You can elevate the voices of women leading for-profit social ventures.
By Betsy Mikel (Editor, Women 2.0)
In funding women-founded startups, there’s a hugely untapped group of potential investors who have enormous power to change the game.
“The dynamics is all too often male investor, female founder,” says Christine Tsai, founding partner of 500 Startups. “Having more women writing checks will help. A lot of that can be done with women making more decisions with their own capital.”
That’s right. It’s not just up to men to help female entrepreneurs. The more women who write checks, the more we can change the face of what “typical” founders and investors look like.
You don’t need to be a gazillionaire. You can become an angel investor — meaning you support very early-stage startups with investments as small as $5,000 — if your income is $200,000, have $300,000 in joint income with a spouse or $1 million net worth.
Only 19 percent of angels are women, even though women control nearly 60 percent of the wealth in the United States. And the number of wealthy women is growing twice as fast as the number of wealthy men.
Want to become an angel, but don’t know where to stat?
That’s exactly why Natalia Oberti Noguera launched the Pipeline Fellowship in 2011: to change the face of angel investing while building access to capital for female entrepreneurs. The angel investing bootcamp for women just opened a call for applications for its fall programs.
About the Pipeline Fellowship Bootcamp
About the Pipeline Fellowship BootcampPipeline will run fall 2015 programs in Albuquerque, Boulder, Denver, LA, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, SF, Silicon Valley and Vegas. It’s a six-month angel investing bootcamp and the time commitment is approximately two full days per month during the six months.
Your deadline to apply is August 12, 2015.
To be accepted, you must meet these criteria:
- Meet one of the accredited investor definitions (i.e., US$200K in income or US$300K joint income with spouse for the past two years, or US$1M net worth)
- Have interest in group learning model
- Have passion for philanthropy and/or social change
For most Pipeline Fellows, this is their first angel investment. They’re attracted by the program’s three components (education, mentoring, practice) and benefit from the diversity of each cohort.Pipeline Fellows are intergenerational (ranging from late twenties to 60+) and come from a variety of professional backgrounds. Each Pipeline Fellow also commits to invest $5,000 in the same woman-led for-profit social venture at the end of the program.
“Pipeline Fellowship offers an opportunity you can’t find anyplace else — a safe forum to learn, ask questions and share information,” remarked Pipeline Fellowship alumna Jenn Viane Riese.
Get to Know Pipeline Fellowship Alumna
- This is What an Angel Looks Like: Dawn Barber
- This is What an Angel Investor Looks Like: Caryn Effron
- This is What an Angel Investor Looks Like: Christine Emilie Lim
- This is What an Angel Investor Looks Like: Barbara Clarke
More About Angel Investing
- Understanding Angel Investing: Pro Tips from Successful Angels and Entrepreneurs
- Resources for Women Who Want to Break Into Tech
- Building Meaningful Diversity in the Startup Ecosystem
- My Path to Becoming an Angel Investor by Susan McPherson
About the author: Betsy Mikel is the managing editor of Women 2.0 and runs the content consultancy Aveck. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a lifelong obsession with French language and culture. When she’s not biking all over every city she visits to find its best taqueria, you can find Betsy on Twitter at @betsym.
