Arlan Hamilton
Arlan Hamilton is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in new companies led by underrepresented founders. She is a remarkable entrepreneur who built Backstage Capital from scratch, while homeless. In 2018, Hamilton co-founded Backstage Studio, a new venture studio that has launched four accelerator programs for underrated entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, and London. She made history by being the first non-celebrity black woman to be on the cover of Fast Company.
- Hamilton and Backstage Studio were the subjects of Season 7 of the popular Gimlet Media podcast, StartUp.
- She now hosts Your First Million, a weekly podcast featuring in-depth conversations with how the world’s most successful people finessed their first million dollars, customers, or downloads.
- She was a live music production professional, having served as a tour coordinator to numerous international artists including Toni Braxton, and Jason Derulo.
- She authored Your Daily Lesbian Moment, a groundbreaking blog which she grew to a monthly readership of 50,000 fans worldwide.
- She founded and published Interlude, an internationally distributed indie magazine.
- She was named on Fortune magazine’s 40 under 40 list and Vanity Fair magazine’s The 2018 New Establishment List.
- She has written for AOL, SuicideGirls, and Curve Magazine.
- She has appeared as a guest on Real Vision.