Addressing Homelessness in California with Elizabeth Collet Funk

Elizabeth serves as the Senior General Partner at Dev Equity, a venture capital fund investing in B-Corps in low income housing, urban revitalization, and sustainable agriculture in Latin America (Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Peru). She works closely with her portfolio companies to take their businesses to the next level while also making positive social changes in their countries. Elizabeth started her career in rapidly growing, innovative technology companies. She served as a Product Manager for Microsoft Word when Windows was first launched and participated in forming the original Microsoft Office product. After graduating as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School, she joined Yahoo! as one of the earliest employees-- quickly rising through the ranks to lead the business side of several divisions including Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Auctions, Yahoo! Classifieds, Yahoo! Greetings and other properties. Most importantly, she was a founder of Yahoo! Shopping and became a leader in developing and shaping Yahoo’s e-commerce strategy. Since that time, Elizabeth has dedicated the past 15 years to impact investing and corporate social responsibility-- demonstrating that strong financial performance and positive social change are inherently connected. During the Covid-19 pandemic she created a new social enterprise, DignityMoves, with the purpose of creating innovative and scalable solutions for homelessness in California. Her first DignityMoves housing site has been funded by the State of California’s Project Homekey program and additional sites are in the works for Santa Barbara, San Francisco and elsewhere across California.