ResilienceVC, a new seed-stage fintech venture capital firm based out of Washington, D.C., is announcing its $56 million debut fund, the firm shared exclusively with TechCrunch.
Founded by Tahira Dosani and Vikas Raj in 2023, ResilienceVC’s mission is a straightforward one: to back fintech companies dedicated to helping Americans find financial stability. It’s writing checks into companies that can help people address challenges such as becoming homeowners, getting affordable insurance and accessing government benefits.
“We invest entirely in visionary startup entrepreneurs that are leveraging new technologies and new business models ultimately to drive financial resilience for all Americans,” Raj said. “For many Americans, the financial system is just not doing what it’s supposed to do.”
The pair have a history of investing in companies that help boost financial inclusion. They previously worked together for several years as former co-managing directors at Accion Venture Lab before leaving to start ResilienceVC. Examples of their achievements include Dosani helping launch Afghanistan’s first mobile payments platform while on the ground in the country and Raj founding a microlending company in Bangalore, India, which sparked his interest in microfinance and led him to invest in fintech.
In their more than eight years investing at Accion, a global seed-stage fintech investor in the U.S. and in developing markets, the duo invested in over 50 companies, including a number of unicorns. Dosani and Raj have been raising capital for ResilienceVC’s first fund for about 18 months, with the final close taking place in late 2024.
ResilienceVC plans to make 25 investments out of the fund, which the pair described as “oversubscribed” with an initial target of $50 million. Portfolio companies include Alice, Chaiz, EarlyBird, Foyer, Mirza, OS Benefits, PartnerSlate, and Suma, among others. Initial investment per company is around $1 million. To date, 75% — or six out of eight — of its portfolio companies are underrepresented founders.
“We expect to follow on in roughly 50% of our companies, looking to double our stake in their next round,” Dosani said. “That will depend on portfolio performance but we’ll be doubling down on our winners.”
The firm’s limited partners are a combination of institutions, banks, family offices, high-net-worth individuals and foundations and include MetLife, Skoll Foundation, and Ally Financial, among others.
Notably, ResilienceVC is intentionally headquartered out of D.C. Raj told TechCrunch, so that it can leverage its location and relationships with regulators and policymakers.
“We think it’s an important place to be if you’re investing in fintech in particular. This is a time of great change, nearly daily change, in the regulatory environment and the policy environment,” he added. “I think it’s very clear that everyone in financial services needs to have deep connections to decisionmakers, regulators, policy makers, agency heads. And that’s especially true of startups. So we position ourselves here in D.C. as a conduit to those entities.”
Dosani also believes that being located outside Silicon Valley gives the firm a vantage point to see “the growing number of founders who are operating in other cities around the country.”
Overall, with ResilienceVC, the pair are hoping to buck a trend that we’ve seen in fintech investing: businesses focused on high-net-worth customers or large enterprises.
Too often, low to moderate income or American small businesses are just considered “too small, too risky, and too hard to get in front of to serve,” leaving “a really big gap for…investors that are focused on the startups that are using new technologies, such as AI and embedded fintech, “to build big profitable businesses while building for everybody,” Raj told TechCrunch.
“We want to sit in that gap — and invest exclusively in the best fintech startups that are explicitly serving the mass market,” he said.
