🎙️ EP9: Beyond the Billion — How to Mobilize Capital for Women Founders with… | InvestHer Podcast

Welcome everybody to this latest episode from InvestHer Podcast. On today's episode, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Shelley Porgis, who is the founder and managing partner of The Billion Dollar Fund and Beyond the Billion. In this episode, you're going to learn more about Shelley, who is a 7-time woman entrepreneur herself, who has now created a consortium of different actors in public and private capital to bring together and mobilize $1 billion worth of funding for female founders. Absolutely incredible. So she did this, it's called the Billion Dollar Fund, and you're going to learn all about how she did it, why she did it in this episode, and then what she's been doing since then— the Billion Dollar Breakfasts and her new initiative which is called Beyond the Billion. I think you're going to find this absolutely fascinating because Shelley really brings a depth of expertise and experience to what needs to happen in this ecosystem to help mobilise more capital and funding for female founders. I'm so honoured to have her with us. She is one of the trusted advisors of GlobalInvestHer, so I can't wait to hear what you think about this episode. And remember, at At the end of the episode, go and check out the show notes because we give links to all the different things that Shelley mentions in this episode. Enjoy! Investor Podcast is for you, the female founder who has a product, a service, or a message that you believe in and need to get funded. Or for you, the investor who wants to learn more about the huge untapped investment opportunity that gives you a higher return— women entrepreneurs. My name is Anne Ravanona. I'm an entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, and women's advocate, and I'm passionate about helping women entrepreneurs get funded. In each episode, we'll take a behind-the-scenes look into real-world funding tactics and strategies to help you get the funding you need faster. Let's put the fun into funding. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started. Welcome everybody to this latest episode from the InvestHer Podcast. And today I am thrilled, absolutely beyond thrilled, to welcome Shelley Porges, who is not only a friend and a wonderful advisor to Global InvestHer, but boy, is she out there, you know, changing things in the funding industry for female founders. And so she is the founding partner of Beyond the Billion. And you're going to hear a lot about it, but I want you, Shelley, please tell us a little bit about yourself because you've such a rich, rich past experience that I want you to enlighten our listeners as to your brilliance, as to why we should listen to you as an amazing, amazing woman who's changing the funding ecosystem.

Well, thank you, Anne. Thanks so much, and thanks for inviting me to join you today. First and foremost, they should listen to me because you've brought me on here, and if If folks don't already know and trust the deep knowledge and value that you bring to any woman founder who's looking to raise capital at whatever stage, you know, her company may be in, then they're in for a treat, you know, because of the work that you do and all the amazing resources you bring together. So I think first and foremost, knowing nothing about me, everyone should recognize that, you know, you use your vast network and your vast experience to really bring, you know, people who can in fact bring insights to, you know, the everyday challenges of an entrepreneur. And, you know, speaking of entrepreneurs, I was an entrepreneur myself. In fact, I am an entrepreneur.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I lived for 18 years in the San Francisco Bay Area where I always joked that entrepreneurship is a disease. Even when you sell your company, you go on to starting the next company. So it's not so much That it's this— not that it's any less of a big undertaking, but, you know, the Bay Area just seems like it's what lots of people are doing.

Mm-hmm.

And so it was for me. I actually started my career on the corporate side after a 10-year career with American Express after graduate school, starting after graduate school and ending as the Chief Retail Marketing Officer of American Express Canada, and that was our largest card market and payments market outside the US at the time. And then I was recruited to join Bank of America at the time in San Francisco before they merged with Nations Bank that moved them, you know, moved the headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina subsequently.

Mm-hmm.

But at the time, the headquarters were in California. Lucky for me, I was in San Francisco, fantastic town if ever there was one. And over 3 years, I, you know, initially I was recruited to head up credit card marketing, logical segue from American Express, ended up though as head of marketing for the entire retail bank. And during that time, we had a historic corporate turnaround. In fact, it was the largest turnaround at the time in American corporate history that was not government-aided.

Wow.

So the only larger turnaround prior to that was in the '70s, Chrysler Corporation. known to many had been failing and, uh, they got big government assistance and they turned around as well. But we were the first and largest to turn around, you know, without government assistance. Um, and during that time, of course, I had many striking experiences launching new products, launching many new initiatives. But the, the most exciting thing I launched was after I left the bank, which was my first of what became 6 companies.

Hmm.

And, uh, so I left the bank after 3 years after our turnaround, after we'd had a lot of success. And always knowing that I'd wanted to be an entrepreneur. My dad was a small businessman with several small businesses. And so, you know, as, as with so many entrepreneurs, you know, we have many influences in our lives, but one of them is, you know, our parents, our mothers, our fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, whatever. Cousins in the blood. Sort of show us the way. And so for me, I felt it was timely to launch the first business and I found or co-founded 6 5 of them were in the financial services space, one was in the media space. And of course, the big, big theme of all across all of them was that— now we're talking about the first company was '90 to '97, but for the remaining 5 was the fact that the internet was emerging as a big force.

Yeah.

Early days of the internet. And so that had a huge effect on our businesses. And, you know, 3 of my businesses were very much internet-based. We were among the first actual lenders or facilitators of lending in the space and then went on to do— one of the companies I co-founded was an investment firm with a very famous tech investor named Tom Wiesel and a team of people. Obviously, all of these were teams of people. Nobody gets anything big done without having many others supporting them. you know, facilitating the establishment and growth of the company. But anyway, after 15 years— well, 18 years in the Bay Area, 15 years as an entrepreneur— I moved to DC in '05. And the notable thing relevant to this conversation is that I started getting involved in politics, got involved specifically in Hillary Clinton's first campaign in '07, leading to the '08 election.

Mm-hmm.

And then went with her to the State Department when she became Secretary of State as her senior advisor for global entrepreneurship.

Amazing.

And that was a phenomenal opportunity, uh, to really not only, um, get visibility into a whole series of global challenges that entrepreneurs held, but, but also to help solve some of those challenges.

Yeah.

Um, and so that was a, that was a terrific time, uh, as her senior advisor. We launched many programs, but most importantly, we launched the Global Entrepreneurship Program, which we grew to almost 150 countries through public-private partnerships, through the use of technology, and leveraging many of the other resources like exchange programs and speakers bureaus and other things that the State Department did in its public diplomacy side. So, so that was 3 years there. I left shortly after Hillary left and ended up working on her 2016 campaign. launching something called Entrepreneurs for Hillary, which mobilized tens of thousands of entrepreneurs around the country to support her. And then after the election, which leads us to where I am today, after the election, I started working with venture funds to help them gender diversify their deal flows, mainly because I knew I wanted to get back into the private sector.

Yeah.

I came to recognize that the challenge for women getting venture funding, not to speak— you know, women are challenged getting all kinds of funding, but in venture in particular, we were not only not making great progress, we were going backwards. In the United States in 2015, um, women were getting 7% of venture capital. And by 20— you know, '17 or '18, oh well, '17, uh, '18, uh, it was down to 2.3%.

Yeah.

Um, and there are lots of reasons for that. We can get into that certainly in the conversation. But, you know, the important thing was recognizing what, what moved me. It wasn't just about the money, although of course it is about the money. It was the fact that I had over these, decade, a couple of decades of myself being an entrepreneur, engaging in the entrepreneurial community in many parts of the world and around the United States for that matter, seeing so many amazing women innovators not being able to bring their innovations to market. And therefore all of us, not just women, men, women, children, not benefiting. In fact, being hurt by the fact that, um, you know, that we didn't have, you know, the benefit of those innovations. So that's the thing that really motivated me greatly. And so anyway, I'll stop there for a minute and then we can talk about the Billion Dollar Fund for Women that we launched and where we are today with Beyond Today and how we got there.

