We dive deep into our sectors. Our research drives our insights and thesis-driven approach.

A big part of our mission at Equal Ventures is to democratize access to digital technology. We fervently believe that technology is the great “equalizer” — improving the way people work and live, while enabling equality and meritocracy. Pie in the sky? Maybe. But we’re seeing this thesis play out across our portfolio, enabling truck drivers to earn a living wage, buildings to be more sustainable, workers to improve their efficiency and childcare to be more affordable.

We’ve all heard this type of hyperbole (and frankly I’ve been guilty of it myself) in the startup ecosystem. While I’m glad to be in an industry that is anchored in positivity (despite the fact that we say “no” to 99.9% of the companies we see), the investor in me can’t help but try to create some structure out of this opaque chaos. Market size analysis is often flawed (and way too generous), assessing teams is subjective (and often highly rooted in bias) and growth at the earliest stages can often be hacked together in unsustainable ways (providing a false positive of product-market fit).

A few months back, we wrote about the initial progress Leap had been making coming out of the pandemic as we announced their long undisclosed Series A. Today, we’re excited to announce that Leap has raised $50m led by BAM Elevate to power the future of retail. As we noted in our past post, Covid was not kind to the retail world. When we entered April of 2020, GMV on the Leap platform was down effectively 100%. The company was resilient, however, and finished 2020 up close to 100%. While 2021 continued to present Covid challenges, the story for Leap has been very different, growing from 13 to 47 stores and increasing in revenue by 4.3x.

One of the most exciting things about building a company is the opportunity to bring incredible people together for a shared purpose. As a startup ourselves, we believe talent is the lifeblood of our business and that every hire represents an opportunity to strengthen that shared purpose. With that, we’re excited to announce the addition of Liz Hart to our team.

We have high ambitions for 2022 and one of the things we’re most excited about is the team we are assembling at Equal Ventures. We believe strongly in our core values and are fortunate to work alongside individuals who not only exude incredible performance and integrity, but the epitome of these values. Seeing the growth of our team, as a whole and the individuals within, is one of the most rewarding parts of building a company, and we’ve been fortunate to see the incredible growth of our team members over the last year.