True Wealth Ventures
Texas-based True Wealth Ventures invests in companies in high growth markets that primarily serve women. The firm is interested in investing in companies based in Texas with businesses and customers that are committed to environmental sustainability and human health, citing that women make up 85 percent of consumer purchase decisions and 80 percent of healthcare decisions.
Founding partner Sara Brand decided that she wanted to start True Wealth Ventures back in 2014 and by July 2016 it had closed its first fund.
“I knew the financial outperformance of companies with more women in leadership, being the executive sponsor of the global women’s forum at my Fortune 500 tech company,” Brand told Crunchbase News in an email.
She realized that she had never met another woman in venture capital, despite having been in VC previously.
“There was no other venture capital fund in the state of Texas or surrounding region with a gender lens,” Brand explained. “All the data said it was a complete economic blind spot with financial outperformance metrics.”
As far as women being deterred from joining the venture world, she believes that there is work to be done. For instance, unconscious biases like asking women “protection” questions versus “promotion” questions are detrimental to the funding of women-founded companies.
While she believes VCs are making a concerted effort to include women in their leadership, she says that the sheer size of the ecosystems and institutions with unconscious biases will make executing the necessary changes very difficult and slow.
Furthermore, Brand noted research that shows that women are also prone to assimilation in these environments.
“It is not men, but culture against female founders. I think it is going to take funds like True Wealth Ventures that have a proactive gender diversity investment strategy to overcome the unconscious bias and leverage this blind spot in the economy.”
