Webinar

Masterclass Live! See How We Evaluate Startups for Our Women's Fund

Women's fund webinar cover image

In this session, you can discover how to evaluate a deal, walk through the process our investment team uses to invest in promising startups, and learn how you, too, can invest in startups like this through Alumni Ventures.

See video policy below.

Alumni Ventures’ Women’s Fund is a venture capital fund dedicated to investing in women-founded and women-led startups.

During this session, we discussed:

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    Determining if a prospective deal fits in with your overall diversification goals
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    Understanding the time horizon of venture investments
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    Performing due diligence and reviewing the typical types of materials available in a deal
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    Weighing some of the challenges, key risks, and how to factor into the ultimate decision
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    Tracking companies after investment and the purpose of portfolio monitoring
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    More details about the Women's Fund
About Alumni Ventures

Note: You must be accredited to invest in venture capital. Important disclosure information can be found at av-funds.com/disclosures

About your presenters

Laura Bordewieck Rippy
Laura Bordewieck Rippy

Managing Partner, Women's Fund

Laura brings operational perspective as a CEO, Chairman, and executive in technology startups, in addition to investing experience. As Managing Partner at Ripplecreek Partners’ technology practice and General Partner at FA Technology Ventures, she worked many tech sectors across many economic cycles. She also served as CEO at Handango, creating the first marketplace of mobile apps. At Microsoft, she co-founded two businesses as an intra-preneur in an elite swat team spun out of Bill Gates’s office. Laura holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and AB in Government from Dartmouth.

Brittney Wade
Brittney Wade

Senior Associate, Women's Fund

Brittney brings to her role product and operational experience from her time with enterprise and startup companies. Most recently, she worked with Trove, a Series D startup, where she led product development for the launch of Canada Goose’s first circular economy program. Brittney is a graduate of Columbia University and holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Sophia Zhao
Sophia Zhao

Partner, Women's Fund

Sophia brings a wealth of experience in capital advisory, corporate development, and operational optimization, establishing impactful collaborations with CXOs and Founders. With a diverse industry exposure encompassing cloud computing, mining and minerals, consumer goods, and Web3, Sophia has been at the forefront of transformative technologies. Since 2018, she has been immersed in the crypto universe, working at Galaxy Digital, Huobi US, and Crypto.com. In these roles, Sophia engaged with startups and institutional clients on capital raising and trading across the Americas, EU, and Asia regions.

Actively fostering innovation and mentorship, Sophia serves as a mentor and judge at prestigious institutions such as Yale’s Tsai City for Innovation, Berkeley’s Blockchain Xcelerator, Techstars, and Layer 1 protocols, including Ethereum, Algorand, and Solana. She maintains close ties with the blockchain communities at Stanford and Yale.

Driven by a passion for shaping the future through frontier technologies, Sophia is currently supporting AI data and applications deals within her team. She holds a BBA from Simon Fraser University, an MBA from the University of British Columbia, and an MAM from the Yale School of Management.

Meera Oak
Meera Oak

Partner, Women's Fund

Meera’s background includes strategic, financial, and operational experience from her time at Yale University, where she managed a $1B budget (of a $4B organization), led M&A transactions, and secured business development relationships with corporate partners. Most recently, she worked with early-stage venture funds and incubators like Create Venture Studio and Polymath Capital Partners and was responsible for launching business ventures and sourcing investments in enterprise SaaS, infrastructure, and ecommerce. Meera has a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Stacey Tsai
Stacey Tsai

Stacey Tsai has over 15 years of experience in finance. Prior to joining Alumni Ventures, she advised global families and executives on asset allocation and investment strategies. Stacey is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She received her MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School. She was also a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Singapore.

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