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FORTUNE.COM // NOVEMBER 2019
deals and opportunities across their network.
Together, these three groups could mold the
next next generation of Silicon Valley.
These investors would certainly love to find
the next Facebook, but they’re more mission-
driven than their predecessors of a decade ago.
Given their makeup, all are attuned to the gen-
der dynamics of Silicon Valley—even if they’re
not exclusively backing women. Last year, U.S.
female-only founding teams received just 2.2%
of venture capital funding. Altogether, female
founders took in $10 billion less than the
e-cigarette company Juul did by itself. Some
of these investors are also involved in All Raise
and other organizations aiming to get more
women funded and into VC partnerships, but
these groups are about making the investments
themselves. “We need more female voices shap-
ing innovation, and we need that from both
founders and funders,” says Kelly Graziadei,
a former director of media partnerships for
Facebook and a founding partner of F7.
Since March, F7, the only one of these groups
to formally create a fund, has made eight
investments with a modest average check size
of $50,000 (the founders are investing their
personal capital and haven’t sought outside
money to grow that amount yet). Nearly half of
those investments have been in female-founded
companies. Since 2015, #Angels has backed
more than 120 startups, from Carrot (fertility
care) to Bird (e-scooters), and says it’s starting
to see long-term results. Uber’s network, which
includes investors at Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia,
Redpoint, and GV, is just getting started on
sourcing deals through one another—mostly
via a very active WhatsApp group chat—but its
investors are interested in women’s health and,
of course, autonomous vehicles.
There’s a reason these groups are taking
shape among former colleagues.
Investors from all three networks
mention the trust developed
from their time in the trenches
together—and a level of comfort
discussing money that comes
from working side by side in a
business context. “The network
of people who have been through
hypergrowth together—it creates
bonds for life,” says Frédérique
Dame, a former product and
engineering manager at Uber
who’s now a partner at GV. “We
all speak the same language.”
Unlike the PayPal mafia,
who mostly struck out on their
own or in duos or trios, these
women are sticking together. In
a venture landscape in which
women make up 11% of venture
capital decision-makers and men
hold 91% of startup equity—the
money that often turns into
angel investments—solidarity
has its advantages. “It’s so com-
forting and supportive working
with six other women who have
so much experience to bring to
the table. It makes it less scary,”
says Yvette Lui of F7, who was
a director of sales and global
partnerships at Facebook and
had done only a little bit of angel
investing prior to F7. As Robyn
Reiss, also of F7, puts it: “Angel
investing is not competitive.
There’s no reason not to share.”
The women of #Angels are
VENTURE
flattered—and encouraged—by others follow-
ing in their footsteps. The founding of their in-
vestment collective formalized a long-standing
practice of angel investors collaborating across
their networks, but “almost exclusively among
men,” says #Angels’ April Underwood, former
director of product at Twitter.
With more women coming into liquidity
through this year’s IPOs, could there soon
be more groups taking shape? These inves-
tors would certainly welcome such a change.
“Hopefully, we’re in the early stages of a trend,”
Underwood says. She quotes Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, making #Angels
and its peers Silicon Valley’s answer to the cor-
rect number of women on the bench: “When
there are nine.” Or when there’s a cap table
with only women on the page.
THE FAMILIES
F7 Six former
Facebookers and a
current executive
pooled their money in
a fund last year. With
an average check
size of $50,000, the
fund has backed eight
startups, including
coworking startup
Codi, tech-sales job
platform Flockjay,
and nonprofit funding
platform NPX.
#ANGELS The five
Twitter alumnae (and
one current execu-
tive) have separately
backed 120 startups
since 2015. Their
investments include
fertility startup
Carrot, e-commerce
brand Brandless,
e-scooter company
Bird, and collabora-
tion service Airtable.
UBER Ten alumnae
went into venture
firms including GV,
Kleiner Perkins, and
Sequoia. Partners are
sourcing deals from
their network in cat-
egories like women’s
health and autono-
mous vehicles.
Fortune’s
2007 feature
on the PayPal
mafia.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBYN TWOMEY