Venture Capital: Will the 2% Female Investment Ever Change?

Welcome to the Executive Innovation Show Podcast, brought to you by One Touch Video Chat. During this podcast hear host, Carrie Chitsey, talk with Nisa Amolis, Meg Paulus, and Stacey Feinberg. 

Nisa Amoils is a Partner at Grasshopper Capital, a securities lawyer, an anchor of Digital Asset Report and the author of “WTF is Happening? Women Tech Founders on the Rise”. 

Meg Paulus, a Partner at Holt Ventures, leads the investment activities for HOLT Ventures and the Holt Family Office, as well as facilitating grantmaking for the family foundation.

Stacey Feinberg is the President at 33 Capital and the Managing Director at Golden Seeds. Some of her early-stage investments include Uber, Facebook and Zico Water.

Listen to “Venture Capital: Will the 2% Female Investment Ever Change?” as we discuss: 

Carrie sets the women investment table of how large the gap is in women founders getting venture investment (quoting some great stats from Nisa’s book). Women CEO’s only represent 17.5% of privately-held businesses with paid employees.Of the 1500 S&P companies only 5.1% have women CEO’s. Female founders only receive 2% of all venture capital (with no male co-founder).In 2018 women made up only 8% of investing partners at US VC firmsListen as Nisa, Stacey and Meg give us reasons why they think these numbers are dismal and what if anything can be done to change them. We talk with Nisa about her book, “WTF is Happening? Women Tech Founders on the Rise”. What did she find most eye opening when she was writing the book?Listen as we talk about the stories of demoralizing meetings top women founders like the two female founders from Away shared recently in Inc magazine. Our guests advise on how to keep going in this rollercoaster of emotions.  Where can women find people who are legitimately investing in female founders? From venture capital, family offices, and angel groups, our guests provide some good insights into the best places to look. When is the right time for you to raise capital? Listen as Stacey details what she believes women entrepreneurs should be doing to raise money. While there are a lot of new women funds, the number of 2% investment has not moved. Is there a systematic problem happening? Nisa explains her thoughts. Hear Meg talk about how important it is to foster relationships with women entrepreneurs early on in their entrepreneur journey.Is the new series A benchmark of a $1M dollars ARR that is required by some venture capitalist firms too much? Nisa talks about the experience within the fin-tech space, what criteria does she have for progressive and emerging tech companies? Listen as Stacey discusses some specific deals that were outside of these ARR requirements and what made her want to invest in these female founded startups.Beyond the MVP, Meg wants to make sure the founder is the right person for the job and they are able to get traction with “real-life” customers.  The panel talks about the significant disadvantages that minorities face when looking to raise money. As always, we ask the panel what is keeping them up at night. Listen to their answers on the podcast. 

Keep up Meg Paulus and learn more about Holt Ventures.
Make sure to grab Nisa Amolis’ book, “WTF is Happening? Women Tech Founders on the Rise”.
Follow Stacey Feinberg's investment journey.
Follow Carrie Chitsey and One Touch Video Chat on LinkedIn

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