Fearless Fund invests in women of color led businesses seeking pre-seed, seed level or series A financing. Our mission is to bridge the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders building scalable, growth aggressive companies. Fearless Fund is built by women of color for women of color.

We know that companies with a female founder perform 63% better on average than all-male founding teams (FIRST ROUND CAPITAL, 2015). Despite a greater potential to produce higher returns, women are historically underfunded, particularly women of color.

In 2018, U.S. companies raised a total of $130B in VC funding, yet only 2.2% of that total went toward female-founded companies and less than 1% of total funding was allocated toward businesses founded by women of color (FORTUNE, 2018 & GIRLBOSS, 2019).

Fearless Fund was established to address the gap that exists in venture capital funding for WOC-led businesses and to finally push the needle on the abysmal statistics that drive the current narrative for WOC-led businesses today.

OUR TEAM

Fearless Fund Team

Arian Simone, General Partner Fund I & II

Arian Simone, Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner of Fearless Fund, is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, angel investor, author, and PR & marketing specialist. Arian received her MBA from Florida A&M and has over 17 years of  entrepreneurial experience: from pioneering and growing a successful PR and marketing firm to founding Fearless  Magazine and the Fearless Platform in 2010, with a mission of inspiring millennial entrepreneurial women. Her  background has allowed her to foster significant relationships in the entertainment industry with billion-dollar  corporate clients such as the Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures and more.

Ayana Parsons, General Partner Fund I

With nearly 20 years of experience as both a corporate  executive and organizational consultant, Ayana leverages her expertise in consumer markets, international business  strategy and operations, top team effectiveness, board effectiveness and inclusive talent management to help drive  organizational growth and transformation. Previously, Ayana served as the Global Head of Retail, Consumer Goods  and Lifestyle Industries at the World Economic Forum. Ayana graduated summa cum laude with a BS in  Management and her MBA in Marketing from Florida A&M University.

Rodney Sampson, fund advisor

Rodney Sampson is a serial entrepreneur who cofounded, built and sold Multicast Media Technologies, EFactor (EFCT) and Intellectual Currency, a world class integrated go-to-market, publishing, diversity and advisory firm with clients ranging from major Hollywood film studios, cable networks, tech companies, global corporations, publishers and African heads of state. In 2013, Sampson co-founded Opportunity Hub as a follow up to the highly successful Kingonomics’ book release. Today, as Executive Chairman & CEO of Opportunity Hub, Sampson is focused on scaling its suite of collaborative and interconnected technology products, programs, initiatives and fund globally. Sampson is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brooking Institution in Washington, DC and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. Sampson previously served as the 1st Head of Diversity at Mark Burnett Productions, executive producers of the hit ABC show, ABC’s Shark Tank.

Tracy Gray, fund advisor

Tracy Gray is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of The 22 Fund, a growth venture capital and advisory firm focused on increasing the export capacity of Southern California companies, positioning these companies to accelerate growth and scale via international sales. She is also an Executive in Residence at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and chairs LACI’s Diversity in Entrepreneurship Advisory Council. In addition, Ms. Gray is the founder of the non-profit We Are Enough (WAE). WAE’s only mission is to educate ALL women on how and why to invest in women-owned, for-profit businesses or with a “gender lens.” Ms. Gray was formerly Senior Advisor to the LA Mayor, an investment professional at a venture capital fund and a systems engineer on the Space Shuttle program. Ms. Gray holds a B.S. in Mathematical Science with an aeronautics emphasis from the UC Santa Barbara and dual MBAs from Columbia University and UC, Berkeley.

If you are an accredited investor Interested in investing with Fearless Fund, please reach out to hello@fearless.fund