ICA.Fund

ICA accelerates great businesses through mentoring and investments to close the racial and gender wealth gaps, toward our vision of an economy that works for all. We support small businesses by connecting underestimated entrepreneurs to our unrivaled network of advisors and investors, who provide mentoring and capital for the long-haul. ICA is unique because we work with entrepreneurs along their full growth journey - from just getting traction to focusing strategically on growing a valuable and sustainable business.

Over the next three years, ICA will:
• Help 300 entrepreneurs accelerate their businesses through capital and mentoring
• Provide intensive coaching to 120 early-stage businesses through ICA's business accelerator programs to provide entrepreneurs with hands-on, cohort-based business advising and the tools and resources to develop and implement a growth and capital-raising strategy.
• Deploy 3,000+ hours of expert advice through our network of pro-bono advisors
• Invest $10 million in seed and growth equity in ICA Portfolio companies with a dedicated interest in filling the “friends and family” equity financing gap faced by many entrepreneurs of color and women founders.

By 2026, ICA will demonstrate how our integrated ecosystem of coaching, capital, and connections can help close the gender and racial wealth gaps for entrepreneurs and their employees. Through a uniquely responsive and inclusive approach that centers the needs and dreams of entrepreneurs, we will guide our diverse entrepreneurs on their journey to grow the value of their business - creating a strategic growth roadmap, building capacity, executing on growth plans, overcoming obstacles to growth, and creating wealth for themselves and their employees. At the same time, ICA will leverage our on-the-ground experience and partnerships to support and influence efforts to redefine small business risk through a flexible underwriting approach, further expand access to capital and professional networks, and increase inclusivity in the financial system more broadly.

ICA knows that a quality job - one that pays a living wage, provides benefits, supports employee advancement, and provides opportunities to build wealth - is critical to financial stability and economic mobility. We will focus on serving entrepreneurs of color and women, building out from our roots in Oakland to serve more entrepreneurs across the Bay Area. Along the way, ICA will help our entrepreneurs offer their employees robust benefits, career ladder pathways, and wealth-building opportunities through profit sharing and employee ownership programs.

ICA’s interconnected accelerator programs and investment products combine tailored, expert advising and access to right-sized financing to help entrepreneurs who are positioned for growth, but need advising and capital to do it. Companies in the Accelerator at ICA and the Lab at ICA receive one-on-one advising and mentoring from experts in a variety of business growth areas – ranging from marketing, to investment advice, to operations and hiring strategy. ICA advisors play a pivotal role in our work and, over 25+ years, have provided more than $25 million in pro bono advising services.

ICA’s investments tends to be catalytic capital with a multiplier effect, allowing the companies to raise additional third-party capital through the ICA funding ecosystem. In total, companies in ICA’s programs have raised more than $358M, and 93% met their capital needs in 2020.

In 2022, we launched the ICA Impact Note, an investment vehicle that includes built-in incentives for companies to achieve social impact milestones and create good quality jobs. This product is a convertible note that helps entrepreneurs prioritize social impacts as they grow their businesses; as they reach more of their impact targets, they are able to retain more equity at conversion.

By providing expert guidance and encouragement to prioritize the development of high quality jobs, we ensure that when ICA companies grow, their employees prosper. ICA is a trusted partner and resource for these underestimated entrepreneurs on their journey to build successful, sustainable businesses.

ICA is a learning organization that has evolved over time, expanding and deepening our activities to better address the needs of local underestimated entrepreneurs, while keeping our core mission at the forefront. Established in 1996, originally as Oakland Advisors, the organization was launched to provide direct business advising to local growth-stage entrepreneurs. We became Inner City Advisors to reflect a focus on urban entrepreneurs. Recognizing that advising was only part of the solution, we launched Fund Good Jobs in 2013 to invest in entrepreneurs who lacked access to traditional financing.

In early 2020, we streamlined our two-part organization, ICA Fund Good Jobs, to a single entity - ICA - that reflects our cohesive and interconnected approach to coaching and capital, and creates an integrated ecosystem of small business support. We continue to review, update, and improve our advisory and investment programming to ensure that it is responsive to the key needs of our entrepreneur clients.

Over the past twenty-six years, ICA has built an ecosystem that integrates access to coaching and capital for growth-oriented entrepreneurs. Our objective has evolved from focusing on job creation to focusing on creating good jobs and, now, to supporting wealth creation more broadly by providing a full continuum of support with good job growth as a central pillar. Ultimately, we seek to help high-potential small businesses create good jobs and wealth-building opportunities for the entrepreneur, their employees, and their communities.

We are committed to creating responsive, relevant, and actionable business accelerator programs and investment opportunities that help entrepreneurs of color grow the value of their businesses to create wealth for themselves and their employees in our most inequitable Bay Area communities. Building this intentionally equitable way of doing business includes removing the pressure of short-term results. Creating and sustaining value in small businesses is a journey. In an economy that has been overly fixated on extracting returns for investors, ICA focuses on entrepreneurs and their employees. We select and underwrite companies based on their proven market traction, economics, growth potential, the resilience of their leaders, and commitment to their workers.

ICA has a well established track record of impact in economic development. Since our establishment in 1996, ICA has grown from a business advising organization to one that provides a full ecosystem of advising, capital, and support to invest in high-potential small businesses that create good jobs and wealth-building opportunities for entrepreneurs, their employees, and their communities.

To date, ICA has supported more than 800 diverse, local entrepreneurs to help them get the capital and expert advice they need to grow their businesses, create good jobs, and drive economic activity in their communities. ICA's community of companies has secured more than $350 million in investments, created 6,000 jobs, and paid more than $530M in wages to employees in the Bay Area. Among the companies we work with, 87% are owned by women or people of color, and 75% are led by low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs. ICA is committed to creating responsive, relevant, and actionable business accelerator programs and investment opportunities that help entrepreneurs of color grow the value of their businesses to create wealth for themselves and their employees in our most inequitable Bay Area communities.