The Fund XX, whose founders include a Pittsburgh software entrepreneur, on Thursday announced that the early stage fund staking women-led businesses across the U.S. has reached its first close, meaning it can begin evaluating deals and investing.
The amount raised was not disclosed but the new fund will likely be less than $5 million.
Like The Fund Midwest which spans Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati and Chicago, it is part of The Fund Global, which launched in 2018. The Fund Global includes 500 founders and operators investing in mission-driven, technology-enabled early stage companies.
Some 90% of The Fund XX’s investors are women. These investors essentially serve as a community or ecosystem to quickly bring capital and resources to the entrepreneurs.
"Enabling participation for women investors in preseed and seed companies is a critical area of focus to drive a healthier entrepreneurial ecosystem," Gabriela Isturiz, general partner of The Fund XX, said in a prepared statement. "It is at the earliest stages, when entrepreneurs have nothing but a team and idea, where pattern matching can easily give way to bias. This compounds as less funding and fewer resources undoubtedly play a major role in more well-known stats in the later-stage venture capital, where all-women entrepreneurial teams raised just 2% of all institutional VC dollars."
Isturiz was founder and CEO of Bellefield Systems, a Sewickley-based developer of timekeeping software for lawyers that was acquired by Atlanta-based Aderant almost two years ago. She teamed with three other women who are also tech investors/founders/operators to start The Fund XX.
Pittsburgh investors in the new fund include Evan Segal of Segal Ventures and 412 Venture Fund and Chris McMahon, CEO and president of MFA Wealth. Other investors from across the country include Cary Burch, former senior vice president at Thomson Reuters; Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Gilt co-founder; and Aderant CEO Deane Price.
“Today, less than 3% of VC funding goes to women, and 65% are less likely to get funded at the early stage,” Isturiz said via email. “In addition to that, only 12% of VC decision-makers are women. As you can see, there is a long way to go and that's why I wanted to be part of the change.
