Brown Venture Group LLC, a Black-owned venture capital firm formed to fund Black, Latinx, and Indigenous technology entrepreneurs, announced today that it will receive an investment of up to $1.5 million from the Bush Foundation.
“We are excited to welcome the Bush Foundation into our diverse and impressive list of Limited Partners in Brown Venture Group Fund One,” says Chris Brooks, co-founder and managing partner of Brown Venture Group. “This commitment signifies that our mission to support Black, Latinx and Indigenous entrepreneurs resonates across a broad spectrum of companies and organizations. We look forward to welcoming additional foundations into the fold.”
The Bush Foundation seeks to have the most possible impact with its resources—and that includes how it invests its own assets. In addition to grantmaking, the Foundation is committed to investing for impact to ensure that people of all backgrounds and identities have access to capital in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the 23 Native nations that share that geography.
“Brown Venture Group is helping to widen the door for investment in Black, Indigenous and Latinx entrepreneurs, who are typically excluded from these opportunities,” says Christopher Romano, COO, Bush Foundation. “We believe in their strategy and purpose, and we are thankful to partner with them in this way.”
Brown Venture Group, which was founded in 2018, kicked off its inaugural fund in 2020 and made its first investment in 2021. Over the past year, Brown Venture Group has made strategic investments in 21 minority-owned companies. In addition, Brown Venture Group recently launched a partnership with multiple tribal governments around the country and is currently expanding that effort to include tribes in the State of Minnesota, with the goal of helping to advance more opportunities for Native American entrepreneurs.
“It has been gratifying to grow the ecosystem of support and to really dig in and break down barriers to success,” Brooks says. “We believe that there is unlimited genius and economic opportunity in communities of color, and we are elated that we have the necessary resources and relationships to capture that value as we invest in these communities.”
