List of Women Angel Investor Groups & Micro VCs in USA
Silvia Mah PhD, MBA
Published Author | 2 x TEDx speaker | Igniting Innovation, Impact & Investing through Action & Intentionality | VC | Associate Professor | Keynote Speaker | Advocate 4 Diverse Founders | Investor | Servant Leader
Women angel investors & VCs have invested in innovation across the USA for decades. They have formed groups, micro-VCs, VC funds, and other vehicles of access to capital. Since 2010, the number of angel investors has increased from single digit representation (7% of angel investors are women) to close to 24% in 2021. This progress took many individuals and dedicated communities to RISE by lifting others. At?Stella.co, we honor these groups since our inception in 2012 and have curated a map of the USA to capture, connect and collaborate with these angel groups and have tracked the continued rise of the micro VC and early-stage VC funds lead by women. We have published the map on various occasion, but have been asked for this exact database too many times, so HERE IT IS.
We had to start somewhere and BUILD!?This is a place to start, a place to go back to and reference for entrepreneurs and investors seeking places to invest, builders to see gaps and fill them, and for our women startup economy to THRIVE!
To submit an edit for this list, please use this form:?https://airtable.com/shrXWZiNnEGyRjpiX
Women Investors are Warriors and Changemakers
The startup investment economy (angels & venture capital) is a small industry with massive impact. We invest at the start, with an eager, coachable and visionary founder solving a need in a market she is perfectly suited to capture with an innovative product that will transform the lives or businesses of their target market. So much impact!?
According to data from the Angel Capital Association (ACA), 22% of angel investors in the U.S. are women. According to a 2019 survey by the American National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), women account for just 11%-20% of investment partners in American venture capital firms. The term angel investor, private investor, seed investor, informal investor, and business angel, all encompass an individual with financial capital to invest and impact during the initial scale (or if you are super early, the launch) of your startup in exchange for some ownership equity (or future equity through convertible notes & SAFES, etc) in your company. Venture Capital is financial capital further down the growth of your startup. A 2013 report by the Harvard Business Review established that workforce diversity drives innovation and success. This is also true when it comes to founders and investors. More female investors mean greater diversity and innovation in investments, expanding the range of fields supported by VCs, perhaps the most prominent being femtech, technologies being developed specifically for women.
What sets women investors apart:
Luckily, you can find them at pitch events, online, or through their network.
More Women Investors Correlates Directly to More Women Founders Funded
There are burgeoning efforts to fund more companies with female leaders. There is a direct correlated with the rise of women investors (angel investors and VCs) to more female founders getting funding. Gillian Muessig, the Moz co-founder who is CEO of Seattle-based Outlines Venture Group and founder of Sybilla Masters Fund, says, “I believe there is not only correlation, but causation. This is exciting for female founders and for the world at large.” Sahil Raina, an assistant professor of finance at Alberta School of Business, wrote in the Harvard Business Review.?“A crucial step to helping more female entrepreneurs succeed may be to encourage more women to join venture capital firms.” I would also add to this that we need to encourage equip and educate more angel investors to activate their capital, write their first check, join angel groups like these listed, judge at pitch competitions, and possibly become an LP in a VC fund; thus make for a more robust women investor pipeline.
Women are twice as likely to strongly consider the social impact of their investment than men, with 33% of women questioned and 16% of men stating so. This means women who invest could have a positive effect on the whole of humanity.
The list of women angel investor groups & micro VCs in the USA
The map of women angel groups and micro VCs in the USA
Stella.co has curated a map of the women angel groups and microVC funds in the USA that are lead by women investors. Some only invest in women entrepreneurs, diverse founders, industry specific, etc; and all that detail can be found in the airtable on their universe platform.
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The nuts and bolts of the data
We searched high and low to fill out all of the information for these parameters:
The Future of This Data-Set + Your Feedback
This airtable is a first draft (of the database), or a starting point, when it comes to mapping the space of women investor groups and microVCs. I will continually update the database behind this list. The detailed database will be kept private to protect the investors who would prefer to stay in stealth mode and personal contact information.
Our intent at Stella.co is for this to be an open-source resource for the women startup economy ecosystem.?You can find the airtable here.
As with all first drafts, we welcome feedback, critiques, comments, and input from anyone with an interest in the women startup economy. We hope that with the help of our peers in the industry we can continue to build this into a resource that benefits all industry stakeholders.
This is meant to be a resource for founders, investors, and those observing from a distance, with the goal of helping quantify our industry & collective impact; thus encouraging people to join us in this space.
We are not the first collective to try to map this space.?Angel Capital Association (this map originated at an ACA Summit about 8-10 years ago and I've been just adding to it), Next Wave Impact Fund, Angel Resource Institute, 37 Angels, The Jump Fund, and Joshua Henderson's awesome (and updated constantly), global support ecosystem for women entreprenerus and investors medium post. Everuoe has contributed, all have invested, wired checks, advised a startup, and built our ecosystem into the thriving list we have here. BRAVAS!
While there’s still a long way to go, I’m excited to build this women startup economy community with all of these fantastic women leaders, investors, entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders and advocates. Cheers to progress with every check that is written!
*Note for edits for the airtable: as a Stella team, we will review, research, & publish after a reasonable due diligence time frame.?
Angel Investor: An individual who provides capital for business startups, typically at the pre-seed or seed stage, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. They write checks or wire funds from their own personal wealth portfolio, investments range from $5K to $200K, with the average being $25K, and can also provide expertise (strategic or tactical) and network capital.?
Angel Investor Group: A group of angel investors who regularly convene as a collective, usually in-person or via zoom, to evaluate and invest in startups, typically at the seed stage ($50K-$500K range). The practices of specific angel groups often range widely, typically focus on a concentrated geographic region (covid changed this a bit), and occasionally focus on an industry sector. The goal is to convene like-minded individuals to use the group members’ access, networks and knowledge to invest smarter.
Micro VC: a venture capital fund ($2M to $100M), that invests in the pre-seed or seed stage, investing alongside an angel group (or a sidecar fund), predominantly composed of angel investors as partners or LPs, with amounts of finance that is typically less than that of traditional venture capital (range: $25K to $500K), typically in companies that have startup traction but not yet enough to seek VC funding for growth. For this dataset, these micro VCs need to have been predominantly led by women at Partner level (or equivalent).?
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2 年Thanks for putting this together Silvia. Well done! This is indeed very helpful to female founders.