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While working with founders in accelerator programs and her own nonprofit, Kelli Jones noticed a gap in the Indianapolis tech ecosystem: It didn't allow for consumer investment.
In the Circle City, business-to-business, software-as-a-service companies were the only ones getting funded. And as Jones noticed more and more consumer apps and direct-to-consumer business come through her programs, she saw an opportunity.
Jones began raising a fund in 2019, while assisting with The Heritage Group Accelerator as program manager. The pandemic only accelerated that effort, which would ultimately become Sixty8 Capital.
Jones, managing partner of Sixty8 Capital, joins us on The Cornfield Capitalists podcast this week. This new podcast aims to spotlight people who are investing in Middle America.
Last May, Sixty8 Capital announced the first close of its $20 million fund that's investing in seed-stage startups led by historically undercapitalized Black, Latinx, women and LGBTQ+ founders. It's nearing its final close now, Jones told us on the podcast, and the eight companies in its current portfolio are enticing new limited partners.
"When we did the first close, the strategy really was to start investing immediately so that we could show what kind of deals we can get access to, so that we could show the kinds of companies that we're looking for, so we can show that pipeline is not an issue [and] deal flow is not an issue when it comes to diverse companies," Jones said. "As you circle back with people that may have said no before, or maybe took more time, we were able to actually just show how companies we've been investing in in May were already seeing markups in October. And that was able to open up people that were originally saying, 'Oh, you're too small of a fund,' or 'Maybe fund two.' [They] really started to take a look."
