MISSION
As Investors
DiverseCity Ventures accelerates positive social, economic, and environmental impact through entrepreneurship. As an impact-oriented venture capital firm, we invest in pre-seed technology-driven companies with large addressable markets, product-market fit, a dynamic founding team, and high probability of outsized returns.
As Advisors
Our dynamic network of investors, advisors, and founders foster collaboration within the innovation economy while training, incubating, accelerating and supporting early-stage entrepreneurs. We advise pre-seed and seed-staged companies and strive to close the funding gaps that disproportionately disadvantage under-represented founders.
VISIONARY
We're capitalizing on diverse perspectives.
Diversity is more than optics or checking a box. It's not about finding people who look different, but think the same. It's about shunning group-think and embracing diverse perspectives.
Diversity is not something you can assign or outsource. Diversity without inclusion and belonging leads to a revolving door of frustration.
Capitalizing on diverse perspectives requires being able to accepting the discomfort of cognitive dissonance that comes with challenged or disproven assumptions.
Diversity is the antithesis of exclusion. Regardless of gender, ethnicity, persuasion, proclivity, or point of view, diversity includes you.
On Diversity
Mariah Lichtenstern
Founding Partner
At the intersection of technology, entertainment, and venture capital, Mariah "Roman" Lichtenstern accelerates positive social, economic, and environmental impact through entrepreneurship. An alumna of UC Berkeley, USC, and UCLA, she is the Founding Partner of DiverseCity Ventures. She serves as an advisor for the California Clean Energy Fund’s CalSEED initiative, Berkeley Skydeck, Village Capital Finance Forward, FourthWave female founder accelerator, HaydenAI AI Ethics advisory, and Yale University School of Medicine’s Digital Innovation and Diversity Initiative.
She is a coach for the NSF Convergence Accelerator and serves on the boards of FourthWave, StartupSac, and the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce. She is a member of UCLA Ventures and an Aspen Tech Policy Hub Fellow (Win '20), where she developed the Tech Funding Equity Project to advocate solutions to the tech industry funding gap. She has been recognized by Venture Forward as a "Women in VC: Rising Starts to Watch," in Crunchbase as one of "39 Women Investors Inspiring a New Generation of Investors," and in Pitchbook as "27 Black Founders and Investors to Watch." She has also been featured in Business Insider, Fortune Magazine, Law360, and other major publications, conferences, and organizations.
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