New Age Capital Research
Investment Thesis
New Age Capital is a thesis-driven seed stage venture capital firm founded in 2016 by Ivan Alo and LaDante McMillon. The firm invests exclusively in tech and tech-enabled startups founded and led by Black and Latino entrepreneurs. Their thesis is rooted in authentic partnership and recognition of a significant market opportunity that has been historically underinvested in the venture capital landscape. The firm operates on three core values: Authenticity, Empathy, and Transparency.
New Age Capital was founded in response to the founders' personal experiences as entrepreneurs struggling to connect with VCs, and witnessing their peers—who had legitimate, far-advanced startups—unable to raise capital. The founders recognized both a moral and economic opportunity to support historically underinvested founders while building tremendous returns for limited partners.
Stage Focus
New Age Capital is exclusively focused on seed-stage investments. Their ideal target has a product in market with early customer traction and some early revenue. They lead seed rounds up to $3 million, believing that capital efficiency is paramount at the earliest stages of company building. The firm rarely invests in companies earlier than the seed stage, as they require meaningful data points to validate product-market fit.
Check Size and Investment Range
New Age Capital's typical investment size ranges from $850,000 to $1.5 million, with target ownership stakes of 10-15% per investment. For seed rounds, they typically lead checks between $1.5-$2.5 million. This capital-efficient approach reflects their philosophy that founders must understand and optimize their unit economics from day one.
Investment Criteria and Founder Profile
The firm has developed a comprehensive investment framework based on six core characteristics they look for in portfolio companies:
Founder Profile: The CEO is representative of the communities New Age serves. This is core to their strategy and mission of supporting historically underinvested, bootstrapped entrepreneurs, particularly Black and Latino founders.
Cultivated Relationship: New Age emphasizes building relationships with founders over time, ideally 3+ months before any investment. They've fostered relationships with some portfolio companies for 6-24 months before investing. This extended timeline allows them to assess founders' execution capabilities, CEO communication skills, and how they can provide tangible value.
Technology-based Solution: Founders must be building software or leveraging existing software platforms to address customer problems. The firm is explicitly industry agnostic and looks for companies providing the best software or technology-enabled solutions to solve problems in any market.
Early Product-Market Fit: The firm avoids idea-stage and beta-stage companies. They invest once a founder has built something several early customers are willing to use and pay for, indicating tangible value creation and economic capture.
Capital Efficiency: Unit economics and financial discipline are non-negotiable. New Age believes founders must understand their company's finances deeply—this is fundamental to building and funding legitimate businesses.
Strong Market Potential: They seek opportunities where the total addressable market is $1 billion or larger and fragmented enough for a superior product to capture meaningful market share and generate $50-100M in annual revenue. Market tailwinds are also important.
Geographic and Sector Focus
New Age Capital only invests in companies located in the United States and requiring C-Corp status. They actively seek compelling companies in non-target major cities across the country, as well as under-the-radar companies thriving in coastal metros. They are industry-agnostic but explicitly do NOT invest in: fashion/fashion tech, media, crypto/web3, or medical device companies.
Their portfolio spans diverse sectors including healthcare (preventative and maternal health), fintech-adjacent solutions, edtech, e-commerce for underserved markets, construction tech, beauty/personal care, sports betting/gaming, and civictech.
Lead Tendency and Investment Process
New Age Capital prefers to lead seed rounds and works to make introductions to co-investors. Their investment process is straightforward but relationship-focused:
- Extensive relationship building and monitoring of founder execution
- Monthly updates from founders
- Bimonthly check-ins until the seed round is ready
- Final meeting to address outstanding concerns
- Term sheet offering with explicit documentation of contingencies
- Formal due diligence questionnaire completion
- Financing documents signing and capital transfer
The entire process typically takes one month but can extend longer based on the relationship depth and due diligence requirements. Notably, their commitment to invest is explicitly contingent on satisfactory due diligence completion.
Investment Terms and Post-Investment Involvement
New Age Capital invests through post-money SAFEs and requires side letters. Importantly, they do not take board seats but actively behave as a de facto board member, requiring monthly calls with portfolio founders until growth capital is raised. Their post-investment support includes:
- Helping founders set and achieve critical milestones
- Creating curated lists of next-stage investors (Series A and beyond)
- Providing pitch deck feedback and storytelling development
- Guidance on business operations and strategy
- Focus on preparing companies to achieve breakeven or profitability before seeking growth capital
- Fostering a growth mentality and mindset of inevitable success
Recent Activity and Fund Status
New Age Capital raised $25 million for its debut fund in 2022. The firm has been actively deploying capital with recent investments across diverse sectors. Portfolio companies include:
- Begin Health (parental health and wellness optimization)
- ConnectCareHero (digital health platform for older adults)
- Glass (government procurement marketplace)
- Heroshe (global commerce platform for African businesses)
- Kaster (construction project communication platform)
- Myavana (AI-powered personalized hair care)
- Navigate Maternity (data-driven maternity care platform)
- Orchestra Health (perioperative surgical care optimization)
- Oui the People (luxury skincare products)
- Prediction Strike (sports stock market)
- Seam Social Labs (community engagement technology)
- Wiz Kid Learning (online tech education for children)
Team
Ivan Alo, Co-Founder and Managing Partner: Boston College graduate with 500+ LinkedIn connections. Ivan is the public-facing co-founder known for authentic engagement with the startup community.
LaDante McMillon, Co-Founder and Managing Partner: Boston College graduate based in Dallas, Texas. LaDante brings deep operational and strategic expertise to the partnership. Both founders were 29 when featured in Forbes's "30 Under 30" list in 2019.
The firm employs approximately 8 team members total, with Jason Parnes and Rocco Maselli listed as additional team members on LinkedIn.
Decision Process and Timeline
New Age Capital operates as a partnership with a collaborative decision-making process. They require warm introductions and relationship development (3+ months minimum), and make clear that if founders are closing their round in 2 months or less, the firm is unlikely to participate. They actively cultivate long-term relationships with founders, sometimes investing after 6-24 months of relationship development.
Notable Characteristics
- Authenticity Over Optics: The firm directly challenges the historical homogeneity of venture capital teams and explicitly celebrates diverse founder backgrounds
- Founder Intimacy: Unlike many firms, New Age develops deep relationships with founders before committing capital
- Capital Efficiency Philosophy: They instill discipline and frugality as competitive advantages from the seed stage
- Operational Support: Beyond capital, they provide strategic guidance, investor introductions, and ongoing partnership
- Inclusive Market Insight: The team's shared experiences and cultural awareness provide unique insights into markets underserved by traditional VCs
- Transparency: The firm publishes detailed investment criteria and decision-making processes openly
Competitive Advantages
New Age Capital's key competitive advantages stem from founder alignment and market insight:
- Deep authenticity and trust with underrepresented founder communities
- Experienced operators who understand both startup building and scaling
- Commitment to founder success beyond capital provision
- Market expertise in demographic segments and use cases traditionally overlooked by VCs
- Willingness to invest in non-coastal companies with strong fundamentals
Market Position
New Age Capital operates in a growing segment of mission-aligned venture capital focused on diversity and inclusion in startup funding. Their focus on Black and Latino founders addresses a documented gap in venture capital allocation and represents a significant market opportunity. The firm's success is measured both in financial returns and in changing the narrative of entrepreneurial success in underrepresented communities.