The Starters
Who they are: Strong is a partner with Next Ventures, and an angel investor; Delhagen is founder Oregon Sports Angels and an angel investor
What they do: Created an ad-hoc group of women executives who have retired or left Nike
Membership: 500
Investing: The angel investing is informal and in the early stages
Investment focus: Supporting the new business ventures of members of the group
For more stories on this new generation of investing see the main story here.
Four years ago, a group of 10 Nike alumna launched a casual organization as a way to stay in touch and support one another in their personal, professional and philanthropic endeavors.
The group, open to all Nike alumna, is now 500 women strong and its latest bet is two-fold: helping members fund their own new ventures, and helping members learn the ropes of angel and venture investing.
“There is so much capital that is not being accessed because there are a variety of people, including the people who own that capital, who don’t know how to deploy it to have impact,” said Melanie Strong, a former Nike vice president and now managing partner at Next Ventures and a founder of the group.
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What’s missing, said Strong, are onramps into the investing world for women and people of color. She recalls her male colleagues frequently talking about money and investing and sharing deals with each other.
Strong found her onramp by tapping into the expertise of ex-Nike employees who had moved on to investing: Kate Delhagen, former Nike senior director of global digital business development and founder of Oregon Sports Angels, and Caroline Lewis, former Nike senior director in strategy and operations and partner at Rogue Venture Partners.
Buoyed by their advice, she began investing, writing her first check to the Portland-based women's boxing brand Society 9.
Now, she's hoping that other women in the ad-hoc group of ex-Nike employees can have similar experiences.
“We are excited to be part of something where there are more opportunities for women who are emerging as investors and to better understand what that means and giving them an opportunity to do that in a really safe environment,” Strong said.
One of the latest efforts to spring from the group is its first LLC to invest in a new media company created by one of the members. Roughly 15 members of the group took the opportunity to invest. Delhagen called it a "proof of concept" that could inform future investments.
“Many of them are first time angels. We’re down with helping people all the time with that missionary step of, ‘here’s what an angel does,’ ‘here’s how it works, ‘here’s what you could do with your money,” said Delhagen.
The group purposely set a minimum check size at $10,000, less than the $25,000 minimum that is traditionally seen but enough to make it worthwhile. Most came in at the minimum but some did come in at $15,000 up to $25,000.
The special purpose vehicle created for this investment is being managed by a member based in the Bay Area. The exercise is also an opportunity for someone to learn how to manage a fund, said Delhagen.
For the would-be founders, investors and fund managers in the group, it’s all a way to change the demographics of startups and investing. More investors from underrepresented communities creates more opportunities for founders in those communities to find someone to not only listen to a pitch, but who may well have a better understanding of all the nuance and opportunity that comes with it than an individual with a completely different background.
“We’re going to probably over index on helping (our founders) because we know how hard their struggle is, we’ve been there. We know how much more you might have to do to be successful and we are going to help you with that,” Delhagen said. “That’s the exponential force, that you have a bunch of women who are highly motivated because they understand how the world works.”
