Women Founders Rejoice: StandUp Ventures secures over $21 million for funding
Just in time for International Women’s Day, StandUp Ventures announced last week a significant raise from institutional and angel investors. These new commitments close the fund at over $21 million, well above the original target of $15 million, which will be invested in businesses led or co-led by women.
We chatted with StandUp Ventures Managing Partner & #movethedial Champion Michelle McBane to learn more about the fund and how you can apply!
Firstly, congratulations! How do you feel, especially after smashing the original target of $15 million?
We closed at $21.5 million – so we’re pretty pleased about that! In the first close, we brought in institutions including BDC, CIBC, EDC, RBC, Northleaf and Vancity. In our final close, another institutional investor, Teralys, committed to the fund. But we also brought in Jeff Fettes, an entrepreneur and investor, who took a leap on a seed-stage fund.
It’s great to see successful entrepreneurs paying it forward by investing both in a business like mine and in the future of women-run ventures. It’s incredibly important, and I’m very grateful for all the folks around the table.
So, StandUp Ventures has been around for 2 ½ years and has already invested in women-led companies. Can you tell us a little bit about the changes in the ecosystem since you’ve started?
Our first close was in May 2017 and we already had a good pipeline of women-led or co-led opportunities because we were actively investing with our sister fund – MaRS IAF
Maybe I’ll step back and talk about the goals we wanted to achieve with the fund and how we’ve seen the change in these areas. One was to start a fund, focused on women-led or co-led ventures but also run by an investment team of women. If you go back to some of the data that women Founders have, there’s just hardly any women-identified VCs at a partner level making investment decisions.
Another report by All Raise shows a pretty direct correlation between women making investment decisions and women founders getting funded.
If I think of the change in that area, it’s been pretty significant. There have been a lot more young women entering the venture industry. They see more role models so they get to understand what the role is and the impact you can have on a venture.
There is a large network of associates who’ve organized themselves across Canada and I would say I’m extremely thrilled about the next generation of women coming up in the VC world.
The second thing was to really demonstrate that you can generate venture rates of return investing in with this thesis. We’ve certainly done that, our portfolio is doing quite well.
Having more women role models running companies is also bringing the next generation of women founders forward. I’m seeing the amazing founders in our portfolio like Marie Chevrier at Sampler, Stephanie Lapierre at tealbook, Lindsay Goodchild and Dessy Daskalov at Nudge Rewards and Malorie Brodie and Lauren Lake at Bridgit are now role models for that next generation who have a great tech idea or business and weren’t sure that starting a venture company was the right thing for them. The funnel I have coming up is quite strong.
At the other side of the table, are you hopeful about having more women involved in investing?
Yes, the third piece of our goals was to get more women investing as angel investors. While there has been some success in that area, I would say that’s the one area that we can continue to focus on further. Women can either invest in the fund and work with us or do their own angel investing and co-invest with us.
Now that you’re proving how successful women-led and co-led businesses can be through StandUp Ventures, are you hopeful other funds will follow suit in investing in businesses run by women and other previously underrepresented founders?
Our goal is to identify opportunities, to lead or co-lead a round and bring other co-investors or follow-on investors into the company. Nudge Rewards is a good example, we invested early on and they recently announced a $12 million last August. The same thing with tealbook, they went on to raise $6 million of late. So we’re trying to work with these ventures at these early stages where there is fairly documented unconscious bias.
In a startup at an early stage, all you have is a founder and their idea, so we see different things when we look at those founders.
For any women entrepreneurs reading this article, have you any advice on how they would apply to get this funding?
Yes – anyone can apply on our website. We’re actively out there looking for new opportunities. We get opportunities referred to us by our partners in the fund, by groups like #movethedial, and by other entrepreneurs who are out there networking. So there are lots of different ways that you can plug into the work we do!