Serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor Gabriela Isturiz, who founded two high-growth technology companies that she sold to Fortune 500 companies, recently co-founded The Fund XX, which makes pre-seed and seed investments in women-led businesses. Further, some 90 percent of the fund's limited partners are also women.
"Even though 50 percent of our population are women and we made 50 or more of those economic decisions, historically, women have been removed from investing directly in this type of asset class," Isturiz says. "So, it is important to us because we're using the fund as a way to democratize this type of investment."
Typically, VC and private equity investment is largely reserved for family offices, institutional investors and super high-net-worth individuals. The Fund Isturiz has helped create offers the option to be part of actively investing in an entrepreneurial ecosystem that is not at the disposal of everyone who wants to be involved.
"Something that we're doing really well it's the minimum ticket to invest as an LP it's $25,000," she says. "I mean, it's still money, but it makes it a little bit more accessible to a population that otherwise will not have access."
That's important, she says, because being a fund that is investing in women, having the support of those investors to also understand the type of companies that women are building, LPs actively provide support to those portfolio companies, creates what she says is a nice balance.
It's often the case, she says, that women get to invest in early-stage companies because they belong to an angel group or angel network, of which there are not that many.
"We provide the ideal vehicle for anybody who wants to get started in investing in VC an early stage," she says.
DealTalk host Michael Marzec spoke with Isturiz about the fund and the progress it's made so far.
