Top Trends in EquityTech: Sourcing & Selecting for Halcyon's 2024 EquityTech Fellowship
In our 10th year, Halcyon shifted our programing to focus on the three specific markets where we believe the greatest impact can be made:?Health, Climate,?and?EquityTech. We’re especially excited to debut our EquityTech vertical, which empowers entrepreneurs from across the globe who are leveraging technology to increase social and financial inclusion and close gaps in wealth, education, and accessibility. We believe that technology has the power to be a great equalizer, and Halcyon’s EquityTech vertical supports founders who are harnessing that power.
In September 2024, our inaugural EquityTech cohort moved into Halcyon to begin an eight-week residency in Washington, DC. These eight ventures were chosen from a highly competitive applicant pool of 615 ventures from 79 countries worldwide, with 88% of prospective founders who identified as a person of color and 40% who identified as a woman or non-binary. Throughout our multiple-round sourcing and selections process, we identified compelling trends across the sub-sectors of FinTech, EdTech, Assistive Tech, and Future of Work, pointing to an exciting future in the space.
FinTech
Historically, traditional financial services such as banks and credit unions have marginalized large groups of people from economic inclusion, including women, minority groups, and immigrants. These injustices are still felt clearly today; in 2021, the home ownership rate for white Americans was 72.7%, compared to 44% for Black Americans and 50.6% for Hispanic Americans.[ii] When employed for social entrepreneurship, the FinTech space can present huge opportunities for disrupting these patterns—and the market is rapidly growing. The FinTech industry raised record capital in the second half of the last decade, with VC funding growing from $19.4 billion in 2015 to $33.3 billion in 2020. And, as of July 2023, there were more than 272 fintech unicorns with a combined valuation of $936 billion—a 7x increase from the 39 firms valued at $1 billion or more five years prior.[iii]
For Halcyon’s EquityTech recruitment, we received nearly 100 applications this year from talented FinTech ventures across the globe. Two overarching trends were:
One selected venture from our current EquityTech cohort, myStash, encompasses both of these FinTech patterns; their mission is to enable formal and informal economy workers in Nigeria to build financial resilience by auto-saving a percentage of their earnings in USD. Another, Pelican, adheres to the second key trend by helping families set up and fund education savings accounts.
To see all of Halcyon’s current and past ventures in the FinTech space, visit this link.
EdTech
Globally, 17% of the world’s children, adolescents, and youth are out of school, with this proportion much larger in developing countries.[viii] For those in school, education learning results vary drastically depending on an area’s development and poverty levels, creating distressing inequities. Education has incredible transformative potential, accounting for at least 50% of global economic growth—70% of growth among the world’s poorest 20% of individuals—and 50% of the reduction in global gender inequality since 1980.[ix] The EdTech market has the power to drive these changes, and the market certainly is moving with it, having already reached a $146 billion value in 2023 and expected to climb to $549.6 billion by 2033.[x] The increasing adoption of mobile devices, enhanced interactivity of learning experiences aided by AI, VR, and other new technologies, introduction of hybrid learning models, and other recent growth factors have added to the industry’s traction.
In our own EquityTech application process, we received the highest percentage of EdTech applications, with 169 total submissions in the sector. Of note was:
?To see all of Halcyon’s current and past ventures in the EdTech space, visit this link.
Assistive Tech
The need for Assistive Tech is staggering; globally, more than 2.5 billion people need one or more assistive products. With an aging global population and rise in noncommunicable diseases, this number is estimated to rise to 3.5 billion people by 2050.[xii] Across the billions of people who require this technology, however, there is considerable inequity. 90% of people in some high-income countries have access to the assistive products they need, in comparison to as few as 3% of people in some low-income countries. Impact-driven entrepreneurship in Assistive Tech can be transformative in closing gaps in this space while also generating competitive returns. Valued at $48.68 billion in 2022, the Assistive Tech market is expected to reach $86.91 billion in 2030, with a CAGR of 6.55% during this forecast period.[xiii]
While sourcing and selecting Assistive Tech ventures, two trends were particularly engaging:
?To see all of Halcyon’s current and past ventures in the Assistive Tech space, visit this link.
Future of Work
Prior to COVID-19, major transformations were occurring in the modern world of work, further accelerated by the widespread introduction of hybrid and work-from-home models necessitated by the pandemic. Cutting-edge technologies, shifting cultural values, new industry standards and regulations, and other changes have prompted a booming Future of Work sector. For instance, 44% of workers’ skills are predicted to be disrupted in the next five years, with six in ten workers needing new training before 2027.[xvii] Future of Work innovators are required to not only keep up with these developments, but to pave the way towards what’s to come. Those who do so have massive growth opportunities, with the market forecasted to approach $1 trillion as soon as 2026.[xviii]
?Two Future of Work trends stood out during our sourcing and selections process:
To see all of Halcyon’s current and past ventures in the Future of Work space, visit this link.
领英推荐
As Halcyon continues deepening our work in EquityTech, we’re eager to continue our holistic support of the social entrepreneurs doing game-changing work in this sector. Many of these founders have experienced the very problems they are solving, and this proximity has given them the unique experience and the resilience to create brilliant solutions. We know that these ventures will make a deep impact not just in their communities, but globally, and at Halcyon, our mission is to help our founders grow and scale through our tailored programming. We’re thrilled to be spending the next eight weeks with our inaugural EquityTech cohort, where we will be sharing more of their stories with our network.
Thank you to Capital One, Deloitte, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Arnold & Porter for their support of our 2024 EquityTech Fellowship.
Do you have experience in EquityTech? If you’re interested in connecting with our founders as a mentor, advisor, or investor, visit this link.
For more on our EquityTech vertical, check out the EquityTech panel from The Halcyon Innovation Summit, where Kerone Vatel (Capital One), Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel (Esusu), and Precious Price (Gather ADU) discussed closing the wealth gap and how to use capital, technology, and corporate know-how to accelerate the pace of economic equality. Precious is an inspiring example of a Halcyon alumni in the EquityTech space, where she works on alleviating the housing crisis and fostering wealth generation for homeowners.