The first stage of the NAIC Minority Growth Equity Funds Initiative is to identify you. If your business is a healthy, growth-oriented company with more than $5 million of revenues that is looking for at least $1 million of growth equity to support your expansion, the NAIC would like you to register your business in our portal. Your business does not have to be certified as ethnically diverse and women-owned business enterprise (DWBE) to be eligible for funding from this program, but you must register your interest in our portal.
Our portal is sponsored by SupplierGATEWAY platform. If you are already registered in the SupplierGATEWAY database, you still must register your interest through our portal and add the additional requested information to your profile. Such additional information will only be viewable by the NAIC and will not be shared with any other users of the SupplierGATEWAY platform.
Frequently Asked Questions
The purpose of this initiative is to address the barriers to capital access for successful ethnically diverse and women entrepreneurs by aggregating billions of dollars in growth equity specifically focused on investing in those businesses to enhance their ability to scale and achieve their growth potential.
No, NAIC is a nonprofit trade association that advocates for its members who include more than 60 diverse-owned private equity firms that manage more than $150 billion capital. In addition, the NAIC does not manage funds nor does it invest in, provide capital to or lend capital to any firms or entrepreneurs. NAIC is not a broker dealer and will not raise any capital and will not receive any compensation for any capital that is raised by any other parties. Through this initiative, the NAIC will simply facilitate the aggregation and deployment of capital by others to ethnically diverse and women entrepreneurs through selected growth equity investment fund managers.
Growth capital (also called expansion capital and growth equity) is a type of private equity investment, usually a minority investment, in relatively mature companies that are looking for capital to expand or restructure operations, enter new markets or finance a significant acquisition without a change of control of the business. (Source Wikipedia)
Growth equity investors often bring high-value industry relationships, knowledge and expertise to support the expansion of your business and depending on the amount of required capital, such investors may or may not attempt to negotiate a controlling interest in your business.
If you are interested in being considered for this initiative, you will be asked to submit the following through our portal sponsored by NAIC SupplierGATEWAY:
- Employer Identification Number
- Company Name
- Company Description
- NAICS Code
- Chief Executive Officer’s Contact Information (name, telephone number and e-mail address)
- Headquarters Address (street, city, state and zip code)
- Number of Employees
- 2018 Revenues (minimum $5 million)
If your company is already registered in the SupplierGATEWAY database, you will receive a notification indicating as such by virtue of a verification process that matches your EIN against those already in the database. Nevertheless, if you are already registered in the SupplierGATEWAY database, you still must register your interest in this initiative by adding the additional requested information to your profile:
- 2018 EBIDTA (earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization, minimum $1 million)
- Amount of Requested Capital
- Use of Funds
The additional information will only be viewable by the NAIC and will not be shared with any other users of the SupplierGATEWAY platform.
The following criteria must be met by your company to be considered for this initiative:
- must be at least 51% ethnically diverse-owned and/or woman-owned
- must be operated by ethnically-diverse individuals and/or women
- must be headquartered in the United States
- must be in business for at least 2 years
- must have a minimum of $5 million in annual revenues and $1 million in EBITDA (earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization)
Growth equity investors can have very divergent investment criteria. Once this initiative has matured and the capital has been raised, there will be a variety of growth equity investors to be considered as investors in your company.
No, the growth capital investment is not a grant and investors are expecting a reasonable return on investment including a return of the original capital investment.
No, your company does not have to be certified as a DWBE. However, proof of a minimum of 51% plus ethnically diverse or women ownership will be required. This will be verified as part of the due diligence process.
This is a multi-phase effort and the capital is expected to begin being deployed during the 4th quarter of 2020.
No, there will not be an RFP process for investment consideration. Each growth equity investment manager will consider companies for potential investment as a part of their standard underwriting process.