Zeal Capital Partners

🚀 We’re excited to share Zeal Capital Partners’ 2024 Inclusive Investing Report. This report showcases the incredible impact of our mission-driven approach, spotlighting our founders and groundbreaking portfolio companies redefining work, wealth, and wellness. 🔑 What Drives Us We invest in high-growth early-stage businesses fueling solutions that disrupt systems across financial services, workforce, and healthcare. Our portfolio champions founders from all backgrounds, building towards a more equitable economy. 📊 2024 Impact by the Numbers ✨38 investments spanning Fintech (42%), Future of Work (37%), Health Equity (14%) and other (8%) ✨100% led by underrepresented founders (45% with a female founder or co-founder) ✨20 companies led by Black founders, 11 Asian, 7 Hispanic or Latinx ✨66% headquartered outside MA, CA, NY ✨500+ employees across our portfolio Equally exciting is the launch of our Venture Scout program under the Black Formation Investment vehicle in partnership with Barclays, empowering the next generation of investors. 🌍 Explore how inclusive investing is shaping a more equitable economy. Together, we’re building solutions that matter and opportunities that endure.  👉 Read more: https://shorturl.at/klDDX #venturecapital #wealth #skills #healthequity

"We didn’t come from storied franchises" In an industry dominated by storied franchises, Nasir C. Qadree created his own lane with Zeal Capital Partners, coming out of the gates swinging with one of the largest first-time funds for any solo GP ($62.1M on a $25M target). Today, Zeal oversees nearly $200M, backing mission-driven unicorns like Esusu at the seed stage, with a focus on investing in diverse management teams reimagining the building blocks of wealth. So, how did Nasir make it happen without the traditional credentials? Here's the formula that propelled Zeal to success: 💡 Built a Differentiated Franchise: From day one, Zeal has prioritized inclusive investing and systemic change. 💡 Engaged World-Class LPs: Google, Truist, PayPal, and Hampton anchored Zeal’s investor base in its first fund, amplifying the firm’s competitive edge in sourcing transformative founders. 💡 Leveraged Mentors: From the beginning, Nasir invested heavily in building a network of trusted mentors for guidance, confidence, and even early working capital to help bring his vision to life. From grit to greatness, Nasir’s path shows what’s possible when you bet on yourself and those often overlooked. Who's creating their own lane that inspires you? 🎥 Full video exclusively for Gravy members. Intentional, collaborative generational wealth-building through ownership.

We are thrilled to share that our very own Emily Zhen, Principal investor at Zeal has been recognized in this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list under the #VentureCapital category! 🎉 Emily's dedication, everyday insight, and passion for championing our founders and mission have made a significant impact at the firm and the broader venture and entrepreneurial ecosystem. This recognition is a testament to her hard work and we couldn't be prouder to have her on our team. Join us in congratulating Emily on this incredible achievement and milestone! The future is bright, and we're excited to see all that she will continue to accomplish #ForbesUnder30 #VentureCapital #Leadership #InvestmentFirm Click here https://lnkd.in/eaKU2crd

Zeal Summit Reception Recap✨ We were thrilled to welcome our founders, investment partners, friends and family, to our new home office in Washington, D.C., for a reception to kick-off our 4th Annual Zeal Summit! The evening was buzzing with meaningful conversations and new connections. There’s nothing quite like opening our doors to a dedicated community—one that collaborates and inspires with a shared commitment to driving transformative and sustainable change. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this special evening. We’re deeply grateful to have celebrated another milestone year with you. Here’s to Wealth, Work and Wellness! 🥂💡 #ZealSummit2024 #WorkWealthWellness #ZealCapitalPartners Nasir C. Qadree Stefanie A. Thomas Richard Odior Emily Zhen Bianca Phillip Susannah Burrage Tom Muscarella

