It took about a decade’s worth of angel investing in this region before Mitch Brooks and Tristan Wilkerson decided it was time for the next step — a more formal investment fund aimed at founders otherwise overlooked by the venture capital world.
The partners have launched High Street Equity Partners, an early-stage venture capital and private equity firm headquartered in the District, to invest in more women and founders of color. And they’re raising a $15 million fund to kick it off.
Brooks and Wilkerson, both general partners of High Street, said they expect to close this first fund by next May. But they said they already had commitments for more than a quarter’s worth of the $15 million target before formally launching in April, which Wilkerson said “demonstrates that there’s a big appetite, we believe, at this moment in time with what’s happening in the world in investing in Black-led funds.”
