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The Situation
The 1.4% Problem: What looked like a capital gap was actually an infrastructure problem. Despite representing a strong and credible pool of talent, investment firms outside the industry’s traditional majority manage less than 2% of U.S. assets, leaving more than 98% concentrated among established incumbents.
Emerging managers, especially those launching funds under $50M, face structural barriers including limited management fees, high fixed operating costs, and scarce access to working capital. These constraints force smaller fund sizes, slower deployment, and diluted ownership just to survive. Notably, this gap was not performance-driven: funds with higher female representation showed stronger returns, yet in 2025, women-led startups still captured under 2% of global VC investment, despite generating double the revenue per dollar invested. The system had talent and performance — it lacked equitable access, infrastructure, and resource continuity.
The Solution
Equipped was created to directly respond to a fragmented ecosystem and demonstrate what becomes possible when undercapitalized talent is resourced rather than overlooked.
Our research confirmed that inclusion is a performance advantage: VC firms with higher female representation achieved a 9.3-point higher median IRR, and each 10-point increase in female leadership correlated with a 1.3-point rise in annual returns. Equipped provided working capital and shared infrastructure to help emerging managers scale funds, retain ownership, and operate competitively, while coordinating partners who traditionally worked in silos. By aligning capital, operational support, and ecosystem collaboration, we validated that investing in overlooked managers not only advances equity, but strengthens market performance, expands fund capacity, and models what a more inclusive, resilient economy can look like. We are currently synthesizing key findings and will share insights as they become available.
Enabled scale and retained ownership: Helped emerging managers grow funds while maintaining equity and decision-making power, avoiding dilution from early capital gaps.
Built coordinated infrastructure: Created shared platforms, operational tools, and networks to connect funders, intermediaries, and managers who previously operated in silos.
Validated performance of inclusive leadership: Demonstrated that diverse fund leadership drives stronger returns, showing that investing in overlooked talent is both equitable and economically advantageous.
Equipped created a syndicate of ecosystem partners to provide emerging managers with working capital through debt structures, plus connections to larger financial institutions as they scaled.
Emerging fund managers weren’t held back by talent or readiness — they lacked access to meaningful capital, making it impossible to compete with well-resourced, legacy firms.
Across investors, intermediaries, and GPs, limited bandwidth and fragmented support slowed learning, adoption, and scaling — revealing that no single organization could solve the challenge alone, despite having the appetite to.
Equipped confirmed that small funds produced small checks and limited returns, reinforcing a cycle where overlooked GPs couldn’t prove performance or drive innovation at scale.
Without better, representative data, the ecosystem risked recreating old models and biases — our work showed that true progress requires making new metrics and that shared evidence is essential for real change.
It’s fundamentally shortsighted to overlook skilled, proven fund managers with access to high-potential businesses. Equipped showed that without operational sustainability, managers cannot provide the hands-on support founders need to hire, grow, and perform — limiting their economic impact. Supporting these leaders isn’t just fair; it’s smart policy. We all benefit when the investors fueling entrepreneurship mirror the dynamism and diversity of our country.
Equipped demonstrated that even the best-designed individual interventions are no substitute for coordinated, ecosystem-wide solutions. The initiative clarified what’s truly needed—and what can be learned from building new models—but also made it evident that leveling the playing field takes infrastructure, long-term commitment, and broad collaboration that far exceed the scope of any single program.
To truly move the needle, the field must commit to measurable shifts: increasing representation from 1.4% to 5%, ensuring first-time venture capital funds start at $50 million, private equity funds at $100 million, and critically, supporting fund managers through the emerging fund cycle. This means helping them bridge from Funds I to Fund IV and ultimately managing at least $1 billion by Fund V, making them institutionally investable and positioned for lasting impact.
Equipped launched during favorable conditions that later faded. Lasting impact requires infrastructure investment and commitment that extends beyond single funding cycles or shifting political climates, building for resilience, not just momentum.
