Media Innovation, Gen-Z Rising, and Market Turbulence: What We Saw in Our Spring Submissions

We recently announced our spring investments in 4 incredible projects: Represent Justice, Iconik, Stylebot, and the Gravel Institute! We also made a follow-on investment in support of Raheem’s critical work. You can read more about each of these companies and organizations, including how you can support them, here.

We selected these groups from among the hundreds of pitches we received for our spring season, and we’re so excited about the trends we’re seeing across the submissions. Here are 4 takeaways about the latest in progressive innovation.

1. Shifting to a continuous investment cycle has made our pipeline more diverse, but we still have room to improve.

2. Innovation in the progressive media space is booming.

3. Gen-Z is emerging as a political force.

4. Market turbulence is affecting everything.

1. Shifting to a continuous investment cycle has made our pipeline more diverse, but we still have room to improve.

Since moving to a continuous investment cycle last August, we’ve received over 800 submissions to our intake form, and about 250 were invited to complete our full application. 

Our pipeline has gotten significantly more diverse, and we think that’s partly due to our much more streamlined and applicant-friendly process. Over the past year, two-thirds of submissions came from teams led by people of color, and 40% of those were Black-led teams. 59% of submissions came from teams led by women, trans, and/or nonbinary people.

We’re proud of that improvement, but we still have areas we’d like to do better in. We’d like to receive more pitches from Indigenous-led teams, and/or from women-led for-profits. We’re working to solicit more submissions in these areas and build relationships with the communities and funders who don’t yet see themselves adequately reflected in NMV’s network.

2. Innovation in the progressive media space is booming.

Media and narrative continues to be our biggest category. 44% of all our submissions are in this vertical, with the rest split between our other two main verticals: (1) advocacy and organizing and (2) elections and civic engagement. 

We’re still seeing a lot of social media-infused pitches, but founders are building on existing social media platforms rather than trying to create their own. This is a shift from what we’d been seeing in past cycles where a lot of brand new social media platforms and networks were being pitched. After overhype and fallout of platforms like Clubhouse and Brigade before it, it’s gotten even harder to raise capital for new social media platforms and networks.

Meanwhile, POC-owned and led media and production is on the rise. We’re hearing this is partly because it’s becoming easier to get returns at scale now that there are more streaming services looking for content and providing distribution. In just the past year, the streaming media landscape has been shifting pretty dramatically — so we’re seeing a lot of creative business models that aren’t relying on single income streams or any one platform. A lot of groups we’ve funded over the past year fit this mold: KweliTV, Represent Justice, the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, and others currently in our pipeline.

3. Gen-Z is emerging as a political force.

Folks 25 and younger are super involved in progressive politics and building large communities on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Discord. In many ways these young people are at the forefront of not only a narrative shift in the progressive movement, but also a left-ward political shift. 

We’re seeing Gen-Z led groups leading media and narrative campaigns and influencer campaigns. In addition, some Gen-Z groups are focused on major systemic issues like youth voting rights. We haven’t seen a major systemic shift on this issue since the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971, but the pitches we’re seeing have us wondering what comes next.

4. Market turbulence is affecting everything.

Valuations in the VC space had been highly inflated, and now that bubble is bursting a little bit. As a result of that and other factors, VCs, foundations, angel investors, and other funders are all taking a cautious approach in this moment, and founders are responding to the shift.

We tend to see a lot of diversified revenue models, and we saw even more than usual this season. These included a significant number of consulting models, and even some SaaS pitches pivoting to consulting between submission and interview. 

Companies need to raise funds even in the short term, even as the market contracts. This is especially true for BIPOC-led projects, which, due to systemic inequity and funder bias, tend to have a hard time accessing capital even during less turbulent times. We’re really leaning into portfolio support this year, and we’re also taking all of these forces into account when considering new investments.

****
If you found these insights useful, please share them with your network, along with the announcement of NMV’s spring 2022 cohort! And for more from NMV, check out NMV President Carlissia Graham’s Medium post about how the left can move forward after Roe – but only if we invest in trusted messengers and cultural media.