Foundation Phase · New York, NY
Substratum
Capital
Access. Impact. Returns.
We invest in growth-stage companies founded by underrepresented founders solving problems traditional capital systematically misses.
01 · The Problem
A talent problem and an opportunity problem
They look like two separate failures in alternative asset management. They are one failure, seen from two sides.
01
Talent overlooked
Firms managing the majority of institutional capital hire from a narrow set of schools, backgrounds, and networks. They optimize for pedigree over potential and continuity over character. The result is homogeneous teams making homogeneous bets.
02
Opportunities missed
Some of the most compelling growth-stage companies of the next decade are being built by founders traditional capital cannot see clearly, in markets it has never had to understand.
03
Capital misallocated
Those companies stay undercapitalized, not because the opportunity is smaller, but because the people holding the capital are not looking. That mispricing is where our alpha lives.
02 · The Thesis
What we actually do
Not a sector bet. A bet on who gets underwritten, and on the insight that comes from having lived the problem.
We invest in growth-stage companies founded by underrepresented founders solving problems traditional capital systematically misses.
Every venture and growth-equity firm says it invests in technology. That is not a thesis, it is a category. Ours narrows on the variable that actually predicts mispricing: who is building, and whether the people holding capital are equipped to evaluate them.
A founder who lived in a food desert sees the grocery problem differently than someone who has only modeled it. A founder who was underbanked understands the product gap in a way a spreadsheet does not surface. That proximity is not a diversity talking point, it is an information advantage, and it is systematically underpriced because the firms doing the underwriting rarely share it.
Substratum sources through networks incumbents do not sit inside, diligences with a lens that recognizes non-traditional signals of founder quality, and brings institutional finance rigor that most emerging managers cannot match.
Diverse teams find better opportunities
Homogeneous investment teams make homogeneous bets. Different perspectives generate alpha.
Impact and returns are not in conflict
Companies solving real problems build durable advantages, loyal customers, and long-term pricing power.
The middle market is underserved
Growth equity, meaning proven models that need capital to scale, is less competitive and less picked over than large-cap or early-stage.
Non-traditional founders are undervalued
The best founders are often the ones who grew up closest to the problem they are solving.
Proximity is a competitive advantage
Substratum’s founding story and team composition give it an information edge that cannot be manufactured.
DEI is an investment principle
We are reluctant to back homogeneous boards or leadership teams. Diverse companies make better decisions.
03 · Where We Invest
Three sectors, one thesis
Fund I concentrates where sector fluency, lived experience, and non-traditional networks compound into a real edge rather than a broad mandate.
Sector 01
Technology, Media & Telecom
Sub-sectors
Enterprise and vertical SaaS, fintech infrastructure, digital infrastructure, media, telecom.
TMT companies serving customer segments and use cases that traditional TMT investors have never had reason to build for.
Sector 02
Consumer & Retail
Sub-sectors
CPG, direct-to-consumer, e-commerce, marketplaces, retail technology, culturally specific categories.
Founders whose lived experience gives them insight into segments larger brands cannot serve authentically.
Sector 03
Healthcare
Sub-sectors
Digital health, care coordination, healthtech infrastructure, specialty care, health equity models.
Founders solving access, cost, or outcome problems for populations traditional healthcare investors have priced wrong.
Later funds
Financial inclusion, community development, climate and food systems, and education and workforce are held for Fund II and Fund III, when the firm has the sector specialists to underwrite them properly. Concentration first, expansion deliberately.
We invest in
- Growth-stage companies with proven product-market fit that need capital to scale
- Founders from non-traditional backgrounds building for markets larger capital has not prioritized
- Companies where the business model and the impact are the same thing, not separate initiatives
- Companies with diverse boards, leadership teams, and employees
- Select earlier-stage ventures led by mission-driven founders, as a secondary sleeve
We avoid
- Companies whose sole purpose is founder enrichment with no broader value creation
- Technology displacing workers at scale without offering alternative pathways
- Firms with homogeneous boards or leadership teams and no commitment to diversity
- Businesses that extract value from underserved communities rather than create it
- Teams whose stated values and actual operating behavior do not match
Impact Discipline
A majority-impact portfolio, held with conviction
The vast majority of Substratum’s portfolio will be companies where impact and returns are the same mechanism, not parallel tracks. A minority of portfolio construction slots may go to investments that do not carry an explicit impact mandate, where the return profile serves the fund and its investors.
