Introducing Boston Female Founder Office Hours
I became a venture capitalist because I love working with founders. It is thrilling to watch people grow as they create meaningful companies. However, a stark fact remains — the founders we meet still skew largely male. At The Engine, a fund for tough tech companies where I am the Managing Partner, about 20% of the companies that walk through the door have a female founder on the team. This number is shocking, given our affiliate institution MIT, which boasts nearly half female enrollment in STEM programs across the board. Why is it that we’ve made strides in getting women into science and technology but we can’t make the leap into putting them in charge of the next generation of companies that will shape the future?
Today, the percentage of investment dollars that go to female led technology companies still lingers in the single digits. This is a problem that must be addressed. Recently, a group of female investors from across the country decided to come together to fix this problem, starting with the venture capital community. Our idea is simple: to connect female founders and investors together and create a strong community. Over and over again, I have seen when founders are part of a tight community of people willing to help each other, incredible things happen.
Boston has so many exciting companies led by women. iRobot, co-founded by Helen Greiner, is one of the most prominent consumer robotic companies across the U.S. Cynthia Breazeal’s Jibo was on the cover of Time Magazine this year, lauded as one of the best inventions of 2017. Younger companies have also emerged, including Natalya Brikner’s Accion Systems, tackling space propulsion for small satellites and Leila Pirajhi’s ReviveMed, using machine learning to translate metabolomic data into therapeutics. At The Engine, our female founders are working on problems such as bringing a more humanistic approach to the driverless car industry and disrupting the oil and gas industry through better filtration processes.
Our intention, as a group of female investors, is to bring our community together, get to know each other and do our part in deploying more capital to female founders. We want to help more women see an achievable path to bring their ideas and inventions to market. Society needs women at the helm as we try to solve the world’s toughest problems.
I’ve come together with a group of leading women in the Boston venture community to join our friends in SF, NY, and LA in tackling this problem. This group of venture capitalists has decided to convene and create a day where we can get to know each other. We want to make ourselves approachable and accessible to women working on companies in the seed and A stages. Our goal is to give advice, connect, and work towards getting them funded. If you know women who are at this stage in their company, please send them our way!
Here is the list of women who will be convening with me:
Amy Schulman, Polaris Partners
Darshana Zaveri, Catalyst Health Ventures
Kate Castle, XFactor Ventures
Katie Rae, The Engine
Maia Heymann, Converge Venture Partners
Nicole Stata, Boston Seed Capital
Nilanjana Bhowmik, Converge Venture Partners
Rudina Seseri, Glasswing Ventures
Sarah Fay, Glasswing Ventures
Sarah Hodges, Pillar VC
Millie Liu, First Star Ventures
I’ve worked with each of the women in this group of investors in many capacities over many years. They are my colleagues and friends. They each bring a unique industry perspective and skill set for helping others. We all share a passion for working with founders and helping women achieve their goals.
A little about the day
We’ll be hosting a Female Founders Office Hours at The Engine’s coworking space in Central Square, Cambridge on February 27th. The day will begin at 8am with breakfast and remarks from myself and my co-hosts. Women who would like to attend will be able to meet one on one after breakfast with an investor they are matched with, and network with the rest of the group throughout the morning. We will have 40 slots open so if you or a friend is interested you can apply here.