Well, I'm glad because I think it's super important to do a pause here on that point because, you know, you have such a vast career and I mean like, wow, 7-time entrepreneur. That's amazing. So you've got the corporate, the entrepreneurship, and then, you know, in politics, you know, working really in the front line and making those public-private partnerships work to serve, you know, millions of entrepreneurs around the world. I mean, it's absolutely incredible, and that's why I'm so blessed to have you as one of our advisors and thrilled. So before we dive into your why, as to why you started, you know, the Billion Dollar Fund, that part first before we get to Beyond the Billion, Give us one fun fact about you because you've told us kind of the really big picture. Give us a little bit of a fun fact.

A fun fact, and one that's also relevant to this conversation, I believe, is I was born in Israel. I came to the States, so I'm an immigrant in the United States. It's something that in the past I hadn't talked about much because, you know, I came when I was quite young. I grew up in this country. I certainly consider myself an American and you know, very proud of, you know, being one.

Mm-hmm.

But I recognized recently for— on so many different levels that it was important to identify myself as such because, as you know, immigrants in this country are under attack in many cases.

Yeah.

In all kinds of segments of the pipeline, and they're not the only ones who are under attack. And I feel like, you know, it's really important for us to all recognize the immigrants among us who are drivers not just of change, but really positive change.

Yeah.

And that we should honor the, you know, talent and energy and, you know, hard work that immigrants do and that the kind of new ideas and positive things that immigrants bring to our culture, to our society, to our countries, to our communities. in ways that often we don't. So for me, that's become an important part of my story that, you know, for a long time I didn't talk about, not because I was in any way ashamed or anything. It was really, you know, having grown up in the US, I didn't think of it as that relevant. But then I realized, you know, this is a really important thing that, you know, I'm one of millions of us, certainly in the United States. We are an immigrant nation.

Absolutely.

The only people who can really claim to be pure Americans are the indigenous Americans.

Exactly.

Yeah, of our country. I mean, I'm really proud of my kids who hosted the event this year, that we had a Thanksgiving where we not only, you know, expressed our thanks for all the things in our lives, our family, our friends, our good health, and other, you know, things that are going well in our lives, but we spent quite a bit of time at the Thanksgiving table reviewing different insights that each of us brought to the table about the Indigenous peoples of our country, and and the kind of traditions that we have benefited from, from them as immigrants to this country. So not just the land itself, not just the country that was built on it, but really also the, the, so many of the traditions that the indigenous peoples have contributed to, you know, our larger culture.

Amazing. Amazing. And I think that, you know, it's just testament to your Your worldview of diversity and inclusion, Shadi, you are an extremely inclusive person, it's in your genes, it's just who you are, and I mean, I think that just says so much about you and your family that you would even have that conversation on such an important day, so thank you. So tell us a bit more about why you set up, first of all, the Billion Dollar Fund. So what is the Billion Dollar Fund and why did you set that up? Let's start there.

Sure. So the Billion Dollar Fund for Women is something we launched just a little over a year ago now, in October of 2011. And we launched it to address the vast gender venture funding gap. And as I mentioned, you know, at the time we were beginning, what it looked like then was that women were— women-only founded companies were getting about 2.3% of all venture capital.

Yeah.

And even if you looked at companies with— and I know, Anne, I'm speaking to the choir here. I know you know all of this. Share with the audience here, to reinforce facts that they may also know.

Yeah.

Even any company with even one woman founder on it who's on the cap table or has equity in a meaningful way had only another 10%.

Exactly.

So 10% plus 2%, 12% goes to any company with even one woman founder on it.

Yeah.

And in contrast, male-only founding teams were getting 88% of all venture capital. And as venture was growing as an asset class, the situation was getting worse.

Yeah.

And one of the reasons I'll cite here now is that, um, you know, the dollars that were coming into the asset class were going into growth-stage companies and funds, And as such, you know, if you don't get invested in, in the early stages of your company, you're not likely to get to the growth stage.

Yeah.

Because, you know, money is the fuel that will fuel, you know, any number of things— innovation, growth, et cetera. So this is something I cared about deeply. I had, as you know, Anne, served for over a decade as the president of the North American jury for Cartier Women's Initiative Awards. And during that time, Cartier is a really visionary company with an amazing agenda to support women, in particular women innovators who are bringing real impact to the world. Over the decade, I saw extraordinary women with extraordinary innovations from all around the world. So just give you one example of one that particularly frustrated me, but you know, I could, you know, spend the whole podcast telling stories about the women because they were really wonderful. A young lady who not only had developed a technique for building a human organ out of a patient's own stem cells. But she had gotten it patented. She had gotten regulatory approval in Europe. In fact, she had gotten, um, you know, mobilized. She had created a company. She had mobilized doctors and medical experts willing and eager to deploy it and, and also mobilize hospitals and clinics who wanted to, um, deploy it.

Mm-hmm.

And still was not able to get funding. It was crazy. So after Cartier's wonderful, you know, non-dilutive grants that they give out in their competition, when we went to try to help her find funding among— I mean, it was just incredible. And I had such a strong feeling that if we were to— if a man of a comparable profile to hers, which was highly educated, she had 5 degrees, she was so impressive.

Of course. Yeah.

So articulate, so impressive, you know, walked in the room, wrote the idea on a napkin and said, here's my idea. He probably would have gotten fired, you know, and here she's done all this hard work. And then on top of it, one of the beautiful things, you know, I, as I heard her pitch, I kept thinking, what is it that motivates this young lady? How is she so motivated? How is she so focused on this? And I was imagining that she must have had a grandparent, a beloved grandparent who, uh, you know, perhaps passed away because they couldn't get an organ in time. Because, you know, millions of people die every year from not being able to get on these organ lists and not being able— and/or even if they're on the list, not get the organ in time. And instead she said to me— so I said to her, Eleni, why are you doing this? What— how are you so passionate about this? And she said, when I was 11, I got liver cancer.

Oh my God.

And I almost didn't make it.

Wow.

And ever since, I've been obsessed with organs. And as an investor, I don't know about you, but as an investor, that's exactly the kind of entrepreneur I want to invest in.

Exactly.

I want to invest in someone who's never going to give up.

She'll never give up.

She, you know, I mean, she said it herself. She's obsessed with organs. She understands at the most elemental level, the most primal level, how important this is. And so for the rest of us, here is someone who is so fantastic and not getting funded. Uh, and we are missing out.

Yeah.

She's not missing. Well, yeah, she's missing out at some level, but we're all missing out. The rest of us. Yeah. The world is missing out on this opportunity to really advance medical technology in this particular space. So this is just one of many stories I could, I could tell, but this, this is really what I felt passionate and do feel passionate about still is funding women's innovation because we bring different insights to the table. We bring different kinds of solutions. Women are absolutely problem solvers and we solve problems in many ways, different ways than men, and we're solving some different problems than men are looking at solving. So for all of those reasons, I think it's critical that, you know, we fund women innovators. And can you— that's what motivated us.

Can you remember the name of the startup? Because I think it's good to give her a shout out here.

Sure. Yeah. So she has pivoted because she's built out a team that helped her. In the end, it took her a long, long time, but she had gotten funding. In the beginning, the company was called Donors Without Transplants. It's now got a— frankly, because it happened about 3 years afterwards, I don't actually know the name. It's a much more medical name, for lack of a better—

Like Team LaGuardia.

Yeah. That was a very descriptive name and it was a very apt name. name, but they did pivot. They did do a few different things. They narrowed it down to a couple of segments of organs to begin with. And so that drove the naming. And I regret that I don't actually have the current name, but—

What's her name though? Can you remember?

