Why a new standard is necessary
Comprising over 700 private equity firms and thousands of diverse portfolio companies, the diverse private equity community now controls more than $500 billion of investment capital and has created and/or funded thousands of diverse ‘tier one’ and ‘tier two’ suppliers and has the capacity to create and/or fund many, many more.
In the past, organic growth drove building diverse suppliers. Today, however, mergers and acquisitions driven by the diverse private equity community will be the bedrock of building scalable diverse suppliers in the future. And without including diverse portfolio companies, the supplier diversity ecosystem will not reach its potential.
The iCert certification was developed to address this issue.
iCert certification for diverse private equity firms and their portfolio companies
iCert expands the certification of US-based diverse portfolio companies that are controlled, managed and owned by the diverse private equity community – defined as members of one of four ethnic or racial groups, as defined by the Small Business Administration, including African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans (collectively, Ethnic Minorities), as well as women, veterans, the disabled, and members of the LGBT community.
By targeting diverse portfolio companies, the supplier diversity community can be expanded dramatically addressing inequities in the broader diverse business community.
Serving two core constituencies
Corporations
Fortune 100, and Corporate America at large, can use the iCert platform to identify new and existing diverse suppliers.
Private Equity Firms
Diverse private equity firms can access certification services for their diverse portfolio companies as well as a customized marketplace to access revenue opportunities.
To affirm alignment with prospective corporate clients regarding D&I goals and objectives, iCert Certificates are qualified based on our proprietary D&I scorecard that annually measures a certified firm in three key areas:
- Strategy development and implementation
- Board, C-suite, management and workforce inclusion
- Supply chain outreach to and access by diverse vendors
Start the iCert Certification Process
We’re specialists in the private equity industry
With private equity firms, the webs of ownership can often be incredibly complex. That has traditionally been a challenge to untangle true corporate control.
Diversity Capital, the company behind iCert, provides the requisite experience as we are led by private equity subject matter experts. We’ve advised various large, diverse private equity firms with supplier diversity strategy development and implementation as well as assisting with the certification of their diverse portfolio companies.
iCert core services include:
Certification
iCert confirms by rigorous due diligence that diverse individuals control, manage and have meaningful ownership in a private firm to qualify it as a Certified Diverse Private Equity firm. Then we confirm that it controls, manages and holds a meaningful ownership interest in its portfolio companies through various investment funds or other special purposes investment vehicles to qualify the diverse portfolio companies as Certified Diverse Businesses.
Consulting
iCert also provides consulting services assisting diverse portfolio companies or Certified Diverse Businesses to optimize their go-to-market strategies and tactics as a diverse company as well as helping them develop and implement D&I strategies and tactics.
iCert provides diverse private equity firms and their portfolio companies access to streamlined diversity certification allowing them to access supplier diversity programs.