WASHINGTON, D.C.— MAY 27, 2021 — Howard University announces today that it has joined the Advancement Initiative with Base10 Partners, the largest black-led venture capital firm. The new fund is investing in leading pre-IPO startups and donating 50 percent of the fund’s carried interest directly to Howard University and other Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) to create student scholarships and support university endowments. The Fund’s LP base consists of HBCUs with participation from other minority organizations and mission-driven foundations who all serve as part of the engine contributing to increasing underrepresented talent in the workforce. This is one of the largest commitments ever from HBCUs to a venture capital fund.  

“With the Advancement Initiative, Base10 has built an outstanding mechanism for HBCUs to grow our endowments and give students previously inaccessible opportunities post-graduation,” said Howard University Chief Investment Officer Frank Bello. “Howard is thrilled to be partnering with Base10 to continue to increase HBCUs’ impact on the black community through wealth creation and improving diversity in the tech industry.”

Historically, HBCUs have not had the financial resources or the relationships to invest directly in early stage technology companies. HBCUs are enormously important sources of underrepresented minority talent in the U.S. They confer nearly half of all STEM degrees for African-American students, yet all 107 endowments combined are equal to just 7 percent of Stanford University’s endowment. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, HBCUs have $15,000 on average in endowment per student. Comparable non-HBCUs have $410,000 on average in endowment per student, demonstrating the disadvantage of HBCU endowments. 

As the anchor HBCU for the Advancement Initiative, Howard’s commitment to this unique effort to transform the trajectory of underrepresented students reflects the university's belief that the Fund will result in financial support for thousands of student scholars, but also access to tech training, competitive internships, and full-time roles that were previously difficult for to HBCU graduates to access. 

“We have been thinking about where to focus Base10’s efforts to do more good through strategic investments, and we believe supporting HBCUs is the most effective way for us to increase underrepresented minority talent in Silicon Valley,” said Ade Ajao, co-founder and Managing Partner of Base10.

Despite only debuting in March of this year, the Advancement Initiative has already completed 8 investments into Attentive, Nubank, Brex, Plaid, Aurora Solar, Wealthsimple, CircleCI, and KeepTruckin. Each of the CEOs personally prioritized taking an investment from the Advancement Initiative in heavily oversubscribed rounds in order to prioritize the mission of wealth creation for underrepresented minority communities. Base10 will create scholarships in the name of each of these portfolio companies to fund the education of HBCU STEM students (i.e. The Plaid Scholarship, The Brex Scholarship, etc.).

“In high school, my father’s school district underwent desegregation. Violence from those opposed to the incoming buses of Black students and protests in response defined his coming of age, while he worked to overcome the academic deficit born of years of underinvestment in Black schools,” said Jamison Hill, Partner at Base10. “Going to North Carolina A&T changed his life. He landed a job at a pharmaceutical company—the company where he would spend the rest of career and, to his great fortune, meet my mother. I joined Base10 to lead the Advancement Initiative because an HBCU made it possible for my father and my family to achieve the American Dream.”

To learn more about the Advancement Initiative, visit: base10.vc/advancement-initiative. 

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About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 13 schools and colleges. Students pursue more than 140 programs of study leading to undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced one Schwarzman Scholar, three Marshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars, 12 Truman Scholars, 25 Pickering Fellows and more than 165 Fulbright recipients. Howard also produces more on-campus African-American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit www.howard.edu.

About Base10 Partners

Base10 is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm investing in Automation for the Real Economy. Founded by Adeyemi Ajao and TJ Nahigian, the firm focuses on Automation impacting many sectors of the Real Economy, including transportation, hardware manufacturing, logistics, and construction. Portfolio companies include The Pill Club, Chili Piper, Popmenu, and Pangaea. Connect viabase10.vc.