Eleni Antoniaoudu. And she's wonderful.

Because I will add—

She's one of many wonderful—

I will add the website in the show notes because I always like to— I think it's super important that I'm so glad that you did that is we have to shout out the incredible women entrepreneurs who persist. Yet she persisted.

Yeah, she persisted. And she and so many others and doing so many other great things, fighting climate change, you know, working on medical solutions, you know, coming up with, you know, in special needs communities, identifying needs and solving them, whether, you know, I mean, I just, my mind is flashing back like your life would flash back, you know. I just think about how many extraordinary women doing wonderful things. I've seen saving water.

SaveWater.co. Yeah.

Katie Anderson from Houston, Texas. Just incredible woman. She was Uberizing the whole, you know, plumbing industry in effect by, you know, there's a thing where plumbers will go in, you know, mom-and-pop shops and go in and, you know, sort of fix your plumbing and, you know, eliminate your leaks. Well, she said, wait, why are we doing it this way? We should go out there. We should see where the leakage is. We should measure it. And then we should not only just fix it, we should pre— you know, figure out the ways to preempt it. And she's been doing that. So she was sending out, you know, armies of plumbers to go into a commercial building on behalf of the owner, saving a lot of water and saving the owner a lot of money.

Yeah.

In the process, but also then taking all the measurements so we can actually see what the improvements are and how to make them and which, which, you know, technology is, you know, creating better savings than others and so on and so forth. So she was, I always said she was like Uberizing the water technology business, but she's done an amazing job. I just could name so many different women, you know, women who came up with solutions for war-torn zones or, you know, like disaster zones, you know, cleaning water or doing, you know, just so many important things that really improve our world. And like I said, few of them finding ways to, you know, it's very much more difficult for them than it's been for men to get funding to—

I mean, that makes total sense because it's, again, it's what you said about you want to help fund women's innovation. So those innovative women who are bringing, you know, real change to whatever the problem is. So tell us a bit more about— continue the story about the Billion Dollar Fund for Women. So you said that it kicked off in October.

Yeah, so kicked off, yeah. We found out that the World Bank was going to host a blended finance forum around the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs. And we also found out that at the time, and this was just a few months before the actual meeting, the World Bank meetings that were going to be held in Bali a year ago, a little over a year ago, that they had no project partner for number 5, gender equality. Well, I was astonished. I could not believe that the World Bank would even consider hosting anything where they would be excluding inclusion. I said to my friend who told me about it, I said, that's the whole point of number 5. She said, no, I know, but we haven't found a project partner for, you know, who's met our parameters. So I said, send me the parameters. I know a lot of people, maybe I can help you find somebody. Because I was just besides myself. This is just the classic example. And she's a very wonderful, passionate woman. And I know it's not for her lack of trying, but that mere idea that that could even be possible is part of the problem.

Exactly.

Like, that shouldn't be, because we all know that when you look at all the 17 SDGs with perhaps one or two exceptions, but you're not even— I don't even know if we have— women are a factor in all of those SDGs. Oh my gosh, you're right. I mean, you want to eliminate poverty, you want to improve family health, you want to improve, you know, anything that's in there in those SDGs.

Yeah.

I mean, women are a critical part of the solution. So how, you know, you could think about— but anyway, it was an opportunity for us. And as I was working with some funds to gender diversify their deal flows, I started getting obsessed with an idea even before I started reaching out to anybody as I was waiting for the parameters. What if I could get some of these funds to pledge to do more for women-founded companies in exchange for which we would promote them at the World Bank meetings and beyond in ways that they couldn't often promote themselves? And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, I, you know, I just felt, you know, literally I was getting obsessed with it. You can ask my husband, but I really was getting obsessed with it. So finally I called my friend back. I said, look, I have this idea. It may sound crazy, but because we're only like less than 2 and a half months away, but I wanna launch the Billion Dollar Fund for Women. And I wanna mobilize a global consortium of venture funds to pledge to do more for women. And, you know, look it, I haven't called a single fund yet, so I don't know what we can actually accomplish in time for the World Bank meetings.

Yeah.

I said, but we will do our best to go with the first $100 million, you know, mobilized, of pledges mobilized. So, you know, she got very excited about that and said, Shelley, it's fantastic. Go, please do it. Of course, not that she had that many options at that point. But listen, you know, timing is everything, right?

But nobody could have stopped you anyway. You were on.

Yeah, I was going to do something about it anyway. So whether I got to do it, you know, announce it at the World Bank meetings or some other place, but that's really how it started. And, you know, after I got off the phone, you know, my amazing and wonderful co-founder, Sarah Chen, who's a 30 Under 30 in Asia, who is just really a rock star. Sarah said to me, Shelley, are you kidding? She said, you just told the world, effectively told the World Bank we're bringing $100 million. I said, no, I told her we couldn't guarantee it, but you know, let's see what we can do. She said, well, what if we don't get it done? And I said, well, look, if we don't, look, if we get $80 million, so we have $80 million more for women. If we have $50 million, we'll have $50 million more for women. Like, what have we got to lose, right?

Yeah.

And she says, Shelley, what if it's zero? I said, well, if it's zero, we call in sick. I don't know. But there's no way it could have been zero with you. I know it. No, no, no. I never, ever, ever, you know, I never doubted that we would find people and fund managers who would do it. You know, whether we could find $1 billion worth of fund managers, that's a bigger deal. But we actually literally thought that that would take us years to mobilize.

In fact.

But the happy news, we can say now looking back on it, so the World Bank meeting that we launched, that was on October 11th. And from the first week of August till October 11th when we announced, we had mobilized over $460 million worth of pledges to be invested through the end of 2020. That's the other big deal. We were looking for change in real time.

Wow.

And we know that venture usually has a 3 to 5 year runway. Or more sometimes. And we've said no, we, you know, it may not be all of your fund that you're deploying, but whatever you deploy against, you know, into women-founded companies, we're only gonna count what's incremental to what you've done already, plus what, you know, what gets invested by 2020.

Amazing. $460 million in pledges. And how many months from August to October?

Less than 2 and a half months.

That is phenomenal. So you must not have slept.

We actually got some of the last pledges while we were there in Bali, you know, by email. We were at midnight. I was like doing some last minute, you know, just trying. I was desperately trying to get over the halfway mark, but, you know, we got very close to the halfway mark.

You sure did.

You know, at multiples. Believe me, no one was more surprised than we were.

Amazing.

No one was more surprised than we were. And I'll just say a quick thing because for, you know, look it, obviously I'm an entrepreneur. You know, you don't do crazy things like this if you're not an entrepreneur and if you're not thinking you know, you're passionate about solving a big problem. And so thinking big was one important thing for us. You know, somebody had proposed to us that we go to the World Bank meetings crowdfunding a $10 million fund for women. And I frankly said, honestly, if you go to a World Bank meeting with a million— a $10 million fund, even though, you know, $10 million more is good, you know, but you're going to get put in the ladies' room and you'll never be heard from again.

Yeah.

You know, you have to think big.

Yeah.

And you may fail big. You know, that's true. You know, you may fail big, but you know, you have to think about what, what, what's important. How do you get there? So anyway, we launched this thing, launched a website, all of that. Um, and, um, you know, hired— so we self-funded all of this and we hired a PR firm to get us into a lot of publications. We ended up having an amazing, lot of PR. We actually generated something like, I can't remember what the number was, but over almost 200 million impressions, like crazy number.

Wow.

