We are at a unique point in the history of the venture capital industry, where the number of women investors is rising rapidly and they are organizing to help each other grow and become great investors. At First Republic Bank, we are proud to be playing a lead role in accelerating this movement.
Last month we hosted our 1st Annual Women in Venture — Rising Stars Retreat, a two-day content and networking summit for 30 emerging female venture investors in the US.
The speakers included half of the Forbes magazine leading women venture capitalists from the All Raise movement, our male allies in venture, and Tracy Young of Plangrid, one of the founders I most respect and admire (she built such a solid business innovating the construction industry that it was profitable from year 1).
The attendees included rising star investors from leading firms such as Battery, Canaan, Crosslink, DFJ, Emergence Capital, GGV Capital, Industry Ventures, Maveron, Precursor, NEA, Redpoint, Storm Ventures, Streamlined and Zetta Venture Partners (for a full list, see bottom of the post).
The content was centered around professional and personal development, including topics such as:
· Venture Capitalist: the innovation backers — Maha Ibrahim (Canaan)
· Decision Making for Life — Clint Korver (Ulu Ventures)
· Developing Your Venture Career — Jenny Lefcourt (Freestyle), Lauren Kolodny (Aspect), Rebecca Kaden (USV)
· Effective Mentorship — Ann Miura-Ko (Floodgate), Dan Levitan (Maveron), Jeff Karras (Innov8)
· Board Effectiveness — Jess Lee (Sequoia), Tracy Young (Plangrid)
· Building Your Own Venture Firm — Aileen Lee (Cowboy), Miriam Rivera (Ulu Ventures)
We’ve learned that successful community events such as the Rising Stars Retreat enable:
1) Fostering of new relationships while further solidifying existing ones,
2) Sharing information
3) Building community
We’ve lined up the 2019 Steering Committee and we’re thrilled to share our upcoming initiatives.
We’re excited to announce that Anarghya Vardhana (Maveron), Ivy Nguyen (Zetta), Jocelyn Kinsey (DFJ), Jomayra Herrera (Emerson Collective), Pascale Diaine (Storm), Robin Li (GGVC), Suzy Ryoo (CCV), Tiffine Wang (SingTel), Jacque Hawk and I will be hosts for 2019’s Women in Venture Rising Stars Retreat!
Thank you to the Women in Venture Founding Steering Committee members Adina Tecklu (Canaan), Anarghya Vardhana (Maveron), Katie Schwartz (Crosslink), Maria Salamanca (Unshackled), Tiffine Wang (SingTel), Jacque Hawk for helping orchestrate our first event and get these initiatives off the ground.
Eighteen months ago when we first decided to focus on the Women in Venture (“WIV”) community, it was difficult to articulate what exactly such an initiative meant. Over the past months, we received feedback, launched, learned and iterated multiple times on the various initiatives, and today, we’re proud to highlight the 4 key products under the WIV efforts:
· The world’s largest database of Women in Venture: found at tinyurl.com/y8d4ghrq. We’ve grown from 15 people in October 2016 to over 1,000 women in venture in April of 2018! Feel free to let us know if you or anyone else in your community is missing and we’ll make sure to add you/them.
· Personal Branding and Thought Leadership: in an effort to showcase the next generation of female investors, we carefully follow and interview select women. If you’re interested in being featured and elevating your brand on my next series of interviews, please let me know. The audience is mainly founders and prospective LPs. Check out my Medium posts here: https://medium.com/@yanghana.
· Online and Offline Community Building: bringing the best integrated community building experience both online and offline. Currently, we ask that you must have been part of the offline community events to be a part of the online community. Events are highly curated, intimate and mostly invite only, but we’re very welcoming of friends of friends!
· WIV Compensation Survey: we’ve launched the first Women in VC Anonymous Compensation Survey in collaboration with Jetstream. We invite all women who work at a venture capital firm to participate, no matter your role, title, or function. Participants will have access to the results.
If you’re a woman in venture who is interested in connecting with us, email me at hanayang@firstrepublic.com.
Full list of Retreat attendees: Amplify, Battery, BDMI, Bloomberg Data, Canaan, Crosslink, DFJ, Embark, Emergence Capital, Emerson Collective, GGV Capital, Industry Ventures, Maveron, Menlo Ventures, Muse Capital, Precursor, NEA, Redpoint, Storm Ventures, Streamlined, The Helm, Unshackled, Wilmot Ventures, Zetta Venture Partners, Aduro, Deloitte, Perkins Coie and First Republic Bank.
