Study: among 71 top VC firms, 92% of individuals on senior investment teams are male, 78% are white, 1.3% are Hispanic, and less than 1% are black
Peter Schulz / The Information :
Context & Ripple Effects
This study extends a scorekeeping run that started earlier in 2015, when Fortune counted just 5.6% of senior partners and 10% of investment professionals at 191 US VC firms as women. The Information's addition is granularity on race: across 71 top firms, Hispanic investors sit at 1.3% and Black investors below 1%, making this the clearest ethnic breakdown of senior VC teams in the coverage so far.
What makes the number matter is what follows it: Richard Kerby's review of ~1,500 VCs three years later, Axios finding women control just 4.7% of venture dollars raised over five years, and UK data showing senior female representation flat between 2017 and 2019. The measurement keeps repeating; the composition barely moves.
First-order effects
- The 71 surveyed firms now have a published benchmark they can be measured against by limited partners, press, and job candidates — and with fewer than 1% Black and 1.3% Hispanic senior investors, any firm claiming a diversity effort starts from near-zero representation at the decision-making level.
- Black and Hispanic professionals in adjacent finance roles see the actual size of the hiring pool: effectively single-digit people across the top of the industry.
Second-order effects
- Limited partners gain a standardized diligence question — firm-level demographics become part of fund diligence alongside returns, forcing GPs to report composition whether or not they plan to change it.
- Diverse-led emerging managers acquire a fundraising pitch against incumbents' documented homogeneity, while founders outside investor networks face gatekeepers who, per the related coverage, share schools and backgrounds — Kerby found about 40% attended Stanford or Harvard.
Third-order effects
- If team composition holds steady while measurement continues, capital allocation locks into the same profile: the Crunchbase founder data showing 77.1% white and 1% black VC-backed founders mirrors the investor side, suggesting network-driven deal flow reproduces both numbers simultaneously.
- The likely structural endpoint is external pressure substituting for internal change — LP mandates, disclosure requirements, or new fund formation doing the work that five years of headcount studies did not.
The trend: Venture capital has entered an era of recurring demographic audit — successive studies through 2019 show senior teams barely changing, shifting the debate from measuring the problem to who forces the industry to act on it.