Crunchbase Expands Its Diversity Spotlight To Include Founders And Investors In Europe

Crunchbase has announced the expansion of its Diversity Spotlight feature to include companies in Europe.

This expansion will allow up to one million additional companies on Crunchbase to add Diversity Spotlight tags to their profiles, enhancing the visibility of diverse founders and investors across the continent.

Crunchbase’s Diversity Spotlight

Crunchbase introduced its Diversity Spotlight feature in 2020 to centralize and highlight data about companies with diverse leadership and the investors who fund them.

This feature indicates diversity in an organization’s leadership team, including founders and CEOs for startups and managing partners for investment firms.

Leaders from underrepresented backgrounds can add their data to Crunchbase for free and specify relevant diversity tags.

The feature aims to promote fundraising opportunities, relationship-building, and mentorship by creating a central place for venture capitalists and CEOs from underrepresented backgrounds to connect.

Last year, Crunchbase added LGBTQ+ tags, employing an opt-in and verification process to ensure privacy and safety.

European expansion

The Diversity Spotlight feature currently includes data focused on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation and now includes companies in Europe.

I³ Investing, a firm that focuses on queer and migrant founders, served as the exclusive launch partner for Diversity Spotlight in Europe. Additional partners include Colorintech, Black Tech Fest, Female Founders, and Tech Nation.

“Data is still monarch,” said Christian Tooley, the founder of i³ investing. “We need to be able to quantify the state of LGBTQ+ founders and investors in a meaningful way.  Despite us all understanding the human and psychological case for investing in intersectionality, data will further strengthen that thesis.”

“Access to comprehensive data is fundamental to our mission at Colorintech to make a more equitable tech ecosystem,” added Ashleigh Ainsley, the co-founder of Colorintech.

“By highlighting the disparities faced by underrepresented founders and investors, we can support the tech ecosystem towards effective collaboration and initiatives.”

Addressing Funding Disparities

People of color make up 18% of the UK’s population and 40% of London’s population, where most of the nation’s venture investments are made.

However, according to recent figures from Extend Ventures, only 11% of venture capital rounds went to founders of color.

Moreover, just over 9% of the value of investment went to founders of color, indicating that they are raising lower rounds, on average, than their white counterparts.

Investment in Black founders only surpassed 1% in 2021 and 2022 but fell back to 0.95% in 2023.

Black women founders were especially hard hit in the UK, receiving just 0.14% of venture capital between 2013 and 2023—albeit an improvement from the previous figure of 0.02%.