Enable Ventures is working to close the wealth gap through disability investment.

By Real Leaders

Enable Ventures is an impact venture fund focused on closing the disability wealth gap while achieving competitive, market-rate returns. Founder and managing partner Regina Kline was among the early players to invest in companies in the global disability technology industry.

She secured backing from Jim Sorenson and Sorenson Impact to launch Enable Ventures in 2022 and has since sourced, led, and supported seed through Series A investments across the spectrum of disability in a portfolio that includes digital software as a service, neurotechnology solutions, and wide-ranging applications of artificial intelligence. Real Leaders spoke with Kline to learn more.

Real Leaders: From lawyer to business owner, tell us about your path to starting Enable Ventures.

Kline: My previous career as a civil rights lawyer was vindicating the civil rights of Americans with disabilities. The largest untapped talent pool hiding in plain sight is people with disabilities who can generate great value in the labor force. There’s a nearly $2-trillion hole in global GDP where disability talent should be.

As a lawyer, I was looking at problem identification. Now I’m looking at building the rival image to those problems and finding like- minded people with conviction who want to fill that wealth gap by getting people access to skills training, higher education, workforce training, and workforce tech. Enable Ventures is the first impact venture capital firm dedicated to closing the disability wealth gap.

The disability community will usher in a new era in technology by leading with conviction around the idea that technology has a great equalizing effect. There is a magnificent market opportunity in people with disabilities in the tools they need as consumers. People with disabilities alongside their friends and families control over $13 trillion in disposable income.

RL: How do you decide what companies you invest in?

Kline: Our investment strategy involves focusing on technology that will drive changes at work in upskilling and reskilling. We’re also focused on what it takes to compete in today’s global marketplace in terms of workplace technology — how people find, obtain, and sustain employment.

Many of the founders in our industry are focused on digital technologies that will bridge the gap and help employers source, obtain, and retain the most talented people who have disabilities to enrich the talent pool and the bottom line. We know from many studies, but particularly from Accenture’s 2018 disability inclusion report, that businesses that retain disabled, diverse talent over time have 30% higher net-profit margins. So we’re looking at the kind of tech that will allow inclusion of disability at scale and employee recruitment and retention.

We’re also really focused on the next generation of assistive technology in the world. What can the tremendous advances in technology at the bleeding edge of AI, machine learning, sensor technology, and light detection and ranging technology in augmented and virtual realities do to remove barriers for people who are deaf or blind, who have barriers to cognition, communication, and speech? How can we allow technology to uplift human potential instead of replacing human potential? How can technology assist people to be on equitable ground with their peers at work, in school, and in education? We’re really focused on those strategies that have the potential to do that but also have significant effects to the rest of society and the rest of the consumer market.

RL: You were recognized with a 2024 Real Leaders Impact Award for Best Collaboration with CIONIC, a neurotechnology company that makes bionic clothing to improve mobility. What has made your partnership successful?

Kline: CIONIC has a very experienced founder, Jeremiah Robison, who is enlightened in the way of leveraging engineering, wearable technology, and sensing technology. I met Jeremiah in a community forum around cerebral palsy and observed the product and the way others reacted to it. I got to understand how the company intended to listen, learn, and grow with the community and saw that there is very much a need for the technology that CIONIC is creating.

As a parent of a daughter with a disability, Jeremiah is approaching this with particular sensitivity to the consumer experience, and he is putting human-centered design at the heart of the product. He is at the cutting edge of bionic clothing and allowing people to resume full integration into their lives and community in an inconspicuous way.

We’re really proud to be an investor in CIONIC. We work together as partners to ensure that as the company grows, it’s scaling with fidelity not only to best business practices and revenue growth, but it’s scaling its impact at the same time.