Arlan Hamilton
Arlan Hamilton
Arlan Hamilton (born 1980) is a venture capitalist. She is currently the Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that invests in start-ups headed by underrepresented founders (including the Black and LGBT communities).[11]
Early Life & Education
Career
Music Tour Manage
Early in her career, Arlan Hamilton became interested in live music.
When I was 21 years old, she came across a Norwegian pop punk band online And wanted to see them play live. She got in touch with them and asked them if she could book a tour for them so she could see them play. She ended up booking a nationwide tour for them around the country and became their tour manager.[12]
As she gained more experience, she began working on arena-sized tours for artists like Jason Derulo and Toni Braxton.[12]
Backstage Capital
Within 2 years, Hamilton founded and became the Managing Partner of Backstage Capital and turned it into a multi-million dollar venture capital fund.[11]
Backstage Capital has invested $5 million in more than 100 start-ups headed by underrepresented founders.[11]
Susan Kimberlin, who has a track record of product development success at Fortune 500 companies like PayPal and Slack, was the first tech titan to formally reach out to Arlan to join her team. Since then, Marc Andreessen, Chris Sacca, Stewart Butterfield, Aaron Levie, and other big players in Silicon Valley have invested in Arlan's venture fund. [1]
Medium Post
In her post, Hamilton implored investors to allocate a fraction of their funds to underrepresented entrepreneurs and offered assistance.
She stated:[3]
Your goal is to make money as a VC or accelerator who is investing other people's money because you have a fiduciary duty to do everything in your power to bring your LPs returns.
Therefore, if you haven't hired a team of people who are of color, female, and/or LGBT to actively turn over every stone, to scope out every nook and cranny, to pop out of every bush, to find every qualified underrepresented founder in this country, you're going to miss out on a lot of money when the rest of the investment world gets it.
Personal Life
On August 14, 2019, Hamilton married her wife Anna E.