Our CEO, Fernando Rodriguez-Villa, was recently featured on Felix Mitchell’s Talent Bytes. In this snippet, he talks about how our talent matching AI is revolutionizing recruiting with its explainability and transparency. Our purpose-built AI offers recruiters: 🔍 Accurate Recommendations: Receive match scores, attribute scores, and shortlists of selected candidates so that recruiters can find the best-fit candidates faster.  📝 Explainability: Match Narratives that explain a shortlisted candidate’s fit for the role. Because AI shouldn’t be a black box! ⏩ Efficiency: Recruiters are able to send the match narrative to hiring managers and decision-makers, making explaining and pitching the candidate(s) easier. Are you ready for the future of recruiting? We couldn’t be more excited ✨ #FutureOfRecruiting #ExplainableAI #MatchNarratives

Grateful for a powerful visit to Buffalo with our strategic partners at M&T Bank. At Zeal Capital Partners we’re thrilled to be aligned with investment partners who share our mission of inclusive investment and backing mission driven businesses. Together, we’re paving the way to introduce transformative fintech and embedded financial products within the bank, making financial inclusion a reality for even more communities. Here’s to building the future of finance together! #Fintech #FinancialInclusion #ZealCapitalPartners #MTBank Claire Verville Lokilani Elaine H.

The most unique component of our investment platform is partnering with incredible functional experts and operators. We were proud to welcome our Zeal Venture Scouts at our inaugural Zeal Scout Leadership in Washington, DC. We had a dynamic discussion on: • State of Pre-Seed Investing • Board Governance Best Practices • Creating Tangible Value for Portfolio Companies and more! At Zeal, we are committed to advancing equity and building track records for aspiring GPs. #GoWithZeal Barclays #BBFI

We are looking forward to our Fourth Annual Zeal Summit: Reimagining Work, Wealth, and Wellness! On November 13-14, 2024, we will convene in Washington, DC, bringing together industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers. This year’s Summit tackles market trends that continue to shape financial services, health, and work. Our goal remains consistent, to embark in meaningful discussion that is directly tied to building a stronger, and more equitable entrepreneurial and venture ecosystem. A special thanks to our partners Amazon JPMorganChase, and Cooley LLP for powering this year’s convening. Richard Odior Emily Zhen Bianca Phillip Susannah Burrage Stefanie A. Thomas Nasir C. Qadree #ZealSummit #FinancialServices #Health #Work

🎉 We are thrilled to announce that our Founder & Managing Partner, Nasir C. Qadree, has been honored with the Dealmaker of the Year Award at this year's Smart Business Dealmakers Conference! Congratulations to Nasir and the outstanding local ecosystem investment leaders being recognized, including Tarrus Richardson, Melissa Bradley, Dahna Goldstein, Lisa Friedlander, Tien Wong, and McKeever (Mac) Conwell,II. This recognition highlights the incredible work being done across the DMV region, and we’re proud to be part of a community driving innovation & policy, impact, and growth.

At Zeal, we have pioneered Inclusive Investing, a strategy that enables systems change while keeping financial returns front and center. We partner with diverse management teams who are narrowing wealth, skills, and healthcare gaps. For today’s Founder Feature, we're excited to hear from Fernando Rodriguez-Villa and Brian DeAngelis of AdeptID! "In our own ways, we each grew up watching our parents do 'meaningful work' that combined hard skills, a good wage, a sense of values, and enjoyment. Sadly, there are realities that make this pursuit too hard for too many. Most working people have skills, experiences, and profiles that existing employers struggle to understand. Increasingly, employers are burdened with costs as they struggle to find talent for roles they need. The more the economy changes, the more this gap (and this expensive pain point) widens. Employers fail to find the great talent that is out there - which is an amazing and important opportunity for the AI we've spent our careers working on. Our firsthand observations of this problem drove us to start AdeptID, a Boston-based B-corp that uses AI to better understand human talent and connect overlooked workers to in-demand jobs. We’ve grown revenue 3X year over year and are working with partners such as UKG, Bullhorn, Avionte, Year Up, and OneTen. These players use AdeptID's technology to rapidly identify promising candidates in a pipeline, while simultaneously growing that pipeline by identifying those who might otherwise be overlooked for a job. We are only getting started. AdeptID is powerful enough to truly understand human talent and connect it to the ever changing demands of the 21st century economy. Soon, simplistic matching solutions that fail to identify nuanced skills and labor intensive staffing firms that cost far too much will be solutions of the past. At AdeptID, we aspire to support every job transition in the world."