Arlan Hamilton is an investor and the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital. In May 2020, Hamilton released her first book from Penguin Random House entitled It's About Damn Time, which is based on her personal journey into entrepreneurship and venture capital.
Career
In 2015, inspired by Mike Rothenberg of Rothenberg Ventures, Hamilton founded Backstage Capital, a fund that invests in "underestimated founders". Underestimated founders for the fund are defined as women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community. To date, Backstage Capital has raised more than $7 million and has invested in more than 130 startups. Prior to her venture capital role, Hamilton founded and published the indie magazine Interlude and prior to that, served as tour manager to Atlantic Recordsrecording artist Janine. In May 2018, Hamilton announced her firm would also launch a $36 million fund specifically for black female founders. Hamilton was the subject of a six-episode series on the Gimlet Media podcast Startup. Hamilton is mostly complementary about the podcast series, but did take issue with how she was portrayed, especially in sequences that cast her in an irresponsible light. Hamilton's Backstage Capital's podcast The Bootstrapped VC features episodes that are reactions to the Gimlet series. In March 2019, after difficulty raising the planned $36m fund, Hamilton stepped down as CEO of Backstage Studio and laid off a significant percentage of Backstage employees. In June 2019 Hamilton received recognition from Business Insider as one of the 23 most powerful LGBTQ+ people in tech.
Writing
Before becoming a venture capitalist, Hamilton gained notoriety as a blogger on "Your Daily Lesbian Moment," a blog site and point of connection for women seeking both platonic and romantic relationships with other women. In May 2020, Hamilton published the book entitled, "It's About Damn Time," written with Rachel L. Nelson. The book is part memoir and part how-to for people who are generally underestimated in society. In the book, Hamilton details her early career as a music tour producer and, on pivoting to venture capital, the tactics she used to start the VC fund Backstage Capital.
