Women, Black and Asian professionals make notable gains at Chicago VC firms
Despite progress, growth remains uneven and trails national rates of representation among key demographics
CHICAGO–The non-profit organization Chicago:Blend today released findings from their 2022 VC Diversity Report, which measures demographic trends among employees at Chicago-area venture capital firms. DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT
The data (summarized below) shows that despite notable gains in the share of women, Black and Asian professionals working at local VC firms from 2021-22, Chicago continues to fall short in key areas when compared to national rates.
“We’ve seen some major year-over-year improvements and should celebrate the efforts undertaken by local VC firms to increase diversity within their ranks, but we still have a lot of work to do to bring about greater equity and parity in our venture ecosystem,” Chicago:Blend CEO Joey Mak said.
Chicago’s VC industry continues to be dominated by White professionals, who comprised 75% of all employees at local firms in 2022, down from 77.95% in 2021 (-3.79% YoY). In terms of gender representation, men made up 65.27% of all local VC employees, down slightly from 66.15% (-1.32% YoY) over the same period. When considering intersectionality of race and gender, White men still constituted a majority (51.13%) of Chicago’s VC workforce in 2022, down from 53.57% in 2021 (-4.55% YoY).
Founded in 2018 by a group of local venture capitalists, Chicago:Blend measures diversity across Chicago’s VC industry, prepares underrepresented professionals for roles in venture, and provides DEI resources to VCs and their portfolio companies. This annual VC Diversity Report, presented by CDW, is the fourth such report published by Chicago:Blend and represents the most comprehensive dataset of its kind measuring year-over-year (YoY) demographic trends among Chicago’s VC workforce.
2022 VC Diversity Report: Key Findings
The share of women working at Chicago VC firms jumped from 2021 to 2022, with the greatest increase happening at the Executive Level.
The share of women in Chicago’s VC workforce increased from 33.85% in 2021 to 34.73% in 2022 (+2.59% YoY). Despite this growth, Chicago continues to trail the nation as a whole, where 47% of the total VC workforce identifies as women.
The share of women in Executive Level positions increased over the same period, from 20.78% to 24.84% (+19.55% YoY).
The share of women in investing roles at Chicago-based VCs was 25.32% in 2022, which is nearly on par with the U.S. VC workforce as a whole, where 26% of investment positions are held by women.
Black/African American and Asian professionals made the greatest YoY gains.
The share of Black/African American professionals in Chicago’s VC workforce increased from 6.10% in 2021 to 7.69% in 2022 (+26.19% YoY).
Much of this growth occurred in Non-Executive Level investing roles, which saw a jump from 5.19% to 7.86% (+51.49% YoY) over the same period.
The share of Black/African American professionals (7.69%) at Chicago firms is greater than the U.S. VC industry overall, where Black employees constitute just 5% of VC roles.
Over this same period, the share of Asian professionals in Chicago’s VC workforce increased from 10.12% in 2021 to 11.54% in 2022 (+14.05% YoY).
This share is lower than the U.S. VC workforce overall, however, where 18% of VC professionals are Asian.
The share of Hispanic/Latino professionals in Chicago VCs saw a slight decrease of 2.21% YoY, falling from 4.28% in 2021 to 4.19% in 2022. Although this dip is relatively small, the share of Hispanic/Latino professionals at local firms trails the U.S. VC industry overall, where Hispanic/Latino employees constitute about 7% of VC roles.
When examining the intersectionality of Race & Ethnicity and Gender, we saw significant increases in the share of Asian women, as well as Black/African American men and women.
From 2021 to 2022, the share of Asian women increased by 32.33% YoY, from 3.76% in 2021 to 4.98% in 2022.
The share of Black/African American men increased by 27.19% YoY, from 3.11% to 3.96% over the same period.
The share of Black/African American women increased as well, by 25.14% YoY, from 2.98% to 3.73% from 2021-22.
Funds with $5-$14.9M and 100M+ saw the greatest progress in gender representation.
For funds with $5-$14.9M, the share of women jumped by 55.90% YoY, from 26.32% in 2021 to 41.03% in 2022.
Much of this growth was driven by White women, whose share jumped by 289.74% YoY, from 5.26% to 20.51%, during this period.
For funds with $100M+, the share of women jumped by 10.60% YoY, from 31.72% in 2021 to 35.08% in 2022, with the greatest YoY percent change occurring among Black/African American women, whose total share jumped 394.77% YoY, from 0.37% to 1.85%, during this period.
First Time Funds saw large increases in the share of women, Asian, and Black/African American professionals working at Chicago VC firms.
From 2021 to 2022, the share of women at First Time Funds increased from 42.57% to 50.75% (+19.19% YoY), meaning that a small majority of First Time Fund employees in Chicago are now women.
The share of Asian professionals at First Time Funds jumped from 5.94% to 13.43% (+126.12% YoY), representing the largest increase of any other racial or ethnic group. This increase was especially pronounced among Asian women, whose share increased from 1.98% in 2021 to 8.96% in 2022 (+352.24% YoY).
The share of Black/African American professionals at these First Time Funds also increased from 19.80% in 2021 to 29.85% (+50.75% YoY).
White professionals in Chicago VC, regardless of gender, seniority, or investing vs. non-investing roles, continue to receive the lion’s share of promotions.
50% of promotions went to White men and 22% of promotions went to White women from 2021-22.
28% of promotions went to all other racial and ethnic groups, regardless of gender.
Alumni from local and regional higher ed institutions constitute a large proportion of Chicago’s VC workforce.
More than one out of five professionals (21.53%) working at Chicago-based VCs received their undergraduate degree from just five institutions – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Northwestern University, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Notre Dame, and Stanford University.
UIUC and Northwestern alone account for 11.58% of undergraduate degrees held by VCs in Chicago.
Nearly two-thirds (63.06%) of professionals working at Chicago-based VCs have an advanced degree. More than half (50.38%) of these professionals received a graduate degree from just 8 institutions – University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, DePaul University, MIT Sloan School of Business, and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
More than one-third (33.69%) of all graduate degree holders at Chicago VC firms received an MBA from Chicago Booth and Northwestern Kellogg.
Methodology
This data was collected from December 2022 to March 2023. The dataset includes 884 employees from 116 firms with a Chicago office that have made at least one venture investment within the past two years. These firms include venture funds that are $5M+, family offices, angel investment networks and a handful of other investors that also do venture deals.
Fund Size, designation of First Time Fund, and employee information was sourced from Pitchbook, CB Insights, Crunchbase, LinkedIn, online news articles and other publicly available data, including information obtained directly from the firms’ websites. Firms were given an opportunity via email to confirm or correct their data.
Although we include “Non-Binary or Other” as an option under the “Gender” field, we did not identify anyone among the 884 employees in this dataset who identifies as such. For designation of Race & Ethnicity, Chicago:Blend adheres to the race/ethnic categories established by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
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