The Cheque Writers: Funding Women-Led Businesses [US Edition]

FemWealth Issue #25

Aug 29, 2021

Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!

In 2020, 14% of US VC funds went to teams with at least one woman founder, and just 2.3% of VC funding went to women-led startups (roughly $3.7 billion going towards women compared to the $160 billion that male founders receive :o !). The numbers look even more dismal for Latinx women-led startups (.32%) and black women-led startups (.27%), according to 2018-2019 data from Project Diane (via All Raise).

Furthermore, only 13% of decision-makers at US VC firms are women, a number that is increasing year by year but is still far from equal representation.

With women making or influencing 70-80% of the purchasing decisions in the United States, female representation in the VC and technology industries must increase far more rapidly.

In today’s edition of FemWealth, meet three of the many investors who level the playing field for women founders and investors in the US:

Jess Lee, Partner at Sequoia & Founding Member of All Raise

I love spaces that others underestimate. For example, products that target the female consumer. Women control 80% of household purchasing power and make 80% of healthcare spend decisions, yet are often underserved. That equals opportunity.

A Hong Kong native, Jess Lee graduated with a CS degree from Stanford. She started her career in Product Management at Google, where she worked in the Google Maps team and trained with Marisa Mayer. She later joined Polyvore, a community-powered social commerce website, as their first PM and rose through the ranks to become VP of Product and CEO. She led the company's exit to Yahoo in 2015.

In 2016 Lee joined Sequoia Capital, becoming the firm's first female partner. Her primary focus is on consumer and B2B2C products.

A founding member of All Raise, she is one of the most active champions for female representation in venture and tech.

Notable investments led by Jess Lee: Maven Clinic, founded by Kate Ryder, Newness, co-founded by Jenny Qian and Youri Park, Mos founded by Amira Yahyaoui, Otter founded by Helen Mayer, and Dia&Co, co-founded by Nadia Boujarwah and Lydia Gilbert.

📖 Seven Questions WITH Jess Lee

🎥 How To Get The Help You Need

🎥 How to Fundraise at Female Founder Office Hours with Jess Lee and Jenny Lefcourt

Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Managing Partner at Backstage Capital

I really didn't set out to become an investor, because I just — it just didn't seem realistic to me at the time, and it wasn't an interest until I understood that there were people who were not getting access to the same rooms as others. It just didn't seem right to me that most of the people that I knew who were starting companies were not straight white men ...and they were starting cool companies! Some of them were small businesses and some of them could affect the world, but they were not getting seen.

Arlan Hamilton, the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital is the first black, queer woman to start her own venture capital firm. The fund is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential, “underestimated” founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT.

Since it was started in 2015, Backstage has invested in more than 180 startup companies led by underestimated founders. Backstage Studio, launched in 2018, leads four accelerator programs for underestimated founders in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and London.

Backstage is currently raising a new $30 million fund.

Check Backstage’s portfolio - one of the largest portfolios of underrepresented founders in venture.

📚 It's About Damn Time: How To Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage

🎥 Being Underestimated is Your Greatest Advantage with Arlan Hamilton

🎧 ARLAN HAMILTON IS BUILDING A NEW KIND OF VC

Deena Shakir, Partner at Lux Capital

When it comes to raising capital, the data is clear on two seemingly orthogonal fronts: 1) women and intersectional founders are receiving less capital than their peers as a result of implicit biases, and yet 2) there’s an abundance of analysis that clearly shows that investing in women is good not only for the macro economy, but also for scientific innovation and for individual investors. - via Forbes

Deena Shakir’s unconventional path into venture capital included career steps in policy, journalism, and technology. A Partner at Lux Capital since 2019, she invests in transformative technologies streamlining analog industries and improving lives and livelihoods, with a particular interest in intersectional and underdog entrepreneurs building breakthrough companies to accelerate advances and equity in human and population health.

Notable investments she led: Adyn, founded by Elizabeth Ruzzo, AllStripes, co-founded by Nancy Yu, Shiru, founded by Jasmin Hume, and Maven Clinic founded by Kate Ryder.

In addition to her investment activity, she is a Lecturer at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute, a Kauffman Fellow, Aspen Finance Fellow, CFR Term Member, an All Raise mentor, and a founding VC member of the Valence Fund Network for Black entrepreneurs.

📖 Why we're betting big on women's health

🎥 Addressing the Gender Health Equity Gap

📖 From Microaggressions To Mansplaining: Busting Biases In Venture Capital

Learn more about funding women-led businesses in the US 💸

🌐 All Raise - a nonprofit on a mission to accelerate the success of female founders and funders to build a more prosperous equitable future.

🌐 Digital Undivided’s Project Diane - the first biennial demographic study commissioned by digitalundivided to provide a snapshot of the state of Black & Latinx women founders, and the startups they lead, in the United States

📖 Women still have a venture capital problem. This is how we actually fund female entrepreneurs by Anu Duggal of Female Founders Fund

📖 Female founders are having a standout year—that's not the whole story

📖 Women VCs Invest in Up to 2x More Female Founders

📖 Black Female Founders Still Dreaming When It Comes To A Fair Share Of Venture Capital

🌐 A Database of US-based Diverse VCs - via Femstreet

Are you a female or non-binary founder looking for funding?

Discover All Raise Masterclasses a series of self-paced courses for female and non-binary founders who want to learn how to build an MVP, raise institutional capital, and scale their high-growth startups. Enroll for FREE.