In Q3 2021, CVC launched the inaugural cohort of the Columbia Venture Community Impact Program under the leadership of it’s creator and Founder/CEO of Consider Beyond, Esther Kim (SPS 17’).
The CVC Impact accelerator provides early stage Columbia-affiliated companies with support in the first phases of building, launching, operating and scaling their businesses. The program provides access to world class mentorship, expert-led panel discussions, workshops, pitch feedback and so much more and was designed to help founders through these critical initial phases of a start-up’s lifecycle.
We are excited to share some aggregated data about this cohort's application and see what we can learn from the data.
Cohort Summary
Most represented school : Columbia School of Business (27.9%)
Most represented location : New York City (65.1%)
Most Common UN Sustainable Development Goal: Decent Work and Economic Growth (23.3%)
Most Common Industry :Beauty and Apparel (14.0%)
Most Common Sector : Consumer (41.9%)
Over a quarter (25.6%) of companies are operated by solo founders, and nearly a third (30.2%) by a co-founding pair.
Nearly a third are bootstrapped: 35.8% of startups have received no prior funding.
Of companies that have accepted investment, the average total invested amount was approximately $900k.
School Representation
Over a quarter of this cohort applicants were alumni of the Columbia Business School (CBS), following in hit the footsteps of several notable start-up founders and executives. Although the majority of applicants are CBS alums, Columbia College (CC), The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are also well represented, each with over a tenth of the total applicants.
Despite that, even alums from schools that are not usually associated with entrepreneurship like Columbia Law, the School of Social Work and the Columbia Journalism School have applied, which is a testament to the diversity of the spirit of entrepreneurship amongst our university’s alumni community.
Companies by Location
More than half of our applicants are primarily based in New York City, which besides being Columbia’s home base the New York City tech ecosystem is also showing resilience despite a year of lockdown that some suspected would besmirch the city’s status as a main financial hub. According to NYC Media Labs, New York City start-up funding for the first half of 2021 tripled year over year, soaring from ~$7B in 2020 to over ~$21 in 2021.
Company Development Stage
Nearly half of our applicants are in the earliest stage of the venture journey: mocks. The mocks and design phase is critical as it also includes prudent business planning processes as well as the articulation of consumer needs and sentiments along with the strategy to leverage those insights. The next largest majority are already earning revenue and are likely seeking support to scale their efforts now that the flywheel is turning, while another 16.3% and 18.6% percent, are on the cusps of revenue in the beta and prototype phases, respectively, gaining valuable user feedback.
Industry Trends
The largest industry segment amongst our applicants is in the Beauty and Apparel space at 14% of the cohort. This is in line with what we know about the biggest areas for impact against the social and environmental challenges of the day. The fashion industry produces 10% of all humanity's carbon emissions and is the second-largest consumer of the world's water supply, comprising nearly a fifth of the wastewater produced across the entire globe. CVC Impact is proud to be contributing to bringing better solutions to these very important issues in impact.
This is in line with the proportional breakdown of companies by each of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, with over 20% focusing on ‘Responsible Consumption.’ However, the largest subset concerning these goals was ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’ with another sizable subset being attributed to ‘Reduced Inequalities’, demonstrating that income inequality and the future of work is a problem area that continues to attract founders looking to democratize economic growth and opportunity across genders, races, and creeds. This is especially important in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which some of the nation’s most impoverished go through even deeper financial hardships while the wealthiest Americans have seen their fortunes grow considerably.
Sector Trends
Consumer and enterprise plays comprise the largest proportions of our applicants by business sector this time around. This focus underscores one of the more exciting trends in the venture industry: the rise of the COVID entrepreneurs who have transitioned side hustles, hobbies, and annealed expertise into companies and startups, as well as the rise of e-commerce and the acceleration of its adoption.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 4.4M new businesses have been created since March 2020, and over 600k new business applications in March 2021, the highest number of unadjusted new business applications ever recorded, with the majority of these new businesses being in retail trade. Meanwhile, according to research published by McKinsey and Company, online retail sales have tripled or even quadrupled in 2020, in some localities, namely, the United States and the United Kingdom, showing that digital commerce is here to stay. Consumers' discretionary spending has arguably never been more accessible to entrepreneurs who are bringing meaningful solutions to their issues while driving meaningful innovation in the key areas of social and environmental impact.
We hope you enjoyed learning about the startups who applied to our first cohort as we did. We would like to thank every founder that applied and we look forward to sharing more results from the program cohort in the coming weeks.
If you would like to learn more about CVC Impact, or be notified when the next cohort application is available, check out the accelerator webpage here and please subscribe to our newsletter.
Thank you for reading!
Author:
Global VP of Content
Founded in 2006, Columbia Venture Community (CVC) is a private network of more than 5,100 Columbia alumni, students, and employees interested in all aspects of entrepreneurship. CVC supports entrepreneurs at any stage of their business with monthly in-person programming, an actively engaged community, and founder resources.