March 2021 Written by StartOut

Expanded Diversity and Inclusion Survey measures all Founders’ Contributions across the U.S.

San Francisco, CA – Non-profit StartOut and Socos Labs today announced the launch of their Inclusion Impact Indexes survey available to all US-based entrepreneurs. The Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) survey measures entrepreneurs’ economic impact in terms of job creation, patents, financings and exits.

The initial initiative, The StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index™ (SPEII) was originally launched in July 2020. The SPEII was the first of the Inclusion Impact Indexes to gain insights on All, Female, and LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs’ economic impact and quantified the economic value of under-utilized LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs in near real-time. 

The survey gathers data with the goal of addressing the talent and resource gap at a time when the US needs every region and every community to reach its full potential to kickstart the US economy post-Covid-19. The insights gained from the survey will be available for free, for all to access and utilize for quantitative decision-making. Municipalities, investors, ecosystem builders, and grantors can use the insights to improve their support of founders with diverse backgrounds and reap the corresponding benefits.

Initial Inclusion Impact Indexes data insights show that over the last 20 years, for example: 

• $940B in exits could have reached $1.6T if all entrepreneurs had received equal access to resources.
• To date, less than half a percent of all high-growth entrepreneurs self-identify as LGBTQ+.
• More inclusive access to resources for women entrepreneurs would have created over 1.3 million additional jobs in the US.
• Women entrepreneurs raised $140B in funding while they could have achieved $420B. Funding women entrepreneurs in the rest of the country is a major growth and investment opportunity.

Socos Labs and StartOut are excited about the number of collaborators who are inviting their entrepreneurs to take part in the confidential survey. The list of collaborators is growing and includes: 500 Startups, Aspen Tech Policy Hub, AWS, Bunker Labs, Crunchbase, FLIK, Global Entrepreneurship Network, Google For Startups, Grid110, Halcyon, Impact Hub New York Metropolitan, Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, National Venture Capital Association, OutLeadership PitchBook, Silicon Valley Bank, SV Impact, TechCrunch, Venture Forward, and many others.

StartOut invites all entrepreneurs and their supporters throughout the US to participate in this seminal D&I project.

 “StartOut is thrilled to work with a rapidly growing list of project collaborators who have signed-on to use their own networks and support this critical D&I project”, added Andres Wydler, StartOut’s executive director. “We need to understand every community’s contributions and unrealized potential today if we want to maximize the speed of the recovery post-Covid 19.”

Participation in the survey is voluntary and all responses are held in confidentiality. Only aggregated, anonymized insights are shared publicly. 

The Inclusion Impact Indexes initiative utilizes big data analysis and a corresponding AI-driven engine to both measure contributions in close to real-time and calculate what they could be with equal access. The easy-to-use platform visualizes growth opportunities by metro areas in terms of jobs, patents, fundraising, and company exits. It also sheds light on entrepreneurial opportunities within specific industries and allows for multiple correlation analyses. 

“Our big-data driven approach takes the guesswork out of decision making for interventions”, said Dr. Vivienne Ming, founder of Socos Labs. “Over time, we can evaluate trends and differences with the data at hand and will gain deep insights into which programs and regulations impact opportunities for underrepresented communities, positively and negatively.”

“It is critical to create an environment free from marginalization where everyone has an equal chance to share in the economic opportunities that business ownership can provide,” stated Cate Costa, vice president, Global Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase, which supported the SPEII development. “JPMorgan Chase is proud to support the Inclusion Impact Indexes, which empowers leaders to make data-driven investments that will help make entrepreneurship more accessible and equitable for underserved communities.” 

Entrepreneurs in the US can easily complete the survey in 2-4 minutes and can be accessed securely online at: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfVI3IdL8mk6RqCrPRFRYiqdOT0hv0RwTGJDQgK0UpmtcAZmQ/viewform

The StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index is publicly available for free at www.inclusionindexes.org.