TI Platform Management is a global SEC-registered venture investment platform co-founded by Alex Bangash and Trang Nguyen in 2015. The firm invests in what it considers disruptive venture structures, such as studios and platforms with a high-growth potential, while striving to bridge the diversity gap in VC. Together with the support of their mission-driven LPs, who include investors at prominent foundations, endowments, insurance firms, pensions, and sovereign wealth funds, TI Platform highlights global talent while promoting female founders and minority-owned funds and companies in the venture capital ecosystem.

In the last decade, the percentage of deals with women on founding teams increased from 7.9% to 15.7%, according to PitchBook's July 2019 update. In 2019, more female-founded and co-founded unicorns—tech companies valued at $1B—were born than ever before, totaling 14.8% of all companies to reach unicorn status that year, Forbes reports.

Prior to co-founding TI Platform Management, Alex Bangash was an early investor and involved in the formation of First Round Capital, Founders Fund, and Y Combinator, among other successful Silicon Valley firms. Alex and Trang have co-invested in established funds, such as Emergence and Khosla Ventures, as well as investing directly in some YC companies. Since 2015, TI Platform has seeded and anchored disruptive seed platforms and studios, including Entrepreneur First, Initialized, and SaaStr. The firm has also co-invested in Series B and C companies alongside Accel, Sequoia, and others.* Garry Tan, founder of Initialized Capital and a prominent YC partner, has referred to TI Platform Management as “a Y Combinator for venture funds.” 

Since 2015, TI Platform Management has also been involved in the formation of numerous venture funds, and has deployed more than $350M to emerging managers and entrepreneurs. We are proud to say that 65% of our managers have one or more female or minority GP or co-founder. 

TI Platform Management has always maintained a strong focus on diversity. As they allocate capital on behalf of their LPs, TI Platform investors are thoughtful about discovering unique entrepreneurs and models for generating outsized returns while promoting a culture of diversity in the VC ecosystem. As co-founder Trang Nguyen explains, “We strive to include diversity in everything we do—in all our interactions, when we recruit new co-workers, in evaluating the missions of our partners and LPs, and in selecting our GPs—with the ultimate goal of identifying the next big outlier and emerging unicorns.”

 

TI Platform Management believes that recruiting a diverse team of global talent is beneficial to the company’s culture and aligns with its investment philosophy. “Our team members also come from diverse backgrounds, representing more than nine countries,” Trang explains. She emphasizes the fact that diversity and inclusion efforts must saturate all levels of the organization. TI Platform’s team consists of executives with an immigration background, a racially and geographically diverse team of investment analysts, and employees whose cultural heritage bridges five continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. 
 

Examples of TI Platform Management’s Diversity Work Include:

• TI Platform Management partnered with Trusted Insight to host an annual conference to promote diversity and innovation within the LP community. The 2019 conference featured a panel on Lifting Barriers for Diversity and Inclusion, hosted by Carlos Rangel of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion, in conversation with Brian O’Neill, the chief investment officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Mallun Yen, founder of Operator Collective; Dawn Song, founder and CEO of Oasis Labs; and Areije Al Shakar, senior vice president at Bahrain Development Bank.
• TI Platform continuously invests in a diverse group of managers. Please email investments@tiplatform.vc if you would like to nominate a manager or learn about our founder program application process. 
• The TI Platform Management team represents a variety of nationalities and cultural backgrounds, and fosters a culture of diversity from the top down, and from the bottom up.
• Trusted Insight, a partner organization founded by Alex Bangash in 2010, promotes diversity through ranked investor lists such as the Top 30 Foundations Investing In Diversity. The list identifies and showcases senior-level investors who are spearheading projects related to diversity and inclusion within their investment offices and through the investments they fund.

*This communication is not intended to constitute any offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities. Offers of securities or investment advisory services may be made only pursuant to appropriate offering or other disclosure documents, and only after prospective investors have had the opportunity to discuss all matters concerning the prospective investment or engagement with their adviser and the issuers of the securities. In addition, neither TI Platform Management, LLC nor any of its affiliated entities may offer interests in any of its unregistered funds or accept subscriptions from any potential investors with whom it has no prior or existing relationship until the expiration of a 30-day “cooling off” period with each potential investor, respectively. For more information, please contact us. It should be noted that past performance is not indicative of future results.