And raising a fund as a woman is like crawling through glass, and raising a fund as a Black woman is like crawling through glass with no clothes on, and then they pour fire ants all over you,” she said. “I’ve said before that raising a fund is doing venture capital on hard mode. Woodard planned to raise $20 million initially she ultimately chose to close the fund and move forward with less. That led to an investment in Guaranteed, which is looking to use technology to revamp end-of-life care.ĭespite such support, Woodard said that raising Cake Ventures’ first fund was a challenging process, despite a career that has included building and selling an ad network, launching a mobile shopping startup, and stints as a Venture Partner at 500 Startups, a Venture Scout at Lightspeed Venture Partners and an ongoing advising role with SoftBank Vision Fund’s Emerge startup accelerator. “Where Monique is differentiated is that she’s going a layer deeper with the depth of her research and looking at the type of products and services and tech that these consumers need.” Woodard wrote a report on aging called “Gray New World” in 2020, Harkless Moore noted, that demonstrated her thinking about the ramifications of an aging populace. “So many more funds out there now are focusing on ‘diversity,’ or diverse founders, or diverse demographics,” Harkless Moore said. (Woodard said that more than 25% of LP dollars committed came from female investors.) At Pivotal, the investment arm of billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates, investments director Erin Harkless Moore said Woodard impressed while serving as an advisor and mentor to a TechStars accelerator focused on longevity that Pivotal co-sponsored. Despite such status not being a prerequisite for investment, about 40% of its investments to date are led by women founders, Woodard said, and 40% by founders who identify as Black-a natural consequence, Woodard added, of “changing who sits on the investor side of the table.”īacking the new fund are limited partners including Bank of America, Cendana Ventures, Foundry Group, Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Plexo Capital and Screendoor. The portfolio already includes companies like Rares and Most Days, but also training startup Bright, household bills tracker Gerald, disability and neuro-divergence support business Joshin, among others. Woodard serves as founding partner and managing director of the firm but plans to hire a venture partner and junior investment staff later this year.Ĭake will look to make about 25 investments overall from its fund Woodard has made 12 so far. A $17 million vehicle, the fund will focus on pre-seed and seed investments, targeting a ballpark $500,000 check. Now, after holding Cake Ventures’ final close in November, the San Francisco-based Woodard is announcing her first fund.
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