We got named later on, we got named by Fast Company magazine as one of the world-changing ideas finalists. And, you know, had wonderful interest from Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, and many regional local publications, all from all over the world. And we have, so that was the midpoint. In June of this year, Anne, as you know because you were there for the announcement, we announced—

Happily, happily.

Yeah, so at the Financial Alliance for Women Annual Summit in Paris, we announced that we had surpassed the billion-dollar mark with, at that time, a consortium of over 70, almost 75 global funds and, you know, funds from all around the world. And today we keep— we have kept getting pledges since then. So we continue to build beyond the billion.

Yeah.

With— now we're at over 80 funds.

Wow.

And though we're not, you know, you know, intently pursuing fund pledges anymore because we're shifting to the second part of our strategy now, which is bringing in LP investors into those funds so we can create a virtuous cycle and an ecosystem that's woman-friendly within the larger ecosystem that's not so woman-friendly.

Can you, can you roll back and just for any of our listeners who don't have all the funding lingo, what does an LP mean?

An LP is a limited partner, and it usually refers to the— whether it's an institution or high net worth individual or any representative thereof, meaning it could be a wealth manager, it could be a family office. On the institutional side, it could be an endowment, a foundation, a retirement fund, sovereign wealth fund. who invest into venture funds or private equity funds.

Okay.

So they're limited partners. Why are they called limited? Because they're not actually the ones making the decisions on what gets invested in other than the overall fund itself.

Yeah.

They do their due diligence on the fund and the way the fund invests and what they're investing in. The fund itself then makes the decisions on, you know, who, what, where, when gets You know, gets the investments, which companies get the investments.

So I think that's important because that's part of the objective of this podcast, is to help demystify the funding part and to make sure that we understand. So you've moved— so if I've understood correctly, you've moved now from the Billion Dollar Fund for Women to Beyond the Billion because you've— the first part of your strategy was to, A, to raise the money through the pledges and get You know, mobilize everybody through that consortium. And what an incredible idea already to do it by consortium. And talking about networks, and you mentioned me earlier, and it makes me smile because you're incredible. You've got an incredible network yourself, but it's just testament to you. I mean, it's— I really— huge kudos. And I'm so glad on this podcast that more listeners are going to hear about this because, you know, we need the word to get out there. So tell us more. You've raised a billion in record time.

It's the work of networks, because— thank you so much, it's very kind of you to And I know that, you know, I have some really wonderful people in my network, yourself most notably, but many, many others who have been very helpful. But it's also about people feeling so inspired about what we were doing and feeling like it's about time somebody raises this issue in a very big way on global stages. And we were traveling around the world talking about this and promoting it. doing PR around it and so forth, that they said, yeah, I want to be a part of this. Oh, and P.S., I have 5 funds that I can refer to you. And on and on and on, like people really taking up the banner as much of their own banner. And I think that, you know, when we, when we look to accomplish big things, we need to know that it's all about how we engage not just our own networks but other people's networks too.

Yeah.

You know, if you've got something, if you've got an idea or a problem you're solving that inspires people, people will step up. I mean, people look, you know, we're all looking for meaning in our lives. We're all looking to be relevant and important and know that when we put out some effort that something good is coming out of it. It's not just, it's certainly not about money. For us, of course, in this first year, all self-funded, it was definitely not about the money. Going in only one direction, that was out. But anyway—

You're the real entrepreneur. I mean, this is more than Uber Bootstrapped. Let's use entrepreneurial language.

Super bootstrapped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were bootstrapping for sure. You know, we did have the help financially, I should say, of some great partners and sponsors, as you know, because we launched something that we weren't going to launch right away. But when we saw ourselves accelerating on the fund side so rapidly, I mean, we literally thought it would be a multi-year effort, but we had come up with this idea of the Billion Dollar Breakfast.

Yes.

Which was bringing together the GP managers of the funds themselves.

Okay, so Paul, who are GPs?

So GPs are general partners.

Yeah.

They are essentially why sometimes you might refer to them as the VCs. They are the ones who are actually either at the top of the decision-making tree or they are the ones actually making the decisions.

Perfect.

And they're the ones who have the active responsibility of deciding on where does this capital go.

Yeah, perfect. 'Cause my mother listens to this podcast and she's not gonna like it. She'll wanna know.

And I want your mother to know 'cause your mother's important. We appreciate her and appreciate her daughter so much. So anyway, yeah, so—

The Billion Dollar Breakfast, you were saying.

Yeah, so the Billion Dollar Breakfast is an idea we had to bring together general partners of venture funds, limited partners, LPs of a prospective investor fund that would invest into the funds. so that there'd be more capital to be invested into women-founded companies. And so we called, as I said, the Billion Dollar Breakfast. We launched the first one at South by Southwest last March. It was a small gathering as we'd intended. We wanted this to be a more intimate group. It was about 34 people.

Yeah.

And we only had one, and it was in Austin. So if you're familiar with South by Southwest, it's a big tech event. Many investors come to it. We only had one Austin-based fund, and they're amazing, True Wealth Ventures, Sarah Brand and Carrie Rupp, extraordinary women doing extraordinary investments and supporting amazing women innovators. But beyond that, we had several funds that were attending South by and who also attended. And then we got JP Morgan to underwrite the breakfast.

Amazing.

So this was all a long way of saying we did, of course, have support from numbers of individuals, but also numbers of organizations who underwrote some of our events. So first one was JPMorgan, second one was Paul Hastings, our law firm.

Yeah.

Third was Cartier Women's Initiative, which had 2 events for us in San Francisco. Fourth, then we did 2 in Canada with EY as the big sponsor.

Yeah.

With some of our amazing fund partners in Canada. Then we did the final of the 7 last year in Paris, the one that you attended. which was underwritten by AXA, the large insurance company, and at the Financial Alliance for Women Annual Summit, which I'm also on the board of. So it was a wonderful, you know, wonderful set of gatherings. Each one brought their own, you know, pluses. It does seem like while it was, you know, it was a very experimental period, let's say, you know, there are some constructive actual investments. I believe at least 2 investments have been made and some constructive conversations going on. And we have ideas now from having hosted those. You know, as with all entrepreneurial initiatives, we've learned some things about what to do going forward to make some of those gatherings actually more productive for both the fund managers and the LPs, you know, who are looking for gender diversification in their portfolios.

I like what— like, just pausing in one instance on When you were mobilizing the pledges for the first billion, what were your key challenges in raising that, in getting that money together? Because I think it's important to explain that it's not like— explain you don't have an actual pot of money with a billion in it, but you've got really key pledges from the key players who said they're going to do it. So what challenges did you come across yourself? I mean, you're connected, you know everybody.

Yeah.

But you still had challenges, so—

Yeah, well, certainly. Well, you know, look at what— you know, we started out by trying to create something for the funds that was super simple, made it— making it easy for them to say yes.

Yeah.

And so that it wouldn't, you know, hassle them. They wouldn't have to go through a big process, whatever, whatever. I mean, for us, and because we were smaller, you know, initially it was largely me and Sarah. There were a couple of other folks involved, you know, on the margins who were referring people to us or whatever. But it started out with me and Sarah. Eventually we did, you know, I do want to highlight because we just went through kind of the different— I was talking about Canada and Europe and this and that. You know, we then deputized some people. So in Canada, we have an amazing, a couple of amazing leads. Well, we have Lali Ramantia with Quantius Capital based in Toronto, who's our Canadian lead. who in early days, you know, very generously offered to host something for us. This is one of the people I'm referring to when I say people who got inspired and excited.

Mm-hmm.

