This article originally appeared in Austin Business Journal.
True Wealth Ventures, an Austin venture capital firm set up to invest in women-led startups that focus on growth markets in consumer health and sustainable products, has raised the first chunk of capital for its debut fund.
The firm has raised $4.7 million of a planned $20 million for its True Wealth Ventures Fund I. The funding came from 19 investors, according to a regulatory filing.
Sara Brand, who quit her high-profile executive job in the Austin office of California-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (Nasdaq: AMD) in 2015 to set up True Wealth Ventures, told Austin Business Journal that she is conducting due diligence toward making the fund’s first startup investments in the fall, but declined to identify the targets. Brand, the firm’s founding general partner, said the vast majority of the initial funds raised came from investors in Austin.
Working alongside Brand at True Wealth Ventures as general partner is Kerry Rupp, the former CEO and general partner of DreamIt, a Philadelphia-based startup accelerator and early-stage VC firm.
Brand said she’s noticed a trend of companies in the consumer products space looking for VC funding as a way of “outsourcing” research and development costs instead of spending their own capital.
Follow this link to read an in-depth profile I wrote about Brand earlier this year.
