On this episode of The Angel Next Door, Marcia introduces listeners to Alisha Griffey, the founder of Daintree Capital. After spending years as an operations leader in the startup world, Alisha grew frustrated with the traditional funding process. She noticed that very few companies run by women or people of color receive the funding they need. That’s when, about 3 years ago, Alisha moved to the investor side of the equation to see if she could do something to address that problem.
Marcia and Alisha start off this episode discussing why Alisha decided to become an investor and start Daintree Capital. Alisha then tells our listeners how she noticed several problems that affected what types of founders receive investments and how many different business models were often overlooked by traditional investors.
Daintree and its female leadership team focuses on investing in underrepresented founders to address these issues. Alisha tells us how Daintree uses working capital loans as an investment instrument because it allows them to help a more diverse set of business models. Many companies only need a relatively small investment for things like inventory funding, opening new locations, or advertising, but traditional investors tend to overlook these investments. Daintree Capital has provided 58 loans to date with a 0% default rate.
Marcia and Alisha go on to discuss Donor Advised Funds (DAF) and how these funds can be used for investing in these often overlooked companies through providing loans. Alisha tells us how she learned how DAFs can be used to invest in early stage companies before they enter the raising capital death trap and how she launched 2 charitable DAFs, including an impact fund that serves as a balance sheet to make loans to underrepresented founders. Alisha also tells our listeners how the funds sitting in DAFs cannot generate personal returns to the donors but can be put to use as loans through impact funds, generating interest that can then be put back into the DAF, donated to a 501(c)3 non profit, or used as future loans.
Finally, Alisha explains that over $150 billion is sitting in DAFs and that these funds can be used to make loans to help both private companies in need of capital and nonprofit organizations at the same time. Daintree Capital is working to use this method to help underrepresented founders get the funding they need to grow. Listen in for some fantastic insight on an uncommon method of investments!
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