Being asked about diversity.

I've spoken with 68 investors in the last 3 months - there's a lot of interest in indoor farming right now! In multiple conversations I've been asked about SPACs (let's get rich quick!), about pivoting to cannabis (better margins!), about growing food on Mars (yes, yes, my cofounder's name is Musk... next question please!). But yesterday, for the first time, I was asked: "What percentage of farmers on your platform are BIPOC and what is your guy’s philosophy / thoughts on this?" 

For the first time. 

It's a stark observation. Given everything the US went through in 2020, out of 68 recent conversations with investors I've been asked about diversity on our team exactly once.  

As business leaders in startups, we can make a big impact by changing hiring practices to actively source candidates of color, and training our teams to remove unconscious bias during interviews. We can also actively seek more diverse investors ourselves (this is an excellent resource to help).

But this isn't a post about startups. Instead, I'd love to hear from "the other side of the table" - from investors looking at startup companies in which to deploy capital: have you implemented any sort of diversity filter in your due diligence process, in an attempt to incentivize more diverse teams? And, if not, why not?

(note: I'm not asking this in an accusatory way. And certainly I understand that, across my own career, I've done nowhere near enough here. I'm just curious, given the data I have - which is a relatively small sample size, so likely might not be representative - why is this question not being asked more often?)