SAN DIEGO, March 15, 2022 — Breakaway Partners, a San Diego-based early-stage investment company, announces investments in five startup companies, focusing on underrepresented and immigrant founders.
According to the Wall Street Journal, The US venture capital industry began a profound shift over the last year. For a long time, the goal of portfolio and investor diversity was just one of many nice-to-haves that became a core objective at many funds. And yet, one year on, the data show that investors still struggle to fund underrepresented founders.
“If we prioritize founder diversity, we need to improve economic opportunity at every rung of the ladder, not just the last one,” said Zeynep Ilgaz, co-founder of Breakaway Partners. “With this fund, what we’ll get to do is start to empower people from different backgrounds, women, and other diverse communities by putting capital and resources directly into their hands. Prior to Breakaway, I was the founder of Confirm Biosciences, which was recently acquired. It took me a long time to raise funding with lots of doors shut behind me. Being able to invest now into companies that are building unique solutions that just so happen to be founded by diverse people Is a blessing and a way for us to do something about it,” she continued.
According to the SEC, minority-owned businesses face less access to capital, with minorities only constituting 10.7% of entrepreneurs seeking capital. According to a report published by Ratemyinvestor, women are underrepresented in VC-backed founding teams, with only 9.2 percent of startup founders as females. According to the same report, over 3/4 of the venture-backed founders were white.
“Seventy-five percent of Breakaway’s current investments are in underrepresented or overlooked founders,” Serhat Pala, co-founder of Breakaway Partners said.
“The thing we love about Zeynep, Serhat and Breakaway is how they make us feel so comfortable. It is incredible how, coming from India, we expected investors to scrutinize and be far more distant. We never felt the same with Serhat or Zeynep. They went out of their way to support us through patiently listening to us, sharing their experiences as immigrant founders themselves, making very relevant introductions and also making us feel very much like family. We are lucky to have such investors to be honest,” said Archana Shah, co-founder of Eunimart.
Breakaway Partners, a founders funded investment company, plans to build out its team this year and intends to hire partners who are experts in each of the following areas: Health & Wellness (Digital Health, Medtech, Diagnostic), SaaS, Digital Identity and Fintech.
New Investments Include
Eunimart
If you have an ecommerce brand and are looking to expand distribution across the globe, Eunimart is the fastest, easiest way to rapidly expand to new markets and reach profitability. They unleash the full potential of global commerce by providing a one stop solution for businesses looking to sell anywhere across the globe through a unified SaaS platform, logistics & supply chain networks, and powerful AI functions to optimize revenue growth in every market. They help brands increase revenues up to 2x and reduce costs by approximately 35%.
Indicio Tech
Indicio is the market leader in developing Trusted Data Ecosystems (TDEs), providing companies with the software and infrastructure needed to authenticate and exchange high-value information and develop trusted, secure relationships.
Specializing in financial, healthcare, and travel markets, Indicio’s global decentralized network, field-leading software, and information management products enable customers all over the world to issue, hold, and verify data through encrypted digital credentials.
Houston Bionics
Houston Bionics specializes in robotic rehabilitation devices. Their ExoRehab X is designed for upper extremity rehabilitation and integrates with games that help patients maintain motivation for a long period of time and can be used with highly repeated intensive exercises. The device provides data about the quality of the patient’s movement. Houston Bionics has offices in the US, Germany, and Turkey.
Dinlebi
Dinlebi is an audio streaming service offering subscription-based access to audiobooks and short-form content through mobile apps.
About Breakaway Partners
Breakaway Partners is a founder funded and founder focused investment company that mentors and funds early stage and start-up companies that have created products or services that are disruptive in their industry. Our goal is to help our portfolio companies get their ideas to market. We devote our time, expertise, connections, and capital to help companies successfully grow. We have a focus on investing in underrepresented Companies in the following industries: Health and Wellness, SaaS, digital identity and fintech.
This article was shared with Prittle Prattle News as a Press Release by PRNewswire.
