After working decades in real estate, Katherine Winston and Kenya Burrell-VanWormer were tired of the statistics showing how the majority of real estate agents were women, but most leadership roles in the sector were held by men.
So earlier this year they launched Equity Angels, a social impact organization aiming to increase the diversity in real estate tech or “prop-tech” by helping underrepresented founders land funding for their startups and get their businesses going.
Equity Angels has a three-part strategy to reach that goal.
Providing access to capital: The group has a six-month accelerator that helps founders prepare for investment pitches by doing a review of their technology; analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; assessing their product-market fit and go-to-market strategy; and assisting with financial projections and funding targets. Real estate industry veterans help provide mentorship.
Equity Angels introduces founders to potential investors, customers and partners. It also provides marketing support on social media and at events.
The accelerator is largely remote, but culminates in the massive Blueprint real estate tech conference, which is held in September in Las Vegas. At that event, the founders pitch to potential investors at the conference demo day.
Offering fractional executives: For startups that can’t afford full-time executives such as a chief technologist, chief financial officer and other roles, Equity Angels has a team who can fill these positions on an hourly or monthly basis.
Creating a community of diverse founders: The organization aims to provide support for startups and later-stage companies with underrepresented leadership.
The organization recently announced its first accelerator cohort of four early-stage startups.
Requirements for participating in Equity Angels’ accelerator include working in prop-tech or fintech; having raised some initial capital, whether it’s from friends and family or up to pre-Series A; and having at least one minimum viable product (MVP).
And the startup needs to have great founders, Winston said.
“We’re not just going to pick somebody because they happen to be a woman who’s a person of color,” she added. “They are founders who have a sound business plan, and have great experience, that we know they can execute that business plan.”
Equity Angels is looking for diverse founders and views that term broadly — rather than targeting a specific gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
Winston cites multiple reasons for that approach, including the fact that by including a wide range of participants it’s more difficult for venture capitalists to pigeon hole the accelerator as being just one thing and potentially dismiss the companies on that basis.
“We find that by having a cohort that includes both men and women, and different cultures, it’s then easier to invite VCs to come and listen to the pitches and they’re not putting them in a little box,” Winston said. “They’re willing to listen to this more diverse group of founders.”
The more inclusive strategy also avoids attacks like the one made on Fearless Fund, a group issuing $20,000 grants to businesses owned by Black women. A U.S. federal court of appeals this month halted the fund’s program supporting these women, deeming it discriminatory.
Equity Angels is mainly being bootstrapped by Winston and Burrell-VanWormer. There’s currently no set fee for participating in the accelerator. The organization will take equity in the startups — a common practice for accelerator programs — and that percentage is based on how much money they’ve raised to date and their current traction and valuation.
For the fractional executive program, Equity Angels earns a percentage of the rate paid by the startup for the exec.
The organization this fall plans to add full-time executive placement services targeting small to midsize tech companies seeking diverse, experienced candidates. Companies will pay a fee for the service.
The Seattle area is home to multiple real estate technology ventures, including heavyweights Zillow and Redfin, as well as Arrived Homes and Havium, which support single-family rentals; Prophia, a platform that extracts key terms from commercial real estate contracts; and Onder, a home maintenance startup that was acquired.
Winston, who is based in Bellevue, Wash., and her co-founder, Kenya Burrell-VanWormer of the Houston area, both worked for years in the real estate sector.
Winston is a long-time leader in marketing, and worked for 18 years as a marketing and communications strategist for Sotheby’s International Realty. Burrell-VanWormer has decades of experience as a real estate agent in a variety of leadership and sales roles in Houston and nationally.
