As she got her professional start in Greater Washington, Shalanda Armstrong knew she wanted to break into venture capital — but she also knew that it was a hard industry to penetrate, one mostly dominated by large, West Coast firms.
So she set about building a career in consulting and tech, with leadership positions at Salesforce, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and Ernst & Young. On the side, though, she became an angel investor. She has independently invested in 25 companies and has been a limited partner in a handful of firms.
All that led up to last month, when 100KM Ventures — the D.C.-based venture capital firm she founded in 2022 — closed the first tranche of its planned $25 million investment fund. Armstrong declined to say how much the fund has raised to date but said its nearly 20 investors include family offices, foundations and financial institutions and that it has already identified its first three investments.
With the fresh infusion in capital, the firm plans to invest in early-stage companies with diverse management teams in geographic markets — including Baltimore, Richmond and Detroit — Armstrong said are often overlooked by traditional investors.
100KM is interested in a broad range of startups working in such fields as the future of work, women's health and the fledgling name, image and likeness (NIL) marketplace, which emerged in 2021 when the National Collegiate Athletic Association gave the go-ahead for college athletes to earn money from endorsements.
Armstrong previously invested in Detroit-based Athlytic, an NIL marketplace that connects student athletes with brands, and she points out that startups are cropping up to help college athletes learn how to build their online following to access bigger deals.
“As a former college basketball player [at Hampton University] I love trying to understand the business model behind NIL,” she said.
Given the NIL policy has only been in effect for two years, she thinks there’s plenty more innovation to come — and more opportunity for female athletes to profit. “There’s so many different avenues I’m seeing in NIL which makes the space very interesting,” Armstrong said.
100KM is also eyeing tech companies working in women’s health, an area in which she’s previously done angel investing.
Armstrong’s voice stands out given the stark underrepresentation of women and people of color within the venture capital industry. Women made up only 14.3% of check writers in the industry as of 2021. Meanwhile, only 2% of the money invested by VC firms so far this year has gone to companies that have a women-only founding team. Another 22.8% of VC dollars dispersed in 2023 went to companies with mixed-gender founding teams.
Less than 2% of venture capital dollars go to Black entrepreneurs — and VC funding for Black business owners dropped even more than VC investment overall in the U.S. last year, according to data from Crunchbase.
It's with these underserved entrepreneurs, operating in markets that aren't traditional hotbeds of VC activity, where Armstrong believes 100KM can have the greatest impact.
“We want to make sure that we’re going after these ecosystems that have a lot of untapped talent,” she said.
