Visible Hands Closes Fund I at $10.5M to Support Diverse Founders

Summary: Visible Hands, a pre-seed venture fund focused on funding and supporting underrepresented founders, has closed its first round of funding at $10.5 million.

The United States, June 28, 2022

Visible Hands, a pre-seed venture capital fund, has officially announced the closing of the Visible Hand Fund I at $10.5 million.

Visible Hands (VH) supports overlooked talent in building venture-backed technology startups. Founded back in 2019, the firm has since helped to support 50+ underrepresented founders with company-building support, meaning funding, social capital, and more through their inaugural accelerator program.

VH Co-Founders and General Partners, Daniel Acheampong and Justin Kang, began working on this concept part-time in late 2019. Acheampong was working at Goldman and Summit Partners before receiving his MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and MBA from Wharton, while Kang was an early employee at two global startup accelerators and launched his own social impact startup which was acquired by a larger non-profit.

“Both Justin and I had too many founders in our network who were exceptional builders with a point of view and abruptly needed to stop working on their startup because they lacked access to capital,” Acheampong said. “Too much talent was dying on the vine, so we saw an enormous missed market opportunity and wanted to be a part of catalyzing that change. Our deal flow is up 55% year over year with over 1,418 founders seeking investment and participation in our flagship VH accelerator.”

VH Co-Founder and General Partner, Yasmin Cruz Ferrine, has 15+ years of experience leading capital raising, investment strategies, and advising foundations. Ferrine had worked professionally with Kang and joined VH as a co-founder in June 2020. Due to their backgrounds, the trio has shown the promise of finding great overlooked talent by building a diverse national ecosystem of 500+ entrepreneurs, investors, operators, and community leaders with 80% being POC/women.

“At the earliest stage, we can invest in founders before it is obvious to the market—at day zero when institutional barriers begin,” Cruz Ferrine said. “We provide meaningful capital, and company building support at this critical stage of pre-founder-market fit, including access to expert networks. This is one of our greatest value propositions to our founders—our community of experts, other founders, and dedicated investors.”

Women and racial minorities make up roughly 70% of the US population, yet less than 10% of VC-invested capital goes to that demographic. Visible Hands’ capital and services are invested in these often overlooked BIPOC and women founders to break barriers in the ecosystem and create more equity and opportunity for underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Visible Hands invests in overlooked talent at the earliest stages, hoping to act as the “friends and family” round for founders who are historically marginalized. VH works to uplift and support founders who haven’t been offered the same opportunities of ease in raising pre-seed capital for their businesses. VH invests in the talent, the people themselves, over ideas, and provides holistic, comprehensive support to women and BIPOC founders to launch