Did so on the turn of a dime, brought in about 15 GPs to an event like unbelievably quickly. They were in turn so enthusiastic, they all wanted to do things. And I went back to my hotel room in Toronto and I thought, wait, am I gonna try to recreate all their networks and their circles? That's crazy. They've spent, you know, a long time building, you know, their reputations so that people would, you know, take recommendations from them and so forth. And I thought, why don't I just like deputize Lolly and one of BY's partners at that point? And, you know, because she's already gotten both the network and obviously the respect because they would come on a short notice.

Exactly.

And a number of others sent notes saying, hey, we love this idea, we'd love to hear more, but we can't come, you know, make it on short notice. And when I sent her the note at midnight as I got back to my hotel room, like something like 12:03, she sent me— I was saying, would you consider being deputized? You know, we've got the website, we've got, you know, the pledge forms, we've got, you know, all of what it takes. And she immediately, literally 12:03, writes me back an email saying, yes, absolutely, would love to do that. You know.

Amazing.

So she became our Canadian lead. You know, Canada is our first partner country. Yeah, she— the next morning at 9:00 a.m., there's a note out to all the funds, both those who came and those who couldn't come, saying, hey, you all heard about this, here's the link to the website, and, you know, we are gonna be the, you know, building all the funds for women's first country fund.

She got frustrated!

She was like on it. And so again, it's recognizing that where there's energy, where there's spirit. So I'm highlighting this because before I get into what the challenges were, I just want to highlight But for every challenge we faced, we had happily, luckily so many people who were positive, enthusiastic, and helpful. And you know, what's clear is that the road to success is not sort of, you know, paved with the ones that have good intentions but don't do anything. No, the opposite. The road to success is to follow those and follow that positive energy and go with the flow, as you might say.

Yeah. Yeah.

Where people are saying yes. And sure, some people say no and some people have objections or some people have concerns or some people say, oh, we already do that, whatever. You know, we had all of that. And I'll tell you one conversation I had with a big European fund manager that, and how it went. But anyway, but for the most part, you know, besides telling the challenges is to know that number one thing, be thoughtful about what you're asking them to do. Be specific about what you're asking them to do.

Yeah.

Yeah. And make it easy for them to say yes.

Yes.

And hopefully make it at some level inspiring for them to engage.

Yes.

You know, beneficial to them personally maybe, but also, you know, a sense of accomplishment as well as just good for my business, or, you know, kind of in a more functional, pragmatic way. Nothing wrong with that, but yeah.

I love it. And basically what you've described is how you create a movement, Shelley.

Right.

Absolutely precious advice. You see, everybody, listeners, you get incredible nuggets on these podcasts, and that's why I just love it. Let's catch those nuggets. Amazing. So now that you were building— when you were building that movement, so tell us, do tell us now. You've warmed us up to some of the challenges, so you have to give us some of those challenges.

Right, okay, I will happily give you the challenges. Well, you know, so when funds were less inclined, first of all, So just to be clear, we were strategic in our targeting.

Yes.

Started out obviously with our whole— our own circles, not all of whom said yes either, but at least, you know, we didn't need the warm intro 'cause we already knew these people. So Sarah had, you know, moved here from Asia. She was well-connected from having worked in corporate venture in Asia. So she was well-connected in Asia and was reaching out to all her Asian funds as a starting point. And today we have 15 Asian funds.

Amazing.

Yeah. And then I started out with my mostly US funds. I had a couple of overseas as well. And they in turn referred. But even some of the ones we knew, including some of the ones I was working with to gender diversify their deal flows and saying, this is gonna raise your profile, it's gonna help you. We didn't go after some of the big ones. And though a couple of big ones we did go after 'cause we knew them personally.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, essentially said, you know, they really didn't need us to promote them because they were already very high profile, number one. Number 2, they felt— a couple of them felt like, you know, we feel like we're making good progress or we already have a high proportion of women-founded companies. From their point of view, that's what they said. So, you know, you're not gonna dissuade them.

Yeah.

But I will tell you, I'll just share one conversation 'cause I think it's a very important one and I use it a lot. You know, I tell about it a lot, obviously, without naming the fund manager. So, as I— we had a Canadian lead, we also had an— we have an amazing European lead, Anne, I believe you met her, Natalie Nebelius. She's an incredible nominee.

Oh yes.

Shout out.

Woo-hoo, Natalie!

Natalie is an amazing Swedish woman based in Berlin, has worked for a decade with clean tech funds for the most part, but an array of funds and really knows the scene. And without her, number one, we would never have gotten our 16 European funds. And secondly, we certainly wouldn't have gotten them in time to achieve the billion in time for the Financial Alliance for Women Summit where we had, you know, it was planned to be announcing. Yay, Natalie. She's, she was just really super critical to us in terms of— but one of the fund managers Natalie reached out to, I didn't even think we were going to have a call with him because his immediate response back by email was kind of negative. You know, no, we, we, we, uh, you know, we deal with women absolutely equitably. You know, we treat them equally like the men.

Okay.

That's what he said. But she did get him to get on a call. And the very first thing he says after saying, hi, Shelley, nice to talk to you. He said, well, Shelley, I need to let you know that when a woman comes through our doors, she gets treated absolutely as equally as men. And I said to him, that is phenomenal. I am so excited to hear that. I mean, I just think that's terrific. So how many women-founded companies have you invested in?

Exactly.

Radio silence.

Yep.

No answer. Now, I had actually looked at the portfolio on their website. It's not that hard to figure out.

Yeah.

And I had researched them. I'd gone on their websites to see, oh, well, you know, he told us in the email that they treat women absolutely as equally as men. So I'm expecting to see quite a few women-founded companies on there. And guess what? I couldn't find them. Then I thought, well, maybe they're more recent investments and they're not yet on the website. Maybe there's a good reason they're not there. You know, give the man the benefit of the doubt, right? Once I'm getting on the call with him and Then I said to him, well, you know, I said, so, you know, that's great if you're treating women, you know, like a— I said, well, let me ask you this. I said, what does it take for a woman to get to and through your doors?

Yeah.

Because we know, and you know this deeply well from all the conversations and all the people you know and have helped, that so many of the barriers that women face happen long before they get in the room. Because they don't have the networks and/or the people to refer them and introduce them, or for many other reasons, or they don't have the understanding of how to get there or whatever. But we know that quite a lot of barriers happen. So, you know, the key question is, what does it take to get to and through your doors?

Hmm.

And then once they get through your doors, if you guys internally are doing an amazing job of, you know, just absolutely offering the best kind of reception, to every venture-backable company that is coming in your doors, well, that's amazing. But just understand that, you know, a lot of that— what should we call it? You know, not to call it bias, but the bias.

I mean, the unconscious bias in a lot of it.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, the happy news is he did make a pledge after that.

Yes.

And it was clear to me that he wouldn't have. And I think that that's—

Good on him. Good on him for doing that.

Yeah, good on him. But the point being, don't take no for an answer in the sense that be informed, have a conversation, try to understand, and, you know, without totally embarrassing someone.

Yeah, exactly. That's a fine line.

But, you know, at least, at least, you know, share your wisdom, share the insights you may have that they may not have that will maybe at least help them move closer to making that decision. They may or may not have made that decision, but, you know, and we had more than, you know, that's come up a number of times, you know, that. So the other big— so there are 3 main reasons we hear why they don't. One is we're already doing a great job, which, you know, may or may not be true, but, you know, in their perception and, you know, if they're meeting their own needs.

Yeah.

A way to have that conversation for us was you know, like you heard from the one I just shared, is just trying to get an understanding of what their goals were around gender diversification. I mean, if 2% was okay with them, maybe they were doing a great job.

Hmm.

