Leslie Feinzaig, a enterprise capitalist, likes that her enterprise agency, Graham & Walker, feels like an outdated, stodgy legislation agency. However other than the title, there’s nothing actually stodgy about it: Her fund completely invests in female- and nonbinary-founded startups.
It’s a comparatively new title for her agency, which was initially referred to as Feminine Founders Alliance. Feinzaig rebranded in 2021 in an effort to draw a extra numerous set of founders and check-writers into her portfolio.
“The primary danger that we fall into is inadvertently stamping our personal portfolio with a variety sign,” she mentioned. “And I imply that within the damaging context of the phrase: We would like our founders to face on their very own for being wonderful founders. So what do we have to do? We have to change into an excellent, high-signal VC.” In her view, that meant departing from a reputation that made her agency sound prefer it was making “variety investments” and discovering a reputation that didn’t embody gender as a model.
Now, she mentioned, when she enters a room, “It’s very totally different to be Leslie, the CEO of Feminine Founder Alliance, than Leslie, managing director of Graham & Walker. No person questions it; it sounds prefer it belongs.”
That mentioned, the investor nonetheless discovered a method to insert the mission into the title: Katharine Graham was the primary feminine Fortune 500 CEO, and Madam C. J. Walker was the primary feminine self-made millionaire.
The aim of being a VC is to generate returns for restricted companions, and there’s an understanding {that a} numerous startup ecosystem will result in higher outcomes for all. Balancing these two, for feminine VCs, has usually manifested in numerous, usually irritating methods.
A brand new era of feminine enterprise capitalists is ditching institutional companies to begin their very own or steadily rising via management ranks. In response to a survey analyzed by TC+, the share of ladies represented in director and principal positions has considerably elevated over the previous two years, whereas the proportion of ladies in higher-level positions, reminiscent of managing basic associate or senior managing director, stands under 25% and has for the previous two years. The ranks are diversifying. Slowly.
To place it merely: Extra ladies in enterprise implies that bias and strategic branding are more and more related for a bigger fraction of check-writers.
