Monique Woodard Unveils Cake Ventures, New $17 Million Fund Centered On ‘Demographic Change’

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 set to work. Many companies level to technological adjustments because the north star for his or her portfolios; a smaller however rising quantity give attention to underrepresented founders who can get neglected by a few of Silicon Valley’s conventional verify writers.

Woodard, a veteran of startups and VC for twenty years, was extra keen on new companies driving demographic change in a handful of very particular areas three complementary “layers” of a cake: our growing old and longevity-minded inhabitants; the elevated incomes energy of ladies 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 line 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 through which I view companies,” Woodard informed Forbes— and a thesis, she claimed, that didn’t fairly match an present agency. “Even companies that don’t ‘look like’ demographic change companies on the surface have a layer of this under the hood.”

Now, after holding Cake Ventures’ closing shut in November, the San Francisco-based Woodard is saying her first fund. A $17 million car, the fund will give attention to pre-seed and seed investments, focusing on a ballpark $500,000 verify. Woodard serves as founding accomplice and managing director of the agency however plans to rent a enterprise accomplice and junior funding employees later this yr.

Cake will look to make about 25 investments general from its fund; Woodard has made 12 up to now. The portfolio already consists of corporations like Rares and Most Days, but in addition coaching startup Vibrant, 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 to this point are led by girls founders, Woodard stated, and 40% by founders who determine as Black—a pure consequence, Woodard added, of “changing who sits on the investor side of the table.”

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 stated 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 stated Woodard impressed whereas serving as an advisor and mentor to a TechStars accelerator centered on longevity that Pivotal co-sponsored.

“So many more funds out there now are focusing on ‘diversity,’ or diverse founders, or diverse demographics,” Harkless Moore stated. “Where Monique is differentiated is that she’s going a layer deeper with the depth of her research and looking at the type of products and services and tech that these consumers need.” Woodard wrote a report on growing old referred to as “Gray New World” in 2020, Harkless Moore famous, that demonstrated her eager about the ramifications of an growing old populace. That led to an funding in Assured, which is wanting to make use of know-how to revamp end-of-life care.

Regardless of such assist, Woodard stated 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 purchasing 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 boost $20 million initially; she finally selected to shut the fund and transfer ahead with much less. “I’ve said before that raising a fund is doing venture capital on hard mode. And raising a fund as a woman is like crawling through glass, and raising a fund as a Black woman is like crawling through glass with no clothes on, and then they pour fire ants all over you,” she stated. “So it was always going to be hard.”

For startups additionally discovering the present funding surroundings difficult, Woodard stated 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 stated.

And whereas many eyes in enterprise are presently turned towards synthetic intelligence and generative AI apps (as maybe they did for crypto and Web3 earlier than it), Woodard stated she’s enjoying a distinct recreation. “A lot of those technologies are important and great—defining technologies,” she stated. “But I think what people are forgetting, frankly, are the people.” The consumer base, she added, for such merchandise is shifting. Ignore that, and you may find yourself constructing for an empty room.