The University of Minnesota is awarding Joy Lindsay, who co-founded two of the first women-founded venture capital firms in the country, as its 2023 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Lindsay will be given the award at the Founders Day event May 10, which is hosted by the Carlson School of Management. The award was announced Tuesday by Minneapolis-based angel investment firm Sofia Fund, where Lindsay is currently a managing partner.
The award, which is reserved for university alumnus, is intended to honor business founders who the university believes to be role models through community engagement, supporting the university and leading successful businesses.
Lindsay co-founded both StarTec Investments and the Sofia Fund in 1998. Both firms primarily invest in early-stage companies in the tech industry, but Sofia is geared towards women-owned companies. Prior to StarTec and Sofia, Lindsay had a nearly 20-year career at West Publishing, now known as Thomson Reuters, as senior vice president of the Westlaw legal division.
“Joy’s name is synonymous with angel investing and venture capital,” said Cathy Connett, Lindsay’s co-founder of the Sofia Fund. Because of Lindsey’s efforts with the Sofia Fund, more women have been able to get financial backing and create value in their businesses, Connett said.
Besides her involvement with the university as a guest lecturer in its law and business schools and judge in many startup competitions, Lindsay has served on a number of board and advisory roles in the Twin Cities business community. Some of these boards include the Minnesota Technology Association (MnTech), Minnesota Venture Capital Association, Minnesota’s Science and Technology Advisory Commission, and Twin Cities Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota.
One of her other awards was the “Titans of Technology – Hall of Fame” award from the Business Journal in 2016.
“Her efforts are without parallel -- advising across the University in a number of roles, including for our commercialization initiatives, the Holmes Center, and MN Cup,” said John Stavig, managing director of the Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship at the Carlson School, in a statement.
