Joining BBG Ventures

I’m excited to share personal news that I’ve joined BBG Ventures where I will focus on early stage technology investing. BBG stands for “#BUILTBYGIRLS” which highlights the fund’s investment thesis of backing the best female founders. BBGV’s investment focus is consumer Internet and consumer tech. Past investments have been in marketplaces, mobile services, commerce, media and consumer products. The one stipulation is that at least one founder be female.

Here’s why I’m excited:

THE TEAM

It’s an incredible opportunity for me to join a small, mission-driven team. BBGV was started by Susan Lyne, who’s held leadership positions at companies of all sizes and stages. Notably, she was President of Entertainment at ABC before serving as CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, CEO of Gilt.com and CEO of AOL’s Brand Group.

Susan launched BBGV with Partner, Nisha Dua, who’s spent the last 10 years working in media, tech, strategy and law. A reformed M&A lawyer, and management consultant, she worked on strategy and operations with Susan at AOL before re-founding AOL’s millennial site, cambio.com. She founded the #BUILTBYGIRLS movement, which challenges young women to be part of the tech-enabled economy and was the inspiration in naming BBG Ventures.

BBGV focuses on consumer products and services because that’s where Susan and Nisha’s expertise and interests lie. Venture capital firms are differentiated not by the amount of capital they have but by the value they can add to entrepreneurs, and Susan and Nisha have a wealth of operating experience and contacts that portfolio companies can leverage.

THE MISSION

I love BBGV’s focus on backing the best female founders. I don’t need to say why supporting female entrepreneurs makes sense from a societal and egalitarian perspective. But, there’s a more compelling reason to back female founders that doesn’t get enough airtime: GREED!

Less than 10% of VC funding goes to women. When 90% of funding goes to 50% of the population, there’s a huge opportunity for upside that comes from focusing on the other half. When considering the optimal make-up of teams building consumer products and services (or any product for that matter), it’s common sense that there should be women at the leadership table. Women are the dominant users of the fastest-growing mobile and social platforms, and they make or influence 85% of consumer purchases.

Supporting this under-funded demographic isn’t a blind gamble. The data is in. First Round Capital published statistics about the performance of their portfolio and found that teams with at least one female founder performed 63% better than all male teams. Quantopian, a Boston-based research firm, found that “women CEOs in the Fortune 1000 drive three times the returns as S&P 500 enterprises run predominantly by men.”

BBG Ventures’ focus on female founders presents an opportunity to produce better returns and in doing so, support female entrepreneurs in the process - visible returns will encourage more investors to back women.

I’m excited to join Susan and Nisha and will be on the lookout for female founders who are building cool consumer products and services. If that’s you, or someone you know, I’d love to hear from you. You can find me Twitter.