Um, so you can't, you know, you're not gonna, you know, TBD. And the other response to that, by the way, also is when you see, uh, someone, a fund, which is almost all the funds, have— having room to improve, is being well-versed not just in what I just shared, but also in the returns and the research around the returns. Because as our first fund that signed on to us in Canada, Marigold Capital, led by a fantastic visionary guy named Jonathan Hara, who then hosted our second event in Toronto, he organized it, he and his business partner Abby Slater. He said to the audience of about 30, at this point we had 30 or 35 even, GPs, this was heads of funds, most of whom were not yet signed to us. Now have, many of them have. He said to them, look, if you care nothing about parity or equity, you have to understand that women, gender diverse teams, as with all things, deliver better results.

Exactly.

And that's no less true in the investment world.

Exactly.

And women are the most undervalued asset in the world. So understand this is a huge arbitrage opportunity. And recent research has proven him out.

Exactly.

Because what we see is that, you know, when we look at like one of the pieces of recent research is First Round Capital, a top 10 US venture fund, did a 10-year retrospective of over 350 of their funds. And what it showed was that companies that either were gender-diverse founding teams and/or women-only founding teams did 63% better than their male-only founding teams over the course of a decade.

And that's, that's, that's— it's so important that we actually share the empirical evidence. This is exactly the track record of a leading VC fund over 10 years, right? So that's very, very substantial, and 63% is just incredible. And that's what we need to we need to keep sharing those type of statistics.

Exactly, exactly.

The same as the new research that just came out this autumn about— from Boston Consulting Group about the fact that women entrepreneurs are now estimated to be, you know, funding more women entrepreneurs is estimated to be a $5 trillion opportunity, and that would add 6%, up to 6% to global GDP. And those are the things like that we put forward as well on our communications and the importance I say, you know, we're not— before, Shelley, and I'm saying it to the listeners here, before I kept talking an awful lot more about the funding gap because when I first started out in 2013 it was $300 billion. Now, as you and I know and our listeners know from my first episode, it's now $1.7 trillion. That's only in 6 years. That's how it's gotten worse. And I decided to kind of reframe the conversation exactly like you've you just described earlier on in this podcast, around— less around the fact, here's the funding gap, what can we do to change it, to, this is the size of the opportunity. We're talking about a $5 trillion opportunity. Let's focus on that, and to mobilize everybody towards, well, you know, to the key stakeholders in this ecosystem to bring about change.

Right.

And so now with Beyond the Billion, Bring us into Beyond the Billion. So, Billie, you started to say that it's about mobilizing the LPs, so the investors who put the money— the moneybags, if you will, a nice term— into the funds to be invested. So how are you mobilizing them, and what's behind Beyond the Billion?

Thanks for asking. Yeah, so first of all, let me just make clear that we're starting a new cohort of venture fund even before we get to the LPs. So, you know, the first class, if you will, or cohort of venture funds is now investing the funds that they've pledged through next year. And obviously, the closer we get to next year— we're now just a matter of days away from next year.

Yeah.

End of the decade, end of the year. And they will have another year to invest that. The, you know, the smaller our pledges we're getting. So we're launching a new cohort. And the new cohort will launch on January 1st and we will— and we'll have a longer runway.

Yeah.

Because it'll give us also time to shift our focus to the LPs.

Yes.

And bring them in and, you know, use that timeframe of the— so it will be— go from the beginning of 2020 through the end of 2023. So that's number one, we're launching a new cohort.

Yeah.

The second thing we're doing is building on some of the successes we've had with the Billion Dollar Breakfast.

Mm-hmm.

We have been in conversations with well over a dozen LPs, some of whom are significant-sized wealth advisors, others who are wealth managers in financial institutions, others are institutional investors themselves, and, and some family office, high-net-worth types. and foundations to, you know, to create these opportunities to connect the GPs and the LPs.

Mm-hmm.

So whether it's a billion-dollar breakfast, whether it's a trip. So we, you know, we're potentially gonna have a partnership here with a company that does trips for GPs. They just came back from the Nordics where they'll bring a group of GPs and to meet over 4 days in 4 of the Nordic countries with LPs in those countries. You know, again, LPs that, you know, if you were in the US or Canada or Asia, you yourself wouldn't likely have access to.

Yeah.

Things like that. So we're looking at lots of different strategies, you know, that build on the— providing connectivity, let's say, between the GPs and the LPs in a way that's meaningful around gender diversity, gender-smart investing.

Yeah.

And then a third strategy is to facilitate other kinds of information connectivity because what we're seeing is that, so whether it's through a platform and/or just awareness of you know, where the opportunities are, not only for direct investments, but then also for co-investments. So we're facilitating, we're creating some opportunities to facilitate co-investments with our current funds, which again will draw more capital into our funds. And I think also be, I don't wanna call them training wheels, but, you know, be introductory steps for some LPs to establish relationships with the GPs.

Mm-hmm.

where they may not, for all kinds of reasons, size and, you know, concentrations. I mean, there are all kinds of like technical reasons without getting into all that here, where an LP might have an interest in but not have an ability to invest, particularly in one fund or whatever.

Mm-hmm.

And so, we'll be rolling some of those things out throughout the year. I mean, those deals are not all done, but we see many kinds of opportunities to essentially expand capital or draw more capital into funds that will invest in women. And, and that's what we're doing right now. And we've been on this exploratory path, but that's what Beyond the Billion is about. It's first and foremost, let's not cap ourselves anymore. You know, billion is a big number, but it's not a big enough number.

It was a starting point.

It's a starting point.

A major one too.

Yeah, and a major one. And we had no idea we would get there so quickly. But the important thing is that You know, it's a first step in really drawing more capital into the ecosystem for venture-backable women-founded companies.

Amazing. And I mean, congratulations. I think it's fantastic. You know, I'm more than even behind you. I'm with you all the way on all of this and will help you in any way possible to get the word out there. I'm so glad that you're doing this. And so can you tell us more now just about how you help How can you help funds reach more female founders? And then how can more female founders contact the funds? Because that's a question I'm sure you get every single day. It's like, okay, wow, there's 85 funds here. Okay, where can I get the money?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I have to say that our mechanism right now— first of all, you know, we don't have the bandwidth unfortunately, to refer all of the great female founders that we would like to. But what we— all of the venture funds that have pledged are all featured on there under our fund partners. Yep, I saw that. And we are going to build in a mechanism where you can— you, entrepreneur, founder, whatever, or you ecosystem player— can at least screen for geography, size of investments, and stage of investments. And sector, sorry, sector.

Yeah, amazing.

So because currently we have, I think, you know, we have, as I mentioned, you know, 15 funds in Asia, 16 in Canada, 18 in Europe, 3 Middle East, North Africa, 2 Sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest are mostly in the US, about 35 of them.

Amazing.

And, and, and that's growing. Yeah, so it's a chance at least to say, hey, I'm a company in France, you know, so look at some of the funds that are investing in Europe. And then start, you know, and we're in the healthcare space or life sciences or we're in, you know, cannabis or cyber or whatever it may be, 'cause we have funds investing across the spectrum of, you know, for the most part, we do not have, to my knowledge, I may be corrected, Sarah may correct me, but we don't have— well, no, that's not true. We have 2, certainly a couple of our Asian funds invest in fashion and beauty and e-commerce, but not exclusively. But across the spectrum of our funds, we have aerobotics, agtech, cleantech, fintech, cyber, cannabis, as I said, blockchain, you know, most of the categories of technology that, you know, are hot now. Life sciences, all kinds of pharma. Yeah, all of the above. So, and because women are innovating in all those spaces.

