American Banker’s Most Influential Women in Fintech
- Mae Health: a digital well being answer on a mission to enhance the well being and high quality of life for underserved moms, infants, and people who love them, chosen as a finalist for the Massachusetts eHealth Institute’s Women’s Health Challenge and spotlighted within the 2024 Digital Health New York 100
Interested in serving to with Astia’s effort to stage the funding enjoying area? Join in two significant methods:
- Become an Astia Advisor: a world neighborhood of trade consultants, buyers and serial entrepreneurs who’re devoted to seeing extra ladies achieve high-growth entrepreneurship.
- Invest in one of many Astia Funds: Astia invests by means of a household of funds which allow buyers to say their values by means of investments.
Kiva
“Since our founding, Kiva has been committed to addressing the finance gaps that exist for underserved communities worldwide and this work has extended into the U.S., where countless entrepreneurs lack access to the financing they need to start or grow their businesses. We are thrilled to partner with Cisco in supporting Black and African American entrepreneurs through 0% interest loans, leading to more thriving businesses and communities across the country. We can’t thank Cisco enough for their transformational support of this critical work.”
– Brit Heiring, Director of Communications, Kiva
Kiva is a world nonprofit based in 2005 with a mission to increase monetary entry to assist underserved communities thrive – offering equitable entry to monetary services to historically excluded populations. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color-owned companies are thrice extra more likely to be turned away by banks than non-minority-owned companies, (NerdWallet). Kiva envisions a financially inclusive world the place all individuals maintain the facility to enhance their lives – specializing in 4 key areas of help: ladies, refugees, systemically marginalized entrepreneurs within the U.S., and folks impacted by local weather change.
Cisco’s funding and strategic steering have supplied help for quite a lot of Kiva initiatives, investing in early-stage concepts and experimentation, and serving to Kiva to efficiently replicate and scale these initiatives globally. This consists of initiatives to design and take a look at revolutionary mortgage merchandise in new markets and sectors, and the difference of Kiva’s world mannequin for the U.S. market. Cisco has additionally donated our know-how to allow Kiva to scale their attain in a safe, environment friendly, and efficient method.
In 2021, Cisco supplied help to assist Kiva speed up lending and capability constructing to aspiring and present underserved small enterprise house owners within the U.S. and increase their Hubs mannequin to practically a dozen new cities. That work has continued to additional enhance help to black entrepreneurs within the U.S. by way of Cisco’s Social Justice grant-making program.
Today, Kiva U.S. operates in all 50 states, with 40+ Hub companions and 100+ trustee companions. In 2023, Kiva reached 10,000 debtors, a 49% enhance since 2020. And, of the $69M in 0% curiosity loans funded over the course of this system, 72% has supported Black, Indigenous, and People of Color entrepreneurs and 36% has supported Black entrepreneurs, like Kiki.
To higher perceive and measure the impression on these debtors’ lives, Kiva partnered with 60 Decibels in 2022 to interview each Kiva debtors and non-borrowers. The outcomes communicate for themselves:
- Without a Kiva mortgage, 1 in 4 debtors would’ve needed to shut their enterprise
- 3 in 4 debtors wouldn’t have been capable of finding a superb different for financing
- 73% of Kiva US debtors noticed their enterprise outlook enhance
Now, wanting forward, Kiva is dedicated to supporting a further 7,500 systemically marginalized individuals within the U.S. by 2028.
Cisco is proud to proceed to help Kiva in reaching Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities within the U.S. with monetary entry. See how one can get entangled, too:
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