A venture capital firm with a $50 million fund has moved its headquarters from New York to Atlanta.
SteelSky Ventures, led by Maria Velissaris, focuses on investing in innovative women’s healthcare startups. Velissaris, who was living in New York, came to visit her brother in Atlanta at the beginning of the pandemic, and she found herself continuing to extend her stay. As she met entrepreneurs and other investors in Atlanta, she decided she wanted SteelSky Ventures to be a part of the budding innovation ecosystem.
It’s a move that makes sense for the firm, Velissaris said, because of its healthcare focus. In addition to Atlanta’s growing technology scene, the city has a strong network of healthcare facilities. Healthcare professionals from that network could become first-time entrepreneurs and create startups that solve healthcare problems that they have experienced.
Inside the fund: SteelSky Ventures invests mostly in seed and Series A rounds with about half the fund reserved for follow-on investments, Velissaris said. The fund’s investors include family offices, global banking institutions and strategic healthcare investors. Velissaris and her team look for startups that “create better access, care or outcomes in women’s health,” she said. The fund has invested in 14 companies around the world with the first fund so far. Atlanta Tech Village startup Motivo, which helps pre-licensed therapists complete their supervision requirements online, is one of their investments.
Why it matters: SteelSky Ventures adds another venture capital firm to Atlanta’s ecosystem, which has long been criticized for its lack of local capital. That trend seems to be changing, according to a report from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association. Atlanta gained 17 new venture capital funds in 2021, totaling more than $1 billion in capital that needs to be invested. That breaks the city’s previous records for new funds, which was $905 million across 11 funds raised in 2019.
Meet Maria: Velissaris started angel investing in women-led healthcare startups after feeling like the sector was being ignored, which led to her starting SteelSky Ventures. “People don’t want to talk about endometriosis and PCOS, but that’s where I thought there could really be an impact made,” Velissaris said. “We want to serve this broader market that has been overlooked for so long.”
Her first foray into entrepreneurship started at Wake Forest University, where she started a shipping and storage company for college students that was bought by U-Haul. After that success, she spent the next 17 years in different roles that taught her all the different facets of running a business. In New York, she joined a dermatologist office and helped grow that practice to one of the largest dermatologist practices in the Northeast.