Amazing. And I think that's That in itself. So, so listeners, if you're a female founder, check the show notes because we'll be putting all the links that Shelley has very kindly mentioned on this episode. Check out Beyond the Billion website and you will see the list of all the funds who have pledged into that billion-dollar fund because it's going to make your life so much easier because all of these funds that Shelley and Sarah and her teams have brought together, they have pledged to invest in female founders. So, you know, this is gonna make your lives easier, at least when you're targeting. Nobody's saying that you, just 'cause they're on that list, that they're gonna fund you. We're not saying that.

Yeah.

Because like anything else, it's not just a question of, you know, just because you're a woman entrepreneur, suddenly these funds are gonna do it. But it's always, you know, again, reducing the knowledge gap, the network gap, Shelley, is what you're doing. It's helping to connect to a much more targeted list of investors who already are serious about investing in female founders, and that is an incredible thing already. So that's awesome.

Yeah. And so, yeah, and the one thing— the one caveat I want to put there, I mean, and one of the things, you know, you and I connected early on when you— not very long after you launched your company, because I was so impressed with the fact that one of the things that you were helping founders understand is that there's a full spectrum of funding.

Yes.

And funding is very much of a journey. And I love the part of your website that, you know, takes people through the funding journeys of women who've raised a lot of capital and also of venture investors who've invested in a lot of female-founded companies. And I think having an understanding of that, that spectrum of funding, which anybody can get on your website very well, is critical because I have emphasized, and I trust that listeners here have picked up on the fact, what I emphasize here is that these are funds that will back venture-backable women-founded businesses. What does that mean? It usually means a business, a woman who's got a very big vision.

Yeah.

Who's already created significant traction against that vision, maybe already generating revenues, if not, you know, not as they say profits yet, although sometimes profits as well.

Yeah.

So, so there's still gonna be, you know, criteria that it won't be for everybody. So I wanna manage the expectations here. But the good news is, when you— as you go through your funding journey and you're ready for venture and you want venture, and again, not all companies, you know, should have venture because sometimes you can grow your company to a significant size.

Like Sara Blakely. She did it all herself. Right.

Sara Blakely or, um, I'm trying to think of the Stitch Fix.

Yes, yes.

Yeah. I can't remember her name now. Katrina Lake.

Yes, thank you, thank you.

Katrina Lake has an incredible story about how she couldn't get venture funding and she had already a sizable business and she still couldn't get venture. But this is for if you're getting there, if you have a path to get there, then, and remember, you know, you've got grants, non-dilutive grants before. You've got angel networks, you've got crowdfunding, you've got all these different mechanisms that you should look through and, and, and figure out what's the best fit for where you are.

Yeah.

And if and when you're ready for venture, that absolutely what Anne said, what we're hoping to do is create this ecosystem for you at that point to say that, hey, we have demonstrated, kind of like the story I told about Lainey Antoniadou, she already had traction. She already showed that. Similarly with Katie Anderson in Houston with her SaveWater.co.

They were just right, perfect. They just needed the right VCs to back them.

Exactly, exactly. And we've got some great ones.

So, so what would you say— now I'm gonna ask you the key questions I ask all of our guests— what needs to change in the funding world for women entrepreneurs? What needs What needs to change in the funding game?

You know, on both sides of the table, things need to change.

Yep.

But let's highlight what, you know, what I highlighted a little bit of what needs to change on the side of women. And that's, you know, women are amazing. And I was talking about changing the paradigm. And, you know, that's been my hashtag for a long time, change the paradigm, because I don't think we need to change women. I think we need to change the paradigm. And it took me, look, as an entrepreneur, I needed to come to the realization of what would it take for me to get funding, uh, as anybody does. Um, so, um, it's a matter of learning. It's not a matter of anything we lack. It's a matter of having a big vision, having, um, you know, plan to realize the vision and then, you know, understanding what my options are as far as funding. On the VC side, on the venture side, which is the world that we work in.

Yeah.

Um, there needs to be a more active, intentional path to gender-diversifying deal flows.

Yeah.

And again, you know, whatever your motivation is, whether it's to simply improve your returns, that's okay. Personally, I don't really care why you do it as long as you do it. For others, it's, it's being inspired by the innovations that women are bringing to the marketplace. And those 2 things are not unrelated.

Yeah.

When women are demonstrating and why women are delivering higher returns is because they're solving big problems that haven't been solved by men yet and/or might never be solved by men because of the different life experiences that we have, the different ideas and insights and the different ways we see a problem and solve problems. So, so, you know, I think that VCs need to come to the realization that Jonathan Hara had, which is that, oh my God, this is an incredible opportunity. I don't even have much competition in the space because, you know, these other guys are crazy. They're not realizing the returns they could be realizing here as well as—

Arbitrage opportunity. Yeah. I mean, when you say, oh, it's arbitrage. Oh, I'm interested.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, I think that needs to change. And, you know, that's— that is also a role at some level that we're playing in terms of connecting and educating and trying to provide some visibility into how and why that's happening.

Yeah. And so any practical key tips then that you would give to, to the female funders who are currently fundraising? Because you've mentioned, you know, you've got to learn this game, you've got to have a big vision, you've got to have a plan to realize it and understand your different funding options and what's right for you. Any other last Key tips that you say you just—

Yeah, so when you— and, and I know, I know that you, uh, frame this often in many of your conversations, but I'll just reiterate something. I think it is important. It's, it's important in any cold sales experience, which is what a pitch is.

Yep.

Uh, you got to know your audience because, you know, we get asked a lot, you know, how can I best prepare for, uh, for, you know, pitching a VC? And, you know, first I say go to Global Investor because they'll be— there are a lot of, uh, there are a lot of resources there to help you figure that out. But, you know, I think, I think one of the top things is understand who your audience is and what they care about.

Yeah.

You know, what is it that they care about? And in our case, we knew that even when there would be a motivation to engage because they believed in gender diversity and improved returns, we had to keep it super simple.

Yeah.

We had to keep it— we had to understand what the demands on them were.

Yeah.

And make it easy for them to say yes. And you can only do that if you understand your audience.

Yes.

You know what they're up against, if you know what the demands on their lives are like.

Yes.

And their professional lives I'm talking about as well.

Yes, very good advice. And then on the other, on the other side of the table, what advice would you give to investors out there?

Well, kind of what we've been talking about. I mean, if you're not already gender diversifying your deal flow, then you're missing out.

Yeah.

I mean, whatever sector you're in, and if generating deal flow, which is one of the challenges we've heard, you know, the, oh, I just can't find the deal flow, do what one of our earliest supporters did. So let me tell you the story about Gobi Partners. And I can tell you, you know, we do not— one of the principles, and I told you we keep the pledge super simple. It's a dollar amount that they will pledge, that they will invest through 2020, but beyond that, You know, we do not reveal the individual amount of a pledge. We aggregate them all because our philosophy is we're not here to blame and shame. We're here to inspire positive action.

Yes.

And so we're not looking— if you fall short of fulfilling your pledge, you know, we understand that can happen. And in fact, because venture is not a science, it will happen in some cases. But what we— so we don't, we don't usually reveal our pledges. But what— if a fund chooses to reveal its pledge, then we will amplify it. You know, some funds have seen it, you know, see it as beneficial to their business. And guess what? It is, because it drives deal flow and it gives them attention as a visionary progressive firm and whatever other benefits they get from it.

Yeah.

So one of our early Asian funds, Gobi Partners, amazing fund, $1.1 billion fund at the time, it was 16 years old, now it's 17 years old. had done very little investing into women-founded companies, but the handful that they had done over 16 years had done very well for them, including one that had recently exited at the time we approached them about making a pledge.

Mm-hmm.

