The Advancement Initiative

Enabling today’s top tech companies to lay the foundation for tomorrow’s billion-dollar, minority-led startups.

The Base10 Advancement Initiative

$250M Fund

with the goal to create financial aid for

100,000 HBCU students

who will become founders of

tomorrow’s $B+ startups

How the Advancement Initiative works

Base10
Growth Fund

Base10 invests in
Pre-IPO companies

Donate 50% of
returns to HBCUs

Fund scholarships
for minority students

Increase tech
talent pipeline

Find next generation
of $1B founders

Companies

The AI invests in leading growth-stage tech companies who are committed to helping generate billions of dollars in financial aid for 100,000+ HBCU students through participation in this Fund.

Partners

HBCUs are the AI’s largest LPs, alongside select foundations, institutions, and other minority-focused organizations who will help ensure students receive the maximum benefit from this investment.

HBCUs and their endowments have been historically excluded from investments into venture capital and technology, and the Advancement Initiative not only grants these crucial institutions access, but helps prioritize them in incredibly competitive deals. We are super excited about our partnership with Base10.

Marcelia Freeman

Board of Directors
Florida A&M University

The Advancement Initiative creates a clear path for us to contribute to the success of underrepresented minority students who will go on to be the leaders and innovators of tomorrow, and we couldn’t be more excited to be participating.

Zach Perret

Co-founder and CEO
Plaid

We were blown away by Base10’s innovative, unique and generous approach to advancing diversity in tech. Aurora couldn’t be more proud to be an Advancement Initiative portfolio company, and to thereby help create opportunities for talented students who will become the next generation of tech company leaders.

Sam Adeyemo

Co-founder
Aurora Solar

May 2021 / Bloomberg

A $250 Million Fund Steers HBCU Endowments Into Venture Capital

May 2021 / TechCrunch

This $250 million growth fund will divert half its profits to historically Black colleges and universities

May 2021 / Business Insider

A new $250 million fund from venture capital firm Base10 has a portfolio full of unicorns like Plaid and Brex. The returns will go to historically Black colleges.

We are starting with HBCUs, the #1 source of diverse talent in the U.S. with an outsized impact. HBCUs produce:¹

23%

of all Black U.S. graduates

40%

of all Black U.S. STEM degrees

60%

of all Black U.S. engineering degrees

Howard University, which is one of the largest HBCUs and an LP in this Fund, produces as many PhDs as Harvard, MIT, Yale, and Stanford combined.²

1: HCPSS, Penn GSE

2: Howard University

Despite these stats, HBCUs have tragically tiny endowments compared to their similar sized peers

The average endowment size of the top 5 HBCUs is $331M compared to $28B for the top 5 largest U.S. university endowments.

Sources: U.S. News, HBCU Money, and School Diversity Reports.

Top 5 HBCUs

Top 5 U.S. Universities Endowments

To make matters worse, 30% of all HBCU students live below the poverty line when attending their HBCU.

HBCU endowments have been historically excluded from investment access to the best technology companies in the world.

The Advancement Initiative is ready to change this.