Our guests on this episode of The First Close are Ivan Alo and LaDante McMillon, co-founding general partners of New Age Capital. New Age Capital is a thesis-driven, seed-stage venture capital firm investing in technology and tech-enabled companies founded and led by Black and Latinx entrepreneurs.
Ivan and LaDante met as students at Boston College, where they formed their friendship and discovered a shared passion for entrepreneurship. In 2014, they founded their first company, LionShare. From there, they started supporting other first-time startup founders. At the time, they saw—and experienced—a severe lack of capital going to Black and Latinx founders at the earliest, most critical stages.
In 2016, Ivan and LaDante decided to do something about the inequity they saw; they started New Age Capital to invest in these founders. While they each had a wealth of experience, they had no investment track record. They began by methodically building a network of established, top-tier investors, and developed a close relationship with Lightspeed Venture Partners, which tapped them to be investment scouts for the LSVP Scout Program. As scouts, Ivan and LaDante not only grew their investment track record, but also built the foundation of their first fund.
In this episode, we discuss how Ivan and LaDante built a firm that has both a strong institutional foundation and a strong brand, their approach to growing their networks of founders, VCs and LPs investment track record; and their view on the value of building long-term relationships in VC.
Listen to our interview with New Age Capital by streaming The First Close on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
