Furthermore, Liew said he and his partners have not yet decided whether a CEO’s reluctance to sign the side letter would mean that they would back away from a new deal entirely. Lightspeed acknowledges that the document has no enforcement mechanism and effectively relies on company CEOs to honor their commitment. Nothing about the letter is binding or punative. There are still more than 300 portfolio companies that not have yet signed it, though Lightspeed is approaching each CEO and asking them to do so. Some portfolio companies also said weeks elapsed in between signing the term sheet and the actual letter. Lightspeed is asking each of its new portfolio companies to sign the side letter - but it is not mandatory. Lightspeed is the main financial backer of HQ, and it is notable that Kroll, also the co-founder of Vine, is in the first batch of signatories of the letter. Lightspeed says 17 of its existing company CEOs have already signed the side letter - including CEOs from well-known companies like The Honest Company, Affirm and HQ Trivia, the white-hot quiz show app that had some difficulty raising money after investors unearthed questionable behavior toward women by one of its co-founders, Colin Kroll. Lightspeed is also asking that the company set goals and hire more women and other underrepresented employees than the industry average. The one-page letter on Lightspeed letterhead asks its company CEOs to sign their name, acknowledging and affirming that the firm expects that “at least one candidate from an underrepresented background be considered for every open leadership and independent Board member position in the company,” according to the letter shared with Recode. “The question we’ve asked ourselves is how can we do something more than write blog posts about it and wring our hands,” Jeremy Liew, a managing partner at Lightspeed, said in an interview. The thinking here is that merely interviewing a female candidate makes companies more likely to hire them - though this particular policy does indeed lack some of the teeth that is seen in the NFL, which has fined teams that disobey it. It is a tactic that brings to mind the famous “Rooney Rule” that started in the NFL but has since spread to other industries, which required that teams interview at least one person of color for head coaching and other senior jobs. The venture firm behind hits like Snap is requesting that its companies voluntarily sign the document at around the same time that Lightspeed wires money to their bank account, part of an attempt by Lightspeed to hold their own CEOs accountable.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is asking its portfolio company CEOs to sign a letter affirming their commitment to consider women and other underrepresented groups for senior jobs and new spots on their board of directors. Now, here’s a new attempt to fix the problem: The side letter. There have been internal investigations, Medium mea culpas and Decency Pledges - all part of how Silicon Valley venture capital firms have reckoned with a year of invigorated conversation about sexual harassment and diversity.

Lightspeed ventures portfolio