1. What is Txeya?
Recognising that many businesses founded by black, female, minority ethnic and LGBTQ+ individuals often don’t get access to the funding and investment support that many other companies do, Txeya is a fintech platform that has been created to champion diversity-led businesses. Its mission is to give these start-ups and their founders a fair chance to access the credit, funding and investor networks they need to get their ventures moving.
Using the power of smart banking, Txeya gives diversity-led businesses access to financial tools to support them across the entire start-up journey and beyond, beginning with one of the biggest pain points for underrepresented entrepreneurs — access to funding.
2. What inspired you to create Txeya?
As an entrepreneur who has set up a number of businesses from the ground up, I’m fully aware of the challenges many of us face when trying to fund and grow our new business.
I’ve been lucky enough to have had a successful career in investment banking and as an entrepreneur for the last 20 years. And while climbing the career ladder and founding several businesses didn’t come without any challenges, I’m completely aware that growing a new business is even more difficult for diversity founders, particularly when it comes to securing venture capital (VC) funding.
The disparity is shocking and shows no sign of improvement either. Recent research from Crunchbase highlighted that global VC funding to female-founded companies fell to 2.3% in 2020, from 2.8% in 2019.
It’s a situation that’s beyond frustrating, and while there’s a lot of talk about the problem, not enough is being done to initiate change. But with the launch of Txeya we’re set to drive greater equality in entrepreneurship and business investment.
3. Txeya is solving problems for diversity-led businesses, but how is it helping investors?
Txeya isn’t just for underrepresented entrepreneurs, it’s a platform that champions the cause for equality from both sides.
Nearly a half (45%) of investors attributed the insufficient number of diverse founders in their portfolio to a “pipeline problem” — a lack of available businesses which fit the diversity profile. But there is no shortage of excellence when it comes to entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds, so perhaps investors just don’t know where to look.
While giving entrepreneurs access to funding, credit and investment options, Txeya also opens the door for investors to connect with these exceptional entrepreneurs and convert investment into high-value returns.
4. How can funding diversity-founded business benefit investors?
As it stands, great entrepreneurs and great business ideas are being overlooked and investors are missing out on huge opportunities.
If we look at women as an example, when female-founded start-ups do get funded, they’re more likely to be successful and ultimately deliver higher revenue than businesses not led by women — more than twice as much per dollar invested.
Other research also suggests that start-ups with ethnically diverse founders are able to raise more operating cash and provide better financial returns for investors, and in fact outperform others by 30% when they go public or are acquired.
But despite being aware of the issue and the proven benefits of investing in diversity founded businesses, over a half (60%) of VC firms say that their portfolios hold too few diversity-led business, with 83% believing they can prioritise investments in companies led by diverse entrepreneurs and maximise returns.
5. What is your broader vision for the company?
There’s no doubt there’s a lot of work to do in order to create a fairer and more diverse venture capital industry, but it’s our commitment at Txeya to make diversity more central in conversations about investment and to become a leading voice on diversity and inclusion in business.
Our initial focus is to create a hybrid digital banking, credit and investor platform solving the first and most known pain point — access to funding.
However, our long-term goal is to become the go-to community for diversity-led businesses. We want to provide entrepreneurs with access to ongoing business support through mentorship programmes and coaching from leaders in the VC space, who are keen to support diversity and inclusion, beyond the initial funding stage to ensure their business flourishes.
