#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Renée Rosillo, Co-Founder & CEO, Prism
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Elevating Queer Founders and Fostering Inclusivity
Prism is a trailblazer for LGBTQIA+ innovators under the leadership of Renée Rosillo, a trans woman, community leader, and founder. Renée's journey from UN engagements to entrepreneurial pursuits has converged into Prism, a pioneering platform that is weaving connective tissue between queer founders, funders and operators the voices of LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs. With a resolute commitment to authenticity and inclusivity, Prism creates safe spaces that empower queer founders to thrive. We spoke to Renée about her experiences building startups and navigating the ecosystem as a queer founder, how she believes policymakers can open up investment for all founders, and her goals for Prism for the future.
Can you tell us about your background and what led you to create Prism?
I started my career working at the UN, then became a delegate representing Mexico's youth at international forums. Eventually, I became interested in entrepreneurship and ventured into the startup world. While I faced many failures, one endeavor stood out when I built a company that developed an Open Banking API helping third parties connect in a private and secure way to Latin American (LatAm) financial institutions; that company was eventually acquired. Later, I moved from Mexico City to San Francisco and joined the On Deck fellowship. Doing the fellowship gave me the space to think about the next leg of my entrepreneurial journey. While living in San Francisco I was invited to a BBQ that led to co-founding FounderFamilia, a grassroots community supporting Latine venture-backed founders in the U.S. Now, FounderFamilia is the largest organization of its kind in the world.
The thesis of FounderFamilia is simple, expanding the surface area of success for founders by helping the best come together and providing them with access to rooms where they belong. And as a proof to this, through FounderFamilia I was invited to the White House, and met with the VP last fall. As a Latina trans woman, I didn’t consider it possible that I could be fully myself and still thrive. FounderFamilia opened multiple paths of support, for me and for every founder out there that identifies as Latine. This also brings to light a new way of building startups via a community centric approach –a process that allows you to get really close to the people you want to help and create change with the community in mind. With this experience I realized that one community that was still in a vacuum, lacking the ability to connect with each other was the LGBTQIA+ founder community.
Being a venture-backed founder with multiple intersectionalities, I felt isolated, not knowing many queer or trans woman founders in the San Francisco tech scene. But after meeting my co-founder Serena Poon, we saw there were more folks craving a safe space to connect. That's why we started Prism, aiming to bring together founders who are queering up the innovation economy in their unique way.
How is Prism working to break down barriers for queer entrepreneurs?
Prism's approach is rooted in creating safe spaces, both online and offline. We’ve been experimenting for the past few months with ways to better engage with the community and we are creating a next-gen queer founder network. One of our core goals is that every queer woman-identifying founder and non-binary founder can feel accepted and respected.
So far we have been pretty successful in gathering people and bringing more visibility to queerness in entrepreneurship. There are some recent statistics showing that 50 percent of queer folks don’t want to come out in the workplace and 50 percent of non-queer folks don’t think that anyone in their workplace is queer, so there is this phenomenon from both sides that culminates in invisibility. There also isn’t enough data about how startups are engaging or investors are engaging with queer people. With Prism we want to change all of that. We're fostering a community where queer founders can flourish authentically. Through carefully curated kinship based spaces, we provide fundraising support to founders, like providing pitch deck assistance, and educational content aimed to help founders go faster, we called it the founder playbook.
Our goal is to amplify visibility and create an ecosystem that empowers underrepresented voices. In just a few months, we've already amassed nearly $500 million in combined valuations among our network of founders. And with the help of leading corporate partners such as SVB and Vouch, and the support of impact funds like Kapor Capital, and affinity organizations such as Diversity VC and StartOut, we are rapidly growing and interconnecting founders with investors and operators that can make a difference in their journeys.
How has your identity influenced your journey as a startup founder?
My identity has been both a driving force and a barrier in my journey. We live in a time where we are actively working to create more equity and where everyone feels empowered to be themselves, but I noticed that that wasn’t the reality. From the time that I realized that I had gender dysphoria until the time I came out, my life kind of stopped. I eventually faced a pivotal moment when I realized that being true to myself was more important than securing an investment. I was working on getting funding for my next company and one of the lead investors invited me to their office. They ended up going on a transphobic rant, I realized in that moment that if I stayed with them and let them into the round, my life was going to be impossible. I decided not to let them join, but it crushed my company. I couldn't explain what was happening to anyone because I wasn’t out at the moment. My family and I were lucky enough to have a safety net because of my exits from previous startups. I had the time and space I needed to discover the next idea that would honor my true self. But the reality is that not everyone is that lucky, and a lot of founders that have complex intersectional identities don't have as much luck to just wait it out, and figure out the best path forward. This realization ignited a fire in me to create safe spaces and opportunities for individuals facing similar challenges. If I can help more people that look like me, and that hold the same identities, then I can make a difference.
How can policymakers support the LGBTQIA+ startup community?
Policymakers play a crucial role in shaping an equitable entrepreneurial landscape, and legislation is key in ensuring a level playing field for underrepresented innovators. For example, lowering the barriers for diverse individuals to become investors is important. By redefining the definition of an accredited investor, for instance, we can democratize investment opportunities. Not everyone has hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around, but $1,000 is a more realistic amount for individuals to invest. Those small-dollar investments from a larger group can create a significant impact. Additionally, fostering a supportive environment for innovative technologies, such as crypto and AI, will open doors for underrepresented voices. Regulating new technology is hard, and if regulations overstep and are too expensive to comply with then it limits market access for new players and further hinders innovation. Lastly, protecting transgender individuals, particularly trans youth, by ensuring access to affirming healthcare and fostering inclusive workplaces, including in the startup ecosystem, is imperative.
What are your aspirations for Prism in the future?
Our vision for Prism is ambitious. We aim to become the leading queer founder network and empower queer professionals to work and thrive authentically, while also challenging the norms of the innovation economy. We want to make this space more accessible for queer folks and give them a shot at creating greatness. By celebrating diversity, creating safe spaces, and amplifying unheard voices, we strive to redefine success and inspire a new era of economic empowerment for the LGBTQIA+ community.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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