This Poet Turned Financier Is Raising Millions of Dollars to Fund Black and Latino Investors and Entrepreneurs

On March 8, 2021, DOTLA reported, The 46-year-old poet-turned-financer Taj Eldridge is raising $250 million to support Black and brown entrepreneurs and investors.

The fund will be split in two buckets, $125 million will go toward direct investments in clean tech, healthcare tech, media and fintech, as well as follow-on investments for companies that its affiliated fund managers make investments in. The rest of the funds will support fund managers raising at least $5 million that are majority-owned by Black or Brown individuals with an environmental social governance focus.

"What we like to say is we like to see funds that impact how you work, how you live and how you thrive," Eldridge told Minnie Ingersoll on the LA Venture podcast.

Eldridge, senior director of investments for the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, said the idea for the new fund began in 2019 before last summer's racial reckoning when he had a conversation with a "high net-worth individual" about reducing the racial wealth gap.

For Eldridge, the answer was ownership.

"If a person of color has ownership in the company, if they're vested in the company, if they're hiring in C-suite, that creates wealth, that creates ownership," he said.

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