Sherrod's work in the venture capital ecosystem
Sherrod has spent his career watching capital move around underrepresented communities instead of into them, first at BCG, then on nonprofit boards, and now inside venture itself. He's building the infrastructure that closes that gap, one pipeline, one fund, one founder at a time.
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BLACK MEN IN VENTURE (BMV)
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Democratizing access to venture capital for Black Founders & Investors
Sherrod co-founded BMV to move Black representation in venture past a single invitation and into lasting infrastructure. Since the inaugural mixer in May 2026, BMV has grown into a full ecosystem, with a Scout Program, a Founder Capital Room, an Investor Room, and a newly formed Board of Directors.
He is currently building a tracked pipeline and national directory of Black founders and investors, extending BMV's ability to connect its members to curated deal flow, co-investment opportunities, and the GPs, LPs, and institutions shaping where capital moves.
In July 2026 he co-hosted "A Seat at the Cap Table: We Don't Wait for Invitations" with Black Women in VC during Tech Chicago Week, featuring panelists from Capitalize VC and Cleveland Avenue.
TGN Ventures
Creating community for faith aligned founders and investors
TGN Ventures, founded and led by Darrel Frater, exists to build the connective tissue between overlooked founders and the investors who should be backing them, running VC Day events and founder and investor office hours across a growing number of cities. As Head of Community, Sherrod leads three weekly office hour sessions for TGN's 2,000+ member founder and investor community, sourcing guests to drive mentorship and peer engagement, He also supports TGN's active Fund 1 raise by surfacing prospective LP relationships through his personal network of mission aligned individuals.
CHICAGO: BLEND
Examining why community is venture's next investable category
As a fellow, Sherrod sourced 20+ pre-seed and seed startups across AI, fintech, and ed-tech, advancing three companies to managing director review and conducting diligence on 10 companies for two accelerator cohorts at Gener8tor. He coached 25+ founders weekly on business model validation, go-to-market strategy, pricing, and capital raise preparation.
During the fellowship he also presented "Making the Right Friends," a thesis arguing that as loneliness becomes a structural economic force, community-driven models are emerging as some of the most durable, scalable, and defensible investments across consumer, enterprise, and city-level markets. To operationalize that thesis, he built the Community Matrix, an AI powered diligence tool that sorts ventures into five community categories and scores them across seven dimensions, depth, trust, scalable probability, culture moat, founder DNA, adaptability, and flywheel. He used it to assess 12 companies, directly informing investment decisions for two physical IRL ventures, and later turned it into a GPT tool so other investors could apply the same process to their own pipeline.
UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE ON COMMUNITY IN VENTURE
