Baltimore-based investor McKeever Conwell II recently left Maryland tech development agency TEDCO to start his own venture capital fund.

With RareBreed Ventures, which launched this month, Conwell is taking knowledge he gained running the first state-backed, pre-seed fund for women and minority-led startups, and applying it to run a new VC firm.

For minority startups, there’s a huge gap in the ability to raise money in the “friends and family” stage of funding, which is often helps companies at the earliest stages as they build and test a new technology, and develop a business plan. That’s where RareBreed Ventures comes in: It’s designed to be the first investor, or among an initial group of funders, backing these companies.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE