Hidden Returns: The Multi-Billion-Dollar Opportunity in Female-Led Startups

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  Speaker 1:
  Hi everyone. Meera Oak here, partner with Alumni Ventures. I’m excited to delve into this topic of hidden returns and the multi-billion dollar opportunity in female-led startups and why this opportunity delivers both strong financial returns and meaningful impact. 

  Here at Alumni Ventures, I think we believe backing female founders isn’t just about equity, it’s about smart investing. But before we dive in, I just wanted to kick things off with some disclosures. We’re speaking today about Alumni Ventures and our views of the associated investing landscape. This presentation is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to buy or sell securities, which are only made pursuant to the formal offering documents for the fund.

  And with that, we’ll kick it off. So my journey to venture capital started many years ago, and it started at Yale University, where I worked on the finance and endowment team managing about a billion in assets, and then moved over into broad-based tech implementations. So I helped onboard an ERP system, shifting from Oracle to Workday, as well as a whole slew of different business intelligence tooling—essentially giving this 300-year-old institution, for all of its worth, a little bit of a facelift from the tech stack perspective. 

  And having seen what tech adoption looked like within a large legacy enterprise, I really wanted to work with early-stage venture funds and incubators to gain a closer perspective to new technology and the founding teams that were leading the charge. So through this experience, I saw firsthand how capital allocation shapes industries and opportunities. And it really reinforced my belief that investing in talent—oftentimes overlooked talent—can really create outsized returns.

  And with that, my road led to Alumni Ventures, and that belief really has taken hold here. And at AV, we’re dedicated to making venture capital accessible to individual investors. Since our founding in 2014, AV has raised over $1.4 billion from more than 10,000 investors, backing over 1,500 portfolio companies. So this scale has made us one of the most active VC firms globally and a top 20 performer, which I’ll get into a little later. 

  But our team of nearly a hundred professionals operates from key hubs across the U.S., and it really ensures broad access to the venture ecosystem. You’ll find me in San Francisco, but it’s really helpful and productive to collaborate with my colleagues who have a pulse on other thriving tech ecosystems. 

  So maybe to get into those trophies that I was alluding to—I’m really pleased to share that this unique and powerful sourcing engine has consistently won us access to both competitive and strong-performing deals alongside leading venture firms.

  As a result, we’ve cultivated the largest, most engaged community of investors and entrepreneurs, and that is really supported by a CEO Services department that drives success for our portfolio companies. There are too many awards on this page to cover them all, but one that I’ll highlight is that we were recognized as a Founder-Friendly Investor by Inc. last year. And I think this award really demonstrates that our firm has this established operational excellence, a really strong content brand, and a world-class team, of course—all of which create significant moats when it comes to venture investing. And I think that’s really important in this market and this climate.

  So to double-click a little bit on our investment strategy, we’ll flip sides to focusing on how AV co-invests and what the model looks like there. So as I mentioned previously, a key part of our investment strategy is co-investing alongside top-tier venture firms such as Sequoia, Andreessen, Kleiner Perkins, and many more. And building off that last slide, I think this approach has really earned our recognition as a top 20 VC per CB Insights, and it’s ensured that we consistently have high-caliber deal access while leveraging the expertise of the best in the industry—like the firms you see here.

  So now, delving into the topic of the hour—within Alumni Ventures, the impact of investing in women has been clear for a while, and in many ways it’s been inspired by the names that you see on this page.

  So Fei-Fei Li is a longtime professor at Stanford, widely considered the godmother of AI. She transformed her startup, World Labs, into a unicorn in just four months—which is incredibly impressive—and had the backing of some of those all-star names you saw earlier, like NEA and Andreessen Horowitz.

  Another example here is Mira Murati, who’s an exceptional technologist and rose to prominence as OpenAI’s former CTO. She’s expected to launch her own AI venture and raise hundreds of millions of dollars for that company, and has already been recruiting incredible top-tier talent from the Googles, the OpenAIs, the Anthropics of the world.

  But I think what these two examples highlight is that investing in female founders—and female founders in general—these aren’t anomalies. They’re proof of what’s possible when we fund top female talent. And I’ll get into that a little bit.

  And I think what Fei-Fei and Mira’s stories highlight is that their stories aren’t necessarily the reality we see every day. So despite seeing exemplary stories and track records, the underlying data shows that female founders outperform their male counterparts—but most female founders struggle to access capital.

  And so this isn’t just an equity issue; it’s a missed financial opportunity. And this is what I wanted to focus on here.

  So the reality here is that there are two major dynamics at play. The first is that we are leaving significant financial potential on the table. If you look at reputable studies and analysis from platforms like BCG and First Round Capital, women-led ventures deliver twice the returns per dollar invested compared to male-led companies.

  And they identify high-growth, underserved markets and just have a resilience that drives success. As a result, women-owned businesses have the potential to generate trillions of additional revenue with the right financial and human capital.

  But there’s a second dynamic at play, and it’s that we are well positioned to take hold of this financial potential because we find ourselves in the middle of a historic $84 trillion great wealth transfer that will place unprecedented financial power in the hands of women. And it’s estimated that by 2030, women will control the majority of baby boomer wealth and create a wave of capital that is ready to fuel the next generation of female businesses.

  So, simply put—the timing is perfect, and the time to act is now.

  So moving to the next slide—I think if you harness that potential that I was referring to earlier effectively, then this is the potential impact. Women-led innovations are reshaping AI, energy, healthcare, and finance—and so many more.

  And we’re seeing household names like Anthropic, Canva, Blue Sky, and Facebook as really prime examples—many of whom now command billion-dollar market caps.

  And so if we ask the question: how did this happen? How did we get here? The research shows that women-led ventures face distinct challenges. They face challenges accessing capital, they face challenges securing mentorship, they face challenges identifying support throughout the life cycle of a company.

  Yet, even in our own portfolio, we’ve seen these hurdles foster adaptability, stability, resource efficiency, and strong collaborative networks. And I think these are all key traits of high-performing founders, regardless of gender.

  And one story I really want to highlight here is Blue Sky. I think it really highlights a closer look at both grit and resilience.

  So one of our investments is Blue Sky, which, for those who are not familiar, is a decentralized social platform using its AT Protocol to offer customizable algorithms, community-specific moderation, and federated networks.

  The company was actually conceived by Jack Dorsey in 2019, but it became an independent company in 2021, led by CEO Jay Graber.

  In 2024—just last year—Alumni Ventures joined Blue Sky’s journey as part of its Series A fundraise, which was a $15 million round. And what we learned through that diligence process and investment process is that under Jay’s leadership, Blue Sky became independent from Twitter and really emphasized decentralization and ethical monetization.

  She introduced Ozone, which ensured effective moderation and really reinforced user safety. Amidst a sea of competition in this space, Jay navigated challenges, she secured the funding that we were pleased to participate in, she drove innovation, and really ensured Blue Sky carved out a distinct space in social media’s evolving landscape.

  And so we were just so thrilled to be a part of that journey and to support Jay in leading the platform forward. 

  And now, taking a closer look at the funding gap—despite these incredible stories that I highlighted earlier, and specifically Jay’s story, and really the strong capital efficiency and returns of female founders—only 3% of VC funding goes to women. 

  And it’s really a number that has barely changed in the past 30 years. And I think this isn’t due to performance—it’s due to bias. 

  Additionally, only 15% of check writers in venture capital are women, which is only further perpetuating the funding gap here. And there’s even broader effects of this.

  So the impact is significant. When female-led startups are underfunded, they remain in what I call sort of a constant scramble mode. It’s harder to scale, it’s harder to hire top talent, and market your product effectively. And really, the result is lost economic potential.

  You saw those staggering revenue figures and the money that’s left on the table earlier in the presentation. And if we were able to effectively close this gap, it could increase global GDP by 3 to 6%—and it really unlocks trillions in economic gains.

  But the question here is: why does this gap exist? So in speaking with our founders and other investors in the ecosystem, the barriers are real. There are entrenched and exclusive networks that limit access to capital and support. There’s unconscious bias that really stacks the deck and creates even taller hurdles to overcome. And there’s limited investor diversity, which really limits the number of potential partners on the other side of the table.

  But for those who recognize these inefficiencies, they have the opportunity to profit while also driving change.

  And so that brings us back to the venture ecosystem, which is—here’s the reality: 95% of VC partners are men, and 90% of funding goes to male founders. But the research shows that VC firms with 10% more female investing partners see 1.5% higher fund returns and 9.7% more profitable exits. So investing in women isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s simply smart business.

  So where do we go from here? That’s a question we often get—how do you get involved? What sort of action can we take?

  And so to start, it starts with education. Educate your community. Highlight and support female-led startups in your network.

  The second category is investment. That means investing yourself and investing your capital. So if you’re inspired by Jay’s story, Fei-Fei’s story, Mira’s story, and so many others—you can start a company yourself, or you can support the ones that have already been started. In this ecosystem, money matters. And committing capital to high-potential female founders is a smart business decision.

  And finally—collaborate. So in this ecosystem, it seems sort of broad and expansive, but it’s quite tight-knit. And so if you can pool your resources—both from an industry expertise perspective as well as a capital perspective—alongside inclusive investors, you can really drive change and returns. 

  And one more thing is that if you’d like to access a portfolio of venture-backed companies, Alumni Ventures serves a range of accredited investors with different motivations and needs, from the venture curious to the trophy hunter. And I think the intention here is that we want to be your venture partner wherever you are in your journey, because we have something for you.

  Awesome. And so for those who are interested in Alumni Ventures, and more specifically our Women’s Fund, I encourage you to reach out at the link provided with our team. We handle the heavy lifting—and you really reap the benefits.

  This presentation will also be recorded, so feel free to share it with folks in your community who might be interested. We’re really looking forward to seizing this opportunity together, and thank you for joining. 

  Throughout the presentation, I’ve been thrilled to see that we are getting some questions from the audience, so I just wanted to take a moment to address some of them.

  The first one that’s coming through is around lessons learned. So I think one of the questions is: what lessons can be learned from successful female-led companies like Canva, Bumble, and Spanx, and how can it be applied to earlier-stage investments? 

  I think this is a great question—and something, actually, a retrospective that we like to do often. Because I think there are character traits, there are certain aspects of a founder profile that we look for in our early-stage companies.

  I think one thing that stands out about these examples is having a very deep understanding of market needs. When companies conduct extensive market validation before scaling, they are often ensuring that their product is not only solving a pain point, but solving a hair-on-fire pain point. And it often comes from founders who have firsthand experience in their market and show deep customer empathy.

  So I think when we look at Canva, which simplified design for non-designers; Bumble, which empowered women in dating; and Spanx, which really solved a real pain point in women’s fashion—I think these are all companies that identified and validated a real market problem and a market-pull problem. It was something that the customers were actively seeking out, and they built a product around it that really resonated. And I think that stems back to the founders who just built a really deep understanding of what their customer was looking for. So I think that was a really great attribute to see.

  And I think perhaps another aspect that I’ve noticed from these companies, and then more specifically in the portfolio companies that we’ve worked with, is just looking for companies that demonstrate high capital efficiency. So rather than raising excessive funding and exuberant spending, seeing founders who have disciplined financial management really drives long-term sustainability.

  I think the running anecdote around Spanx is that they launched with just $5,000 of founder savings with no outside capital initially. And so I think just seeing that drive and sort of dedication to being a capital-efficient business is really true across all businesses—but especially true in this market where it’s no longer a growth-at-all-costs environment. We are very hyper-focused on building sustainable businesses.

  So maybe those are two aspects I’ll add.

  Well, we’re getting another question around: how can early-stage female founders best position themselves to attract venture capital, especially given the challenges of accessing traditional funding networks?

  Yeah, this is really—it’s a question that I often get from female founders. I think something that has resonated with me is when I see a strong, data-backed business case.

  And I think we saw just in this presentation—when we looked at the funding gap here and the market potential of investing in female founders—we went to the data, right? We went to research and analysis from these notable platforms like BCG and First Round Capital to really see what research had been done on this particular pain point, and again, the opportunity at hand. And that’s what drove our deep dive into this space.

  And I think in a similar vein, when I see a founder that prioritizes traction metrics and a hyper-focus on key performance indicators like revenue growth, customer acquisition, retention rates—I think it really highlights not just strong market validation, but it also emphasizes your understanding of your business model and your competitive advantage in this space.

  So what makes your solution unique and difficult to replicate? And that sort of stems back to metrics. So I think overall that’s something I would encourage founders to think about when they’re crafting their pitch—because I think you can’t dispute data at the end of the day.

  And then I’m getting a question around AV and their role in changing this narrative, which I think is really important—and in part why we launched the Women’s Fund last year.

  The intention was—we have had this platform at Alumni Ventures and have always had a focus and an interest in funding female-led startups—but launching the Women’s Fund was our stamp in the ground to essentially say: look, we see these tailwinds at play. We see that there are female-founded companies that are underserved from the venture community. And we see that there are female investors who are excited to support these companies—and not just female investors, but investors broadly, right? There’s a lot of appetite from the investment community to support female-founded companies.

  And so we launched the Women’s Fund to essentially give people a platform to invest in both early-stage and growth-stage businesses that were led and founded by women. And it’s still matching the Alumni Ventures rubric in that we are still creating a diversified portfolio by stage, sector, and geography—the focus here is just with female-founded businesses.

  So we’re really excited to start changing this narrative—hopefully in a positive direction—and increase that 3% metric that we’ve seen for too many years at this point.

  And then maybe I’ll end with a bit more of a tactical question, which is—I love this, but most of my assets are in retirement accounts. Can I invest in AV funds with retirement funds?

  And yes, the answer is: yes, you can. And if you are interested in understanding the step-by-step process of how to do that, I encourage you to connect with our Investor Relations team by booking a call with this QR code, and they will walk you through that entire process. But that’s a very common pathway for our investors to invest in our funds.

  But I think with that, we may be at time. I really appreciate you all joining this webinar. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Our investment team is always excited to chat with folks, as well as our Investor Relations team.

  So we are excited if you’re interested in investing. But also, if you have interesting companies that are interested in securing VC funding, we’d love to meet with them.

  But with that, I will let you all part, and thank you so much for joining.