Crew

Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Started from scratch in 2015, Backstage has now raised more than $15 million and invested in more than 170 startup companies led by underestimated founders. In 2018 Arlan co-founded Backstage Studio which launched four accelerator programs for underestimated founders in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and London.

Christie Pitts is an early-stage investor at Backstage Capital and co-founder of Backstage Studio, where she leads Backstage’s global Accelerator program.  In addition to her role leading Accelerator, Christie is a General Partner at Backstage Capital. She joined Backstage in August 2017, and went on to assist in sourcing and investing in more than 80 startups led by underrepresented (women, people of color, and LGBTQ) founders, helping to bring the firm’s total investment portfolio to more than 170 companies.

Brittany brings experience sourcing early-stage ventures for investment, conducting diligence, and managing an investment pipeline. Prior to working at Backstage, she has led many organizations in sourcing and evaluating early stage deal flow. Brittany was a principal for #ANGELS, where she sourced companies and contributed to the #TheGapTable initiative. She was a Manager at Village Capital where she analyzed opportunities and created investment recommendations in the fintech, education, health, food/agriculture, and energy sectors. She also gained experience supporting entrepreneurs as an Associate at Techstars and as a Mentor at Startup Jamaica. Prior to her work supporting founders, she had her own ecommerce startup, Runway Technologies, and built a solid foundation in finance working at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for 5 years. Brittany received her BS in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her MBA at Harvard Business School.

Chacho Valadez is a Principal at Backstage Capital and Chief of Staff to Founder and Managing Partner, Arlan Hamilton. Chacho went from helping retail customers in a Detroit Sprint store, to a Twitter connection and side projects with Arlan, to a full-time role at the firm working towards the mission of growing representation in tech. He has experience with running day-to-day operations at SMBs, business development, and sales. The son of a US immigrant, Chacho has a strong desire to highlight diversity, especially amongst the Latinx entrepreneur community. Chacho has been featured in Quartz, Inc, and Business Insider.

Jaimie is the Executive Assistant to Backstage Founder and Managing Partner, Arlan Hamilton. She met Arlan back in 2005 at the Hotel Café, a notable Hollywood music venue, through musician Terra Naomi while Arlan was her tour manager. Jaimie worked in the Business Affairs department at the Recording Academy, the organization responsible for the Grammy Awards, for 7 years, followed by a short stint as a freelancer based in Oregon, before returning to LA and the Academy. Her passions include collecting vinyl records with her husband, an engineer, and traveling to experience live music. 🎧