Melinda Gates Invests In VC Firm Founded By Women; Fund Tops Target Range

Tom Burroughes

25 January 2018

Aspect Ventures, the US venture capital firm that is the largest of its kind to be run by women, has fittingly brought in investment from Melinda Gates, an investor, philanthropist and wife of tech tycoon Bill Gates, as the firm closed its second institutional venture fund of $181 million.

The amount raised is at the top end of its target range; the money will be invested in early-stage technology firms, Aspect said in a statement.

Ms Gates and her husband runs eponymous Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organization.

Aspect was founded in 2014 by industry veterans Jennifer Fonstad and Theresia Gouw and raised its first institutional fund of $150 million in 2015. Today, the firm holds more than 25 portfolio companies. Fund I investments include cybersecurity providers Forescout Technologies, Cato Networks, and Exabeam, future of work-focused companies Crew, Gusto, Chime, and The Muse, and digital health startups such as Vida Health, Grokker, and Solv.

With artificial intelligence a theme in wealth management as well as other fields, it is notable that AI provides the technological platform for several of Aspect’s portfolio companies such as Amino , Astro & Troops , and Mapper .

“Jennifer and Theresia are extremely talented investors. They see opportunities where others don’t – including backing diverse entrepreneurs whose potential the venture capital industry has long been blind to,” Gates said of the firm.

To date, Aspect’s portfolio firms have chalked up 11 initial public offerings, 29 acquisitions and more than 500 rounds in follow-on capital raised for portfolio companies.