Starting a New Chapter in Boston
All Raise is coming to Boston! A storied city with a long history in shaping venture, Boston was recently recognized as one of the best places for female founders to raise funds with a number of amazing women-led VC firms. With this natural groundswell, Boston was an obvious choice as the next location to open an All Raise chapter and grow our movement.
Our programs give women access, guidance, and support at every step in their entrepreneurial journeys. For founders, that means we’re there to accelerate their successes, from their first fundraise through their successful exits in building category-defining and disruptive businesses. Similarly, for women investors, we accelerate their rise from analysts to general partners or from operators to investors. And we know networks matter, so we are thrilled to link arms with the founders, funders, partners, and allies within Boston to continue building a new version of visionary across the tech ecosystem.
To celebrate today’s launch, we are hosting an event with one of our national sponsors, EY. “How Deals Are Done” covers important questions about due diligence, fundraising, and company exits. We want to help founders and funders alike be prepared and avoid “gotchas” when they pursue strategic agreements and investments.
A special thank you to a few founding members of All Raise who helped us establish ourselves in Boston and continue to offer us invaluable counsel: Dayna Grayson (NEA) and Katie Rae (The Engine).
I am thrilled to introduce our All Raise Boston steering committee. Their collective experience and leadership will help us drive progress against our two objectives as an organization:
- To significantly increase the percentage of venture capital going to companies with a female founder from 15% to 25% over the next 5 years
- To double the percentage of female partners at US tech venture firms with a fund size of >$25M from 9% to 18% over the next 10 years
Please join me in welcoming the leaders who will help shape the conversations we have and the actions we take to rewire the entire tech industry:
Emily Green, Independent Board Director and Advisor
Emily Green has led innovation and growth in technology businesses for over 25 years. Most recently, she was the CEO of Smart Lunches, Inc., a fast-growing startup providing a unique online ordering and delivery service for school lunches. Currently, she is a Director on the Boards of Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (NASD: CWST), Investors Real Estate Trust (NYSE: IRET) and venture-backed Volta Networks. Earlier, she acquired and led Yankee Group Research, led and sold Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and managed North American operations at Forrester Research. She was named a Mass High-Tech All-Star in 2011.
Holly Maloney, Managing Director, General Catalyst
Holly Maloney is a managing director at General Catalyst, where she co-leads the growth team, investing in and partnering with disruptive, growth stage software-driven businesses. Her portfolio of investments includes Allego, Teamworks, and The Predictive Index. Before joining General Catalyst in 2017, Holly was a principal at Guidepost Growth Equity (FKA: North Bridge Growth Equity). While there, she worked closely with companies such as WP Engine and Dyn [acquired by Oracle (NYSE: ORCL)] and was focused on companies operating with highly scalable revenue models that could include subscriptions, transactions, and high margin services. Prior to her role at Guidepost, Holly worked at America’s Growth Capital where she advised technology companies.
Rana el Kaliouby, CEO and Co-founder, Affectiva
Rana is CEO and Co-founder of Affectiva, a company that creates emotion recognition products. At MIT, Rana spearheaded the applications of emotion-sensing and facial coding. She was recognized by Entrepreneur as one of the “7 Most Powerful Women To Watch In 2014,” inducted into the “Women in Engineering” Hall of Fame, and recipient of Technology Review’s “Top 35 Innovators Under 35” award. Rana holds a Ph.D. from the computer laboratory, University of Cambridge.
Sarah Fay, Managing Director, Glasswing Ventures
Sarah Fay has more than 20 years of experience in the marketing services industry, with a track record of leveraging technology to deliver groundbreaking new models for advertising and media. In her role as Managing Director at Glasswing Ventures, Sarah leads and evaluates investments in early stage AI-powered companies. She has served as an Independent Director on the Boards of public and private technology and digital media companies, on the Executive Board of the Ad Club of Boston, and as Director on the Board of The Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX). Sarah has received over 30 accolades and awards for her accomplishments such as “Media All Star” (AdWeek), “Top 100 Most Influential People in Media (Media Post) and “Fast 50” (Fast Company).
Interested in joining All Raise Boston?
Our team is actively looking for all kinds of volunteers — women, men, non-binary individuals — and partners who share our mission to accelerate the success of female founders and funders to build a more equitable, prosperous future. Together, we will create a new version of visionary across the technology ecosystem. Share your interest today!
