In our 10th year, Halcyon shifted our programing to focus on the three specific markets where we believe the greatest impact can be made: Health, Climate, and EquityTech. We’re especially excited to debut our EquityTech vertical, which empowers entrepreneurs from across the globe who are leveraging technology to increase social and financial inclusion and close gaps in wealth, education, and accessibility. We believe that technology has the power to be a great equalizer, and Halcyon’s EquityTech vertical supports founders who are harnessing that power.

In September 2024, our inaugural EquityTech cohort moved into Halcyon to begin an eight-week residency in Washington, DC. These eight ventures were chosen from a highly competitive applicant pool of 615 ventures from 79 countries worldwide, with 88% of prospective founders who identified as a person of color and 40% who identified as a woman or non-binary. Throughout our multiple-round sourcing and selections process, we identified compelling trends across the sub-sectors of FinTech, EdTech, Assistive Tech, and Future of Work, pointing to an exciting future in the space.

For Halcyon’s EquityTech recruitment, we received nearly 100 applications this year from talented FinTech ventures across the globe. Two overarching trends were:

• The booming FinTech market in Africa, particularly in fostering innovations that target previously underserved populations. Africa is the world’s fastest-growing continent in terms of FinTech revenue, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32%—projecting a $65 billion worth by 2030.[iv] The market opportunity is huge, as roughly 90% of payments in Africa are still made using cash and more than half of all Africans are unbanked or underbanked.[v] Incredible tech-driven innovations are happening on the continent to boost financial equity, with ventures ranging from connecting women with limited financial independence to financial advisors to reimagining income transfers for impoverished family and friends who have been previously excluded from traditional financial systems.
• New forms of digital banking that target savings and financial resilience. The rise of mobile banking does aligns with consumer preferences towards convenience and the use of smart devices, but we were intrigued by this emphasis towards future-planning and savings culture. With Gen-Z starting to invest earlier than other generations, this is a trend to watch.[vi]

One selected venture from our current EquityTech cohort, myStash, encompasses both of these FinTech patterns; their mission is to enable formal and informal economy workers in Nigeria to build financial resilience by auto-saving a percentage of their earnings in USD. Another, Pelican, adheres to the second key trend by helping families set up and fund education savings accounts.

In our own EquityTech application process, we received the highest percentage of EdTech applications, with 169 total submissions in the sector. Of note was:

• Ventures utilizing the personalized learning experience, where educational content is tailored to the individual needs and learning pace of each student. These solutions often leverage AI and data to provide a customized learning path that enhances student engagement, and ultimately, student outcomes. Many of these experiences are supplemented by gamification and ‘bite-sized’ learning modules that are also enabled by AI and machine learning. An example from our current cohort is Tilli, a play-based, AI-powered social-emotional learning tool that builds and measures foundational cognitive skills for children alongside research-backed interventions that are personalized to each child’s needs.
• Educational platforms that address the digital divide by functioning effectively in low-bandwidth environments. These ventures provide quality education to those in regions with limited internet access and connectivity, closing essential equity gaps. Excuela, another member of our 2024 EquityTech Fellowship, is a mobile education system for frontline workers and vulnerable populations that is low-tech and low-bandwidth, allowing it to function on basic mobile devices without reliable Wi-Fi connection.

While sourcing and selecting Assistive Tech ventures, two trends were particularly engaging:

• Increased innovation in supporting neurodivergent populations, such as using AI to analyze and interpret complex emotional intelligence data. Neurodivergent populations make up 20% of our general population, yet this group has faced historical exclusion and remain underrepresented in society. Opportunities are readily available to close these equity gaps and profit from doing so; for instance, research found that 75% of organizations whose leadership teams prioritize diversity and inclusivity—particularly cognitive diversity—show increased productivity, innovation, and positive financial outcomes.[xiv] Integrating Assistive Tech across sectors is the clear path forward, and requires innovators and entrepreneur support organizations ready to make this a reality.
• Overlaps with the EdTech sector: ventures that support education efforts for people with disabilities. 1 in 10 children worldwide have disabilities, and compared to children without disabilities, they are 49% more likely to have never attended school and 42% less likely to have foundational reading and numeracy skills, among other educational inequities.[xv] Grailmaker Innovations, a selected venture from our 2024 EquityTech cohort, is an example of this intersection; they empower parents and special educators with effective tools to support children with Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) through their AI-powered therapy platform, facilitating both cognitive and visual development.

Two Future of Work trends stood out during our sourcing and selections process:

• An intersection with the health sector: ventures that focus on creating healthier, more harmonious, and ultimately more productive work environments by harnessing the power of data and technology. These Future of Work companies employ technologies that track and monitor user behavior, habits, and even biological health metrics in order to optimize performance and workflow, sometimes syncing to productivity software or calendars, and other times levying suggestions for managing interpersonal behavior or burnout.
• Technologies using gamification and immersive approaches to recruitment and professional development, particularly in bridging DEI efforts. Despite recent challenges, DEI continues to be a priority for most companies, with 93% having leadership support for DEI efforts.[xix] Ventures are approaching this from multiple angles, from bringing more women to tech industries to upskilling frontline workers in underserved regions (see Excuela above). Using technologies like AI and VR, these Future of Work ventures capture user attention with personalized, entertainment-based content to close equity gaps in the workforce in a dynamic way.

As Halcyon continues deepening our work in EquityTech, we’re eager to continue our holistic support of the social entrepreneurs doing game-changing work in this sector. Many of these founders have experienced the very problems they are solving, and this proximity has given them the unique experience and the resilience to create brilliant solutions. We know that these ventures will make a deep impact not just in their communities, but globally, and at Halcyon, our mission is to help our founders grow and scale through our tailored programming.

Thank you to Capital One, Deloitte, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Arnold & Porter for their support of our 2024 EquityTech Fellowship.

For more on our EquityTech vertical, check out the EquityTech panel from The Halcyon Innovation Summit, where Kerone Vatel (Capital One), Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel (Esusu), and Precious Price (Gather ADU) discussed closing the wealth gap and how to use capital, technology, and corporate know-how to accelerate the pace of economic equality. Precious is an inspiring example of a Halcyon alumni in the EquityTech space, where she works on alleviating the housing crisis and fostering wealth generation for homeowners.