The Underestimated - Issue 03
The Diversity X newsletter showcasing the underestimated founders making a positive impact in the world and keeping you up to date on the Diversity X journey.
What’s is coming up in this issue?
📖 Imagine a world where….
📰 Monthly update on what has been going on with Diversity X
🔦Spotlight on two Diversity X Founders Community member
📆Upcoming events and plans
Imagine a world where…..
Founders are founders. Imagine a world without Underestimated Founders™. Just founders. This is the vision for Diversity X. It is the premise why we intend to build a firm, not a fund. I recognise this is generational work, but we have started it, because, well, talk is cheap today. Action is necessary.
I showed my wife a list of founders I was reading about. It was Beahurst’s “Top 50 Female Entrepreneurs To Watch”. (Before I go on, it is worth reading). My wife’s response was simple, “it would be nice if the word “female” was not in the title and it was just a given that 50% or more of the top founders were female”. We (the collective societal “we”) have a lot of work to do on this front. Until we reach a time where there are no Underestimated Founders™, need to shine a spotlight to highlight the work they are doing - to show, as many VCs wrongly claim, there is no pipeline issue, but rather, inequiatble allocation of capital.
So what can you do to make the Diversity X vision a reality? Well, if you are a founder who identifies as underestimated, then join our community. Until the Diversity X vision is achieved, he mission is to have the world’s biggest community of underestimated founders. Just another founder group? Nope - this is a community first place - a safe place where we celebrate and support each other.
If you are an angel that is from an underrepresented background, then let’s chat about how we can work together. If you run a syndicate or group and are focussed building networks of angel investors who a women, people of colour, or LGBTQ, then let’s collaborate - we need to work in unison because together we are stronger.
If you are a UHNWI, HNWI, or family office, then I’d love to share more colour about how Diversity X intends to support Underestimated Founders™.
News from the Diversity X journey
Highlights over the last month
💥 Our Founder’s Community is growing - 88 (at last newsletter issue date) → 93 today! It is not the 100 that I had hoped to announce, but we are on track.
💥Spoke 15 new founders
💥 Pitch Dojo - the education arm of Diversity X, has partnered with Ilaria Vilkelis and Robert Vilkelis of Masters of Impact to run our first class - the 100 second pitch. We have 11 members in cohort 1. This is a 4 week series that culminates in a number of cohort 1 pitching at the first Diversity X virtual pitch day (see events below).
💥Monthly founders call with lots of discussion on challenges with sales.
💥You may have noticed the liberal sprinkling of the trademark sign - ™. Well I’m please to share that we have secured the trademark for use of Diversity X, Underestimated Founder, and Founder Flow (more on this last one in the next issue).
💥Shout out to Teon and Lou for their separate and differnt approaches to coming up with a logo and colour scheme for Diversity X. Ended up going with Lou’s approach.
💥 357 views of the issue 2 of this newsletter (up by over a 100 views on issue 1) and 133 subscribers (to date).
💥Working on the Diversity X Advisory Board. Issued an MoU. If you are interested in playing a real part in the Diversity X journey, email diversityxvc@gmail.com).
💥Now have a team of four Diversity X Ambassadors from the Diversity X Founders Group: Lauralee Whyte, Jade Beard, Karishma Gupta, and Aisha Jade.
💥 Thank you to everyone who has supported the journey so far.
Meet the Underestimated
Karishma Gupta - Satatland
The Founder:
Karishma is a fashion technologist and an entrepreneur. She has worked with textile and apparel manufacturers in the east and retail in the west. Karisha has seen how rivers have turned toxic and land is being devastated for clothes that are not worn more than twice. Karishma’s experience comes directly from the production floor of fashion and the supply chain. As an apparel manufacturing engineer, Karishma has gained a deeper understanding of the fashion industry, which has led her to start Satatland.
The Startup:
Satatland creates circular clothing for eco-conscious millennial woman so that she can wear an impactful dress that restores the planet for her without owning it. Rent or buy via our behaviour disrupting platform. And once the outfit is no longer wearable we take the responsibility of recycling it to keep landfills textile free, thus closing the loop on fashion.
Satatland is a new generation Circular Fashion Tech brand who believe they can see a positive change in our lifetime, by disrupting how we produce, consume and recycle fashion. Through their environmentally friendly business model, Satatland are generating compound effects throughout the clothing value chain.
💥What can you do to support this startup? They are looking for immediate funding (and will also be pitching at the event on 17 May). Satatland has Advance EIS Assurance.
Andre Skepple - FullSpektrum
The Founder:
André is the visionary Founder, Lead Solutions Architect & CEO of FullSpektrum Ltd.
André is a specialist in applied biosciences, IT systems management and diagnostic platform development, with a MSc by Research degree in Subjects Allied to Medicine (Applied Microbiology), alongside a successful voluntary teaching career over more than 8 years at a South London-based supplementary school for children of African-Caribbean descent.
At FullSpektrum, André now leads a multidisciplinary team of innovation strategists, digital designers, software engineers, solution architects, data scientists, applied psychologists and SEND case management specialists, dedicated to initialising technology-based reforms in SEND & integrated care services at the institutional, local and national level.
André created FullSpektrum following his own personal hurdles in education, employment and training with severe dyspraxia and dyslexia after waiting 5 years for a formal diagnosis and DSA support plan since first requesting it. Drawing on his technical backgrounds in biotechnology, life sciences, holistic innovation and digital diagnostics, he has since dedicated the last four years in researching, designing, testing and assembling his unique technology-based SEND transformation concept since FullSpektrum's incorporation.
The Startup:
FullSpektrum is a London-based innovation company, providing ground-breaking technologies and services designed to facilitate the full digital transformation of local education and integrated care services for neurodivergent learners, including children and young people with Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND). They also design and develop specialised ecosystems of new support service frameworks for those who experience acute learning & development hurdles throughout their entire curriculum journey.
Quite simply put, as digital change-makers, FullSpektrum is dedicated to redesign, redevelop, and systematically reform the National Curriculum by utilising a plethora of technological disciplines, such as applied diagnostics, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, data science and artificial intelligence (AI). FullSpektrum is starting with the UK, but there are huge opportunities in the US and beyond.
💥What can you do to support this startup? They are looking for immediate funding. Email diversityxvc@gmail.com for more information.
Upcoming Events
Virtual Pitch Day - Tuesday 17 May (founder and investors - email for further information). Sign up to attend by completing this form. Really look forward to seeing angels there who really want to support the next big Underestimated Founder.
And that’s a wrap for this month….
Reach out with any questions to diversityxvc@gmail.com
INVESTORS - let’s chat.
Underestimated Founders - come join a community that is welcoming and a safe space.
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