We state that plainly rather than claiming a purity we would not hold to. Concessionary returns are not the trade being made here. The argument is that these companies win because they serve people the market has been mispricing, and that the returns follow from the insight rather than in spite of it.
We hold conviction on impact, and we stay honest that portfolio construction requires flexibility. We do not hide behind the conviction, and we do not water it down.
04 · Architecture
A phased build, honestly staged
No first-time manager raises an institutional fund without a track record. Phase 0 is where that record gets built, and we say so out loud.
Phase 0
The Proof
Current period
Angel and SPV
Personal and syndicated capital deployed against the thesis. A small number of investments, documented, with the reasoning written down and the results reported honestly.
Fund I
Substratum Capital
The Foundation
Growth equity primary
Concentrated in TMT, consumer and retail, and healthcare. Proven business models that need capital to scale. We come in quietly and let the returns make the argument.
Fund II
Luminary Ventures
The Recognition
Growth equity, venture, public equities
Track record in hand, the strategy widens earlier-stage and the sector footprint expands as specialists come onto the team.
Fund III
Relentless Capital
The Arrival
Full multi-strategy platform
All six sectors under coverage, competing for the best deals in the market against firms that never saw this coming.
05 · Team Philosophy
How we hire
We hire the people other firms filter out. That is the edge, not a workaround.
Intellectual curiosity
Genuinely interested in how businesses work, how markets move, how the world is changing.
Analytical rigor
Able to think clearly about complex problems and communicate that thinking simply.
Character
Honest, accountable, and treats everyone in the room with equal respect regardless of title.
Tenacity
Does not give up when the answer is no. The best investments take the most persistence to find.
Proximity & diversity
Real connection to the communities we invest in. We recruit across race, gender, and background.
We never filter on
- × Ivy League degree
- × Linear career path
- × Brand-name employer
- × Traditional pedigree
We do not tolerate
- × Boys-club culture
- × Nepotism of any kind
- × Exclusionary hiring practices
- × Homogeneous leadership teams
There is no such thing as a “DEI hire” at Substratum Capital. Every hire is a merit hire: our merit filter simply does not include pedigree, ZIP code, or the straightness of a career path.
We give strong preference to portfolio companies with diverse boards and leadership teams, and we are reluctant to back firms where leadership is entirely homogeneous.
Firm diversity metrics will be published alongside financial performance in our annual LP reporting, held to the same standard we apply to our portfolio.
06 · The Founder
Built by someone who lived the problem
Dondre Harris
Founder
Dondre Harris began his career in TMT investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, working on transactions including a $2.3B software spin-off IPO and a $3.1B telecom sell-side spin-off. He went on to gain private wealth management experience at Morgan Stanley, and currently works in active M&A execution and financial analysis while building Substratum Capital.
That path through an industry not built for people like him is not incidental to the firm’s thesis. It is the thesis. The same filters that overlook founders overlook the investors who would have recognized them, which is precisely why the mispricing persists.
Substratum pairs that recognition with the underwriting discipline of a deal background: valuation rigor, diligence structure, and pattern recognition built across live technology transactions. Conviction about who deserves capital, held to an institutional standard of proof.
“The industry’s filters overlook a lot of talent. Substratum Capital exists to prove what that talent can do when someone actually looks.”
07 · Bedrock
The layer everything else grows from.
Substratum means the underlying layer that everything else builds on. That is the mission: laying the foundation that communities, founders, and investors need to build something that lasts.
The firm is in its foundation-building phase now, with no fund open and no capital being raised. If you see yourself in any of the categories below, we would like to hear from you.
Founders
Building in TMT, consumer and retail, or healthcare, and you recognize your company in the thesis.
Capital partners
Prospective LPs and aligned capital partners who want to follow the build from here.
Future team
People who want to help build this, particularly the ones other firms filtered out.
Mentors & advisors
Operators and investors willing to pressure-test the thesis and tell us where it is wrong.
Substratum Capital is in its foundation-building phase. Nothing on this site constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security, or investment, legal, or tax advice. Any future investment opportunity would be made available only to qualified investors through formal fund documents.