A perspective from Candice Matthews Brackeen, Founder, Lightship Capital, Cincinnati, United States of America
A perspective from Candice Matthews Brackeen, Founder, Lightship Capital, Cincinnati, United States of America
by: Eric Matthews, CEO, Start Co.|
August 11, 2022
|Authored by: Eric Matthews, CEO, Start Co
First things First
Lightship Capital (formerly The Hillman Accelerator) started because there was a real need in Cincinnati, Ohio, to support women and people of color in technology commercialization and startup innovation. Motivated by the #ProjectDiane report released in 2016, which stated that less than 1% of all venture capital goes to Black-led startups, the team at Lightship decided to address the challenges with direct solutions.
What began as a weekly meet-up of local entrepreneurs, the accelerator is now entering its fifth year of operations.
Having gained support from major corporations and founders in several cities throughout the Midwest, the program is meaningfully supporting the growth of minority and women-led technology startups and their underserved ecosystems.
The Lightship team wakes up knowing that the most important role and purpose of any accelerator is to get companies funded. Lightship Capital adds to this purpose a need to demonstrate that innovation and success can come from any walk of life — that women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled founders with proper support can and are creating great businesses. Bringing light to these great technology startup founders on top of much-needed equitable support has created a snowball effect for Lightship Capital to expand its resource base and operations. Over the last few years, they have grown to three cities in Middle America and now have plans to expand further. In addition to the cities they serve, their LPs and partners look to Hillman for thought leadership in this space.
Starting at the Top: Space
The leadership of Lightship Capital believes that it is important to not only work from the ground up, but also the top down by addressing innovation policy, academic cultures, and collaborative systems by serving on the boards of Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium for NASA, Ohio State University, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. All accelerator leaders should step into these roles to ensure that representation in technology and innovation is inclusive not only of new, disruptive ideas, but also includes a diversity of people. When building new cultures and economies, everything now needs to be considered with a diversity lens.
Diversifying Investment by Diversifying Investors
Candice Matthews Brackeen, the founder of Hillman and Lightship Capital, often finds herself as the only woman and only person of color in the room. To highlight the power of this difference, Candice gives the example of Dr. Amy Beckley who started Proov, a “Fem tech” startup, to help women track their progesterone levels when they’re trying to get pregnant. Dr. Beckley was pitching a room full of men and Candice. Candice was the only one in the room to understand the business and the opportunity, and now Candice is Proov’s first and only institutional investor for the time being.
Expanding by Saying “Yes”
Candice and her team have expanded their impact to underrepresented founders with the acquisition of the NewMe Accelerator in Miami and the deployment of venture capital to underrepresented founders from the oversubscribed Lightship Capital Fund I. They are capitalizing on their unique ability and track record of saying “yes” to founders and innovations that better-known accelerators and investors have overlooked and are helping those founders achieve amazing growth and success. Men traditionally have been the ones sitting on investment committees and making decisions about what needs to be built in the world. The diverse leaders of Hillman, Lightship, and NewMe are capitalizing on the opportunity to innovate with women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled founders around the challenges and problems that only these founders and their families face. The returns and rewards are already coming to fruition.
Copyright Notice
COPYRIGHT © Global Accelerator Network, LLC (GAN). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, and information storage and retrieval systems—without the express written permission of GAN. Contents are based on information from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Nothing herein should be construed as any past, current, or future recommendation to buy or sell any security or an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. This material does not purport to contain all of the information that a prospective investor may wish to consider and is not to be relied upon as such or used in substitution for the exercise of independent judgment.
Authored by: Eric Matthews, CEO, Start Co
First things First
Lightship Capital (formerly The Hillman Accelerator) started because there was a real need in Cincinnati, Ohio, to support women and people of color in technology commercialization and startup innovation. Motivated by the #ProjectDiane report released in 2016, which stated that less than 1% of all venture capital goes to Black-led startups, the team at Lightship decided to address the challenges with direct solutions.
What began as a weekly meet-up of local entrepreneurs, the accelerator is now entering its fifth year of operations.
Having gained support from major corporations and founders in several cities throughout the Midwest, the program is meaningfully supporting the growth of minority and women-led technology startups and their underserved ecosystems.
The Lightship team wakes up knowing that the most important role and purpose of any accelerator is to get companies funded. Lightship Capital adds to this purpose a need to demonstrate that innovation and success can come from any walk of life — that women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled founders with proper support can and are creating great businesses. Bringing light to these great technology startup founders on top of much-needed equitable support has created a snowball effect for Lightship Capital to expand its resource base and operations. Over the last few years, they have grown to three cities in Middle America and now have plans to expand further. In addition to the cities they serve, their LPs and partners look to Hillman for thought leadership in this space.
Starting at the Top: Space
The leadership of Lightship Capital believes that it is important to not only work from the ground up, but also the top down by addressing innovation policy, academic cultures, and collaborative systems by serving on the boards of Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium for NASA, Ohio State University, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. All accelerator leaders should step into these roles to ensure that representation in technology and innovation is inclusive not only of new, disruptive ideas, but also includes a diversity of people. When building new cultures and economies, everything now needs to be considered with a diversity lens.
Diversifying Investment by Diversifying Investors
Candice Matthews Brackeen, the founder of Hillman and Lightship Capital, often finds herself as the only woman and only person of color in the room. To highlight the power of this difference, Candice gives the example of Dr. Amy Beckley who started Proov, a “Fem tech” startup, to help women track their progesterone levels when they’re trying to get pregnant. Dr. Beckley was pitching a room full of men and Candice. Candice was the only one in the room to understand the business and the opportunity, and now Candice is Proov’s first and only institutional investor for the time being.
Expanding by Saying “Yes”
Candice and her team have expanded their impact to underrepresented founders with the acquisition of the NewMe Accelerator in Miami and the deployment of venture capital to underrepresented founders from the oversubscribed Lightship Capital Fund I. They are capitalizing on their unique ability and track record of saying “yes” to founders and innovations that better-known accelerators and investors have overlooked and are helping those founders achieve amazing growth and success. Men traditionally have been the ones sitting on investment committees and making decisions about what needs to be built in the world. The diverse leaders of Hillman, Lightship, and NewMe are capitalizing on the opportunity to innovate with women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled founders around the challenges and problems that only these founders and their families face. The returns and rewards are already coming to fruition.
Copyright Notice
COPYRIGHT © Global Accelerator Network, LLC (GAN). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, and information storage and retrieval systems—without the express written permission of GAN. Contents are based on information from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Nothing herein should be construed as any past, current, or future recommendation to buy or sell any security or an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. This material does not purport to contain all of the information that a prospective investor may wish to consider and is not to be relied upon as such or used in substitution for the exercise of independent judgment.