And they said, yes, please, we want more of this. This is good stuff, but we don't, you know, like, we don't have the deal flow. So guess what they did? So not only did they choose to publicize that they were gonna make a pledge, And so their pledge, I can tell you, it was $50 million.

Wow.

They came to Bali to have a signing ceremony with us and they brought TV crews and, you know, like we had a huge, you know, party around like this whole thing. That's part one. But more importantly, or as importantly, they hired one of their successful females who had exited as their portfolio manager because they said, look, here's a woman. She knows how to build a company. She knows how hard it is. She knows what it takes. She knows what it takes to get funded. She knows what it takes to have an exit. And guess what? She's well embedded into the Asian women's entrepreneurship community, and in particular Southeast Asia where they wanted to invest.

How clever! And I'm so glad you shared that example because that's the other excuse we hear. There's not a pipeline of—

Well, let me tell you that a year in, she is— I mean, we talked to her last, I think about 2 months ago, and she was what, 35, 40% invested already.

Wow.

I mean, you know, at the snap of her fingers, she knew who she was, you know, she already knew. I mean, of course she went through due diligence. Of course she double-checked their financials.

She would have had her network, you see, that would have been different.

Who are the hot companies out there where there were women-founded companies who were ready for venture?

And who would trust her because she's one of them.

And who she could be helping with their networks too.

Exactly.

Of course there's that as well. Exactly.

Amazing.

So, so, so they're doing very well. And, you know, for those who are saying they can't find the deal flow, you know, my answer is, you know, hire a smart woman to get the job done. And I guarantee you, she will find the deal flow. Because 80% of our GPs are— the managers of our funds are women.

Yeah.

People of color or both.

Yeah.

And the ones who have said yes, let me tell you, very few of them are telling us they can't find the deal flow.

Yeah.

And we're talking about pledges that range from $1 to $100 million to be done over 2 years.

No more excuses is what we're saying.

Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, that, you know, when you're asking me what would I tell a VC, you know, you're missing out if you don't do it. And if you have these excuses, there are strategies for overcoming them. And the proof is in the pudding of all these, you know, funds that— now, you know, most of our funds are not gender lens funds. A handful are, but, you know, gender lens fund being fund that invests all the time in women-founded companies. Most of our funds, that's a part of, but they recognize that not only is it a good thing to do, but it's a smart thing to do for their returns, for their, for their other investors. So anyway.

Amazing. Yeah. So wrapping up now, Shelley, how can listeners contact you if they want to learn more about the pledge, more about Beyond the Billion? Maybe—

I will direct them, you know, if you go on our website today, unfortunately, take a look at the website. There'll also be pledge forms on there if you're a fund and if you're a woman entrepreneur, check out the funds we have there, check out the ones that match your thesis. You know, we, as I said, we don't really have the bandwidth to make private introductions for all of our—

Yeah.

You know, for all of the, you know, women founders, female founders who are interested in our funds, but you can find them on our website. And if it looks like a fund that's aligned with what you're doing, Click on it, go to their website, and their website will tell you if they're, you know, if they're a good match for you or not.

Exactly. And I mean, you do have— you don't just have a logo and a link to the website. You explain exactly, you know, what they do. And that's very, very helpful.

And don't hesitate, you know, as you're applying, saying, hey, I found you through the Billion Dollar Fund for Women and Beyond the Billion. And, you know, I'm interested in knowing, you know, what you look for when you fund. Many of them have their, you know, high-level criteria on their website. So you can, you know, research that fairly quickly yourself. And P.S., may I add that you should do that. Again, know who you're talking to.

Yes.

It's really not appreciated. We've heard this back from some funds when they get approached by women who say, oh, you're part of Building the Alpha Fund IV, that's awesome. I, you know, whatever. And then you haven't looked to say, Their criteria that they publish on the website and you don't meet 3 out of, you know, it's not like applying for a job. Don't meet 3 criteria, that's okay, still apply for it. Here, you know, at least be aware of what they're asking for. Don't make notes. Because we have funds at different stages, different sectors, and obviously you want a fund that is keenly interested in and knowledgeable about your sector so they can appreciate what you're doing.

And last but not least, Shelley, how can we put the fun into funding? That's my favorite question.

Yeah, how can we put the fun, F-U-N, into funding? Well, I don't know about you, but for me, there's nothing more fun than knowing that I'm, you know, advancing, hopefully moving the needle somewhat, if not a lot. I mean, we really want to change the ecosystem. We're not happy to get one or two women funded, although we are happy, but, but, but, you know, we There's nothing more rewarding than feeling like that you're making that kind of a difference. And, you know, I encourage everyone to think about, you know, a typical founder, we're so overwhelmed with what we're doing with our own funds that it's sometimes hard to make time or space for anything else.

Mm-hmm.

But we all, of course, have other responsibilities as well beyond our businesses. So, but it's, You know, there's nothing more rewarding than knowing that, you know, you're helping somebody somewhere. And if you're helping a woman who's an amazing innovator bring important things to the table and into the world, for me, that's thrilling and a lot of fun. And P.S., along the journey, you meet incredible people, have incredible opportunities served up to you when you do things like this.

Yeah.

And for me, there's nothing more fun. Yesterday I got to speak at an event called Women Rule.

Yeah.

It's run by Politico, a big publication, big media company here.

Yeah.

Not only did I get to go to the home of the owner of Politico and, you know, the couple that owns Politico, who turned out to be my down-the-street neighbors. I didn't know that before, but, which was really nice to know. and meet amazing people there. But the event yesterday was extraordinary, among others, you know, on the political side, not to mention the corporate side. I mean, it was extraordinary on the corporate side, but on the political side, Nancy Pelosi, who I think everybody here knows is the Speaker of the House here in the US, who is leading the charge for us trying to save our democracy, was there. She's one of my most prominent sheroes after Hillary Clinton. You know, there's Nancy Pelosi and It was such an honor and so exciting to hear her speaking to issues that have been beyond even, you know, the challenges that are going on with the president, but beyond that, just some of the things that the Congress is doing to address the needs of everyday Americans. So, you know, things like that. I mean, that's fun.

That's just fun. It's fun. And I'm glad you shared that because you're right. I mean, creating opportunity for others helps create amazing opportunities for us. too, and for you too. So that's awesome. So yeah, thank you so much, Shelley, for being with us today as our special guest on, on The Investor Podcast. Thank you for sharing about the incredible work you're doing, first with the Billion Dollar Fund for Women and now moving forward with Beyond the Billion. We can't wait to continue the journey with you, to support you, to amplify everything you do. And let's get more women entrepreneurs funded. That's exactly what we're doing.

Totally.

And we're gonna make it happen. So Thank you for everything you do. And for our listeners, catch the show notes. I'm gonna put in there all the links to the incredible resources Shelley mentioned, also to the, the websites of those incredible female founders that she did great shoutouts to. And yeah, go check out the Beyond the Billion website and go check out—

Thank you.

It's amazing.

Thank you, Anne. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it so much.

Take care. Thank you.

All right, thanks everyone.

Thank you. Thank you for listening to InvestHer Podcast. Don't miss more great funding tips and insights by subscribing to the podcast on Apple or your favorite podcast host. And while you're there, I'd love you to rate and review the show. We'd love to hear from you, so if you'd like to send in some questions, interact with our guests, or suggest other great people we should feature, join our community on the Flick InvestHer group. Or send us a message on investherpodcast.com. Want more great resources for female founders about funding? Check out our InvestHer Academy at academy.globalinvesther.com. I'm Anne Ravanona and look forward to having you with us again for our next episode. Let's put the fun into funding and get more women entrepreneurs funded.