The Black founder-turned-investor will write seed and pre-seed checks, backed by buyers together with Financial institution of America and billionaire Melinda French Gates.

In March 2021, Monique Woodard closed a part of the primary fund for her new enterprise capital agency, Cake Ventures, and started working. Many corporations level to technological adjustments because the north star for his or her portfolios; a smaller however rising quantity deal with underrepresented founders who can get ignored by a few of Silicon Valley’s conventional examine writers.

Woodard, a veteran of startups and VC for 20 years, was extra fascinated about new companies driving demographic change in a handful of very particular areas 3 complementary “layers” of a cake: our ageing and longevity-minded inhabitants; the elevated incomes energy of girls in society; and the shift to “majority-minority,” as Woodard put it, a “new majority” of early tech adopters coming from Asian, Black and Latino backgrounds.

Startups that match such a thesis, in accordance with Woodard, would cater to buyer bases that mirrored such layers. Take Rares, a social investing website enabling fractional possession of collectives like sneakers, which embraces Black, Latin and Asian cultural influences; or Most Days, an app for setting wholesome routines in areas like sleep and despair, that’s largely utilized by girls.

“It’s the lens by means of which I view corporations,” Woodard instructed Forbes – and a thesis, she claimed, that didn’t fairly match an current agency. “Even corporations that don’t ‘appear to be’ demographic change corporations on the floor have a layer of this below the hood.”

Now, after holding Cake Ventures’ remaining shut in November, the San Francisco-based Woodard is saying her first fund. A $17 million automobile, the fund will deal with pre-seed and seed investments, concentrating on a ballpark $500,000 examine. Woodard serves as founding companion and managing director of the agency however plans to rent a enterprise companion and junior funding workers later this yr.

Cake will look to make about 25 investments total from its fund; Woodard has made 12 to date. The portfolio already contains corporations like Rares and Most Days, but additionally coaching startup Vivid, family payments tracker Gerald, incapacity and neuro-divergence assist enterprise Joshin, amongst others. Regardless of such standing not being a prerequisite for funding, about 40% of its investments so far are led by girls founders, Woodard mentioned, and 40% by founders who determine as Black – a pure consequence, Woodard added, of “altering who sits on the investor facet of the desk.”

Backing the brand new fund are restricted companions together with Financial institution of America, Cendana Ventures, Foundry Group, Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Plexo Capital and Screendoor. (Woodard mentioned that greater than 25% of LP {dollars} dedicated got here from feminine buyers.) At Pivotal, the funding arm of billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates, investments director Erin Harkless Moore mentioned Woodard impressed whereas serving as an adviser and mentor to a TechStars accelerator targeted on longevity that Pivotal co-sponsored.

“So many extra funds on the market now are specializing in ‘range,’ or numerous founders, or numerous demographics,” Harkless Moore mentioned. “The place Monique is differentiated is that she’s going a layer deeper with the depth of her analysis and the kind of services and products and tech that these customers want.” Woodard wrote a report on ageing known as ‘Grey New World’ in 2020, Harkless Moore famous, that demonstrated her excited about the ramifications of an ageing populace. That led to an funding in Assured, which is trying to make use of know-how to revamp end-of-life care.

Regardless of such assist, Woodard mentioned that elevating Cake Ventures’ first fund was a difficult course of, regardless of a profession that has included constructing and promoting an advert community, launching a cell buying startup, and stints as a Enterprise Accomplice at 500 Startups, a Enterprise Scout at Lightspeed Enterprise Companions and an ongoing advising position with SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund’s Emerge startup accelerator.

Woodard deliberate to lift $20 million initially; she in the end selected to shut the fund and transfer ahead with much less. “I’ve mentioned earlier than that elevating a fund is doing enterprise capital on exhausting mode. And elevating a fund as a lady is like crawling by means of glass and elevating a fund as a black girl is like crawling by means of glass with no garments on, after which they pour hearth ants throughout you,” she mentioned. “So, it was at all times going to be exhausting.”

For startups additionally discovering the present funding surroundings difficult, Woodard mentioned she hadn’t seen a significant slowdown in entrepreneurs launching new companies at her early-stage vantage level. The valuations at which buyers worth such startups have continued to drop, nevertheless, she mentioned.

And whereas many eyes in enterprise are at the moment turned towards synthetic intelligence and generative AI apps (as maybe they did for crypto and web3 earlier than it), Woodard mentioned she’s taking part in a unique recreation. “A number of these applied sciences are vital and nice – defining applied sciences,” she mentioned. “However I feel what persons are forgetting, frankly, are the individuals.” The person base, she added, for such merchandise is shifting. Ignore that, and you might find yourself constructing for an empty room.