Durham’s Resilient Ventures invests in Raleigh startup The Diversity Movement

RALEIGH – Durham-based Resilient Ventures has made an investment in Raleigh startup The Diversity Movement.

The firm, founded by Dr. Keith Daniel and Thomas Droege, seeks to disrupt systemic economic injustice by investing in Black startup founders who are operating high-growth businesses and to serve as a catalyst for Black-led startups.

According to a statement jointly released by the two Triangle-based organizations, this funding partnership will result in further scaling of The Diversity Movement’s employee experience product platform.

“The Diversity Movement has created an employee-experience product suite that sets them apart from others working with clients along their DEI journeys,” said Dr. M. Keith Daniel, co-founder and managing director at Resilient Ventures, in the statement. “To me, The Diversity Movement is a slam dunk.”

The organization, founded and led by Donald Thompson, who is also a WRAL TechWire columnist, provides an application suite that personalizes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for employees of client organizations.

Thompson, the company’s CEO, said in a statement that the Raleigh-based firm has more than 100 clients. Thompson moved to a full-time CEO role in May 2021 as the company was experiencing growth and is the former CEO of Walk West, a full service marketing and branding agency.

After strong growth, Donald Thompson now full-time CEO at The Diversity Movement

Bringing innovative products to market

The firm’s product offerings include the company’s DEI Navigator product and its MicroVideo library, which was recently named one of Fast Company’s 2022 “World Changing Ideas.”

“The biggest thing that I say about diversity is innovation, not diversity for diversity’s sake or diversity for the market. It’s innovation,” said Thomas Droege, co-founder at Resilient Ventures. “The Diversity Movement utilizes innovative products and solutions to help organizations scale through educational materials with digital learning and MicroVideos.”

This investment will provide a foundation for growth of the company, while accelerating its go-to-market activities, the statement noted.

“We’ve seen time and time again that building workplace excellence depends on the leader’s ability to tie company strategy to culture in a way that enables teams to work better,” said Thompson. “The Resilient Ventures investment will help us expand our product suite, which will geometrically improve the DEI landscape nationwide.”