ICA Fund

ICA Fund is thrilled to announce our newest investment in Nirvana Soul Coffee Purveyors, a vibrant cafe with locations San Jose and Cupertino and growing ☕ Nirvana Soul Coffee began with a vision to create an inclusive space that celebrates diverse community. Sisters Jeronica Macey and Be'Anka Ashaolu brought their dream to life in 2020, opening the cafe with core values of inspiration, accountability, and customer-centricity. For them, Nirvana Soul is more than just a business, it's a platform to uplift and unite people through the power of coffee and tea. “Growing Nirvana Soul means we can do more in our community. We live in a reality that Black women do not get adequate funding and don’t have pathways to grow their businesses. We’re here to disprove that.” – Be’Anka Ashaolu, co-founder With the support of ICA Fund, Nirvana Soul Coffee is poised to grow their unique value proposition of coffee in community. They plan to expand further across the South Bay, eventually into other parts of the Bay Area, and to prioritize communities that don’t have specialty cafes. The investment was made using the ICA Impact Note, our innovative investment structure that partners with entrepreneurs to prioritize social impact – like good jobs, workforce diversity, and employee wealth creation – as they grow their business. Learn more about our partnership with Nirvana Soul Coffee on our blog: https://lnkd.in/gJxHwjDG Visit Nirvana Soul Coffee in Downtown San Jose, where they have open mics every Thursday and Friday night, or on Main Street Cupertino. Don’t miss their public roastery tours every first Wednesday. #investment #announcement #impactinvesting #capital #coffee #entrepreneurship

ICA’s Business Development Manager, Isis M. Dillard, recently shared her insights in an op-ed for Fast Company: Why Big Tech is Still Failing to Make Significant Progress on DEI. In her piece, Isis reflects on her time working at Microsoft, Big Tech's quiet deprioritization of DEI since 2020, and why she ultimately left the industry. We’re fortunate to have her with us at ICA Fund, where as an accelerator and investment fund focused on underrepresented founders, our business goals are intertwined with the principles of diversity. Isis’s op-ed underscores the missed opportunities when diversity is not integrated into a business’s core strategy. She points out that companies with ethnically and culturally diverse leadership teams outperformed those with lower diversity by 36% in profitability, according to a 2020 McKinsey & Company study. This statistic alone highlights the critical need for diversity not just as a moral imperative, but as a driver of better business outcomes. Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/g-AvM46Q

ICA Fund Portfolio Company, Cupcakin' Bake Shop , was featured in Forbes 🧁 As a recipient of the Wells Fargo Open for Business Fund grant, ICA was featured alongside Lila Owens for our 2022 equity investment in her business, Cupcakin’ Bakeshop, to support Lila in opening up new stores and creating more jobs. Flexible funding and strategic support come as a package deal with ICA’s strong and lasting small business ecosystem. We are honored to have been able to support Lila on her entrepreneurial journey and to continue to build strategic partnerships with founders like her to continue growing businesses in the Bay Area and beyond. Read the full Forbes feature: https://lnkd.in/ddD7Qp6U and check out our interview with Lila Owens on our blog: https://lnkd.in/gWNVVHiz #feature #wellsfargo #flexiblefunding #bakeshop #bayarea #investment #equity #entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #icafund

This month, ICA Fund hosted a workshop in collaboration with OCCUR and Target Accelerators, to equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and tools to get retail-ready for retail corporations like Target. We appreciate our hosts, Port Labs, our partners at OCCUR, and our guest speaker Tahaji Felder from the Target Accelerator team, for collaborating with us to put together an informative and valuable event for businesses looking to expand into retail! #event #retail #target #accelerator #entrepreneurship #businessowner

So proud to be sponsoring the inaugural year for the Oakland Ballers and playing hard with our hard working team at ICA Fund.

After an insightful, invigorating 12 weeks, we are happy to announce that Ethnic Ties has graduated from The Lab ICA Fund 🎉🎉🎉. The staff, advisors and fellow entrepreneurs made this program so welcoming, even during the challenging discussions and reality of our growing business operations. I cannot say enough positive things about their high- touch engament and warps around support services. Thank you to Angelica Lozada Aliyah Rasheed Cynthia Billops Maya Vargas Hannah Shr Isabelle O. Vasana Ly Hector Ramos James Dong for the continued support and I’m looking forward to starting connected as part of the ICA alumni community. #accelerator #funding #entrepreneur #investment #community

How much money do you need to enter mass retail? Around $1M! Most of that will be in inventory, but brands also need to budget for slotting fees and marketing. Just because you're in a big retailer doesn't mean the journey is over; the retailer is counting on the BRAND to drive their own marketing and traffic! Key learnings & insights from Tahaji Felder with Target, thanks for a great talk with ICA Fund and OCCUR!!

📣 Investment Announcement: Otherwise Brewing 🍺 ICA is thrilled to announce our newest investment in Otherwise Brewing, an award-winning gluten-free beer brewing company in San Francisco that offers delicious craft beer in a wide range of styles. From their Guava Fresca kettle sour to their Sonic Bloom Juicy IPA, Otherwise Brewing unites beer enthusiasts, celiac-friendly folks, and everyone in between. Founded by composer and home brewer Aaron Gervais and cicerone Stellar Cassidy, Otherwise brewing was born out of a clear market opportunity in the craft beer industry and a vision of everyone getting to drink great beer, together: “There are hundreds of craft breweries in California and only a few of them are gluten-free. We saw an opportunity for growth in the craft beer industry: for people to have a gluten-free option in their fridge, too. Why wouldn’t you want to have something so that everyone can enjoy the experience together?” - Aaron Gervais Read more about Otherwise Brewing on our website or in our bio: https://lnkd.in/dUr_Fj_v #investment #announcement #icafund #seedcapital #venturecapital #impactinvesting #entrepreneurship

📣 Investment Announcement: Oyna Natural foods🍴🌱 ICA Fund is excited to announce our newest investment in Oyna Natural Foods, a family-owned small batch organic food company that makes traditional Persian foods with high nutritional value, their signature product a veggie-packed middle eastern frittata called Kuku. “We wanted to bring a new food to our consumers that is natural, made with clean, quality ingredients, and is actually something enjoyable with great flavor. People don’t expect that in packaged food — that all of our ingredients are ones you would find in your kitchen.” - Co-founder Mehdi Parnia Read more about Oyna Natural Foods: https://lnkd.in/gscsPPFx #investment #announcement #icafund #seedcapital #venturecapital #impactinvesting #entrepreneurship

Big congrats to ICA Fund Business Development Manger, Isis M. Dillard, who has her first op-ed up in Fast Company today! At ICA Fund, DEI isn't a trend, prioritizing diversity — in our team and in our investment portfolio — is core to our business model. Diversity drives better business outcomes, period. In this op-ed Isis shares where Big Tech is still getting it wrong on building enduring, accountable models for diversity and inclusion — and about finding a true professional home for creating impact at ICA Fund. Lucky us! "Big Tech has a long way to go before safely saying it does not need these commitments, and I encourage others in Silicon Valley to continue DEI programs. For now, I'm glad to be doing work where I can see the benefits happening locally in the Bay Area because of our model of investing and prioritizing DEI—and where bringing my whole self to work isn’t an afterthought. I hope that our model will soon be the norm, not the exception." #dei #impactinvesting #microsoft