107. Founders Outside the Lines feat. Brandon Brooks @ Zinsu

This is Rich Maloy with SpringTime Ventures,bringing you the VC Minute,quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better.I hadn't met this week's guest prior to inviting him on the podcast.This all started.When my partner,Matt shared a tweet of Brandon's about how he testified before the house financial services committee regarding expanding access to capital to everyone,especially those that exist outside the lines.Linked to that tweet in the show notes.His message resonated deeply with me,so I invited him to share his fundraising insights and I'm so glad I did.Take it away,Brandon.

Hey everyone.I'm Brandon Brooks,founder of Zinsu,which is a platform to make the funding process easier and more efficient for everybody involved.And I'm also the founding partner of a venture capital fund called Overlooked Ventures.Prior to that,I started the first black-owned crowdfunding platform in the United States called Inventrify.We think that the fundraising process today doesn't work for those that exist outside the lines.That's whether you're a black founder or a woman founder,or Latino founder or founder that's not within a traditional startup hub like San Francisco,like Silicon Valley.Raising funding is it's a pain.You have to know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody to get involved.And we don't think that that's right.There's many founders across the heartland of America that can push innovation to the next level,can create a better economy for all of us in the future to exist and,and we have to figure out a way to get them connected to the capital they need to start or grow their existing businesses.And so that's what we're doing with Zinsu.Anybody should be able to create the future,whether that's the founder in rural West Virginia,or that's somebody in Idaho or Pennsylvania or Colorado,wherever they exist,people can have great ideas.They just need opportunities,and so we have to make opportunities easier for them to capture.