By day, Dandridge Floyd works as assistant superintendent of Human Resources for Oakland Schools in Michigan. But by night and on Saturdays, she’s engaged in an effort to learn how to buy and run a business.
Dandridge, who has spent the past 15 years in a variety of HR and legal jobs, is a participant in New Majority Capital’s (NMC) current bETA (BIPOC Entrepreneurship through Acquisition) accelerator cohort. Through bETA, run by New Majority Capital Foundation, and NMC’s impact funds, the impact investing firm aims to help a critical mass of people of color create inter-generational wealth by purchasing a business, instead of starting one from scratch. Dandridge just started in NMC’s first, post-pilot, national cohort, which is based in Atlanta.
“For the Black and Brown community, the largest hurdle to buying a business is access to capital,” says Dandridge, whose goal is to acquire a company that can pay a living wage. “And a large part of developing your investment thesis is ensuring you buy the right business.”
Since NMC introduced its pilot program earlier this year, the impact investing firm has reached multiple milestones in its efforts to boost entrepreneurship through acquisition among people of color. For one thing, earlier in September, it launched its first national cohort. Plus, members of the initial program executed five deals, with more expected over the next month. And it’s made headway in raising its $50 million fund to finance acquisitions made by under-represented entrepreneurs.
National Cohorts
With an undisclosed amount of funding from JP Morgan, NMC launched its 30-entrepreneur cohort in Atlanta this month. Participants met in Atlanta for the first week and will spend most of the rest of the 10 weeks working remotely.
For the current program, NMC’s founders made various revisions to the curriculum. That includes hiring two business advisors and a mental health therapist, plus working with a credit organization that can make sure participants are underwriting-ready. And they’re talking to a hotel chain about forming a long-term partnership to cover, or offer discounts for, the cost of stays for cohort members attending programs from out of town. About 50% of participants don’t live in the immediate area.
They also expanded the program to 10 weeks, from eight; the first half focuses on learning how to buy a business, while the second part targets how to run the company after the acquisition is made, with the cohort split into six smaller groups. “We can cover more material,” says Allegra Stennett, an NMC co-founder.
The plan is to expand to a total of 10 cities, with two accelerators a year. Applications for the next one, which will be based out of Washington, D.C., will open in November.
Pilot Cohort Makes Acquisitions
So far, five entrepreneurs who took part in the 30-person pilot, which took place in Providence starting in March, have made acquisitions in companies, including Refrigerated Structures of New England, Kaster Moving Co., Cornerstone Healthcare Systems, E.G. Bowman Co. and AA Thrifty Sign and Awning. “We helped them navigate the process for the most part and close the transactions,” says Havell Rodrigues, CEO and co-founder.
Gabriel Perez is one such entrepreneur. After a few years in the insurance business, in 2008, Perez worked with Management Leadership for Tomorrow, a nonprofit that runs an MBA prep program for people of color, and attended Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, graduating in 2011. After that, he worked in management consulting and business development for insurance companies.
When his latest employer went through a restructuring early this year, Perez, with a severance package in hand, mulled over his next step. Long intrigued by the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur, he found out about the general area of entrepreneurship through acquisition and it seemed appealing. With a family to support, “I couldn’t start from scratch,” he says.
When he learned about NMC’s pilot, he decided to apply, with the goal of finding a company with a solid business that he could “take to the next level,” he says, and wouldn’t require him to be on call on weekends, taking time away from his family of four.
In late August, he closed on his purchase of Refrigerated Structures, which fabricates and installs custom walk-in coolers and freezers for commercial use. Among other lessons, he says, the program helped him learn how to narrow down the business characteristics he was looking for or that were deal-breakers. “There are a lot of business out there,” he says.
Fundraising
NMC is also raising its first $50 million fund. Deals, which are a mix of equity and debt, typically range from $1.5 million to $5 million, according to Rodrigues. So far, there are “over 30 deals in motion,” he says. That includes cohort participants, as well as entrepreneurs who haven’t gone through the accelerator.
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