Innvotec launches Female Ventures Fund

According to Innvotec, less than 1% of venture capital investment goes to all-female-founded enterprises. FVF aims to tackle this funding gap by focusing on selected early-stage businesses founded and co-founded by women.

Innvotec will provide initial capital, followed by further financial and advisory support after the early stages and beyond. It will focus on capital growth in the long term, over a period of typically 10-12 years, supporting the entrepreneurs from origination to establishment and beyond.

The FVF advisory board is led by Lesley Gregory, a corporate lawyer and chair of law firm Memery Crystal. She specialises in flotations and secondary capital raising, as well as advising growth companies on alternative forms of raising finance. 

Gregory was previously an advisory board member for E2E Exchange, a community of 25,000 entrepreneurs and investors from 51 sectors who provide entrepreneurs with support, networking, and access to mentors and inspirational speakers. She also founded Memery Crystal's successful female entrepreneurs' Women In Business network.

Gregory said: "In my profession, I come across a wide range of female entrepreneurs who have solid business models and yet don't receive the funding they need. We want to change that. The FVF model will provide not only funding, but also support in critical drivers of VC success: networking, negotiation, business planning and mentoring."

Investors
The fund was designed to encourage more women to become investors and back female-led businesses, increasing the presence of female investors in the VC space. It is primarily aimed at retail investors and high-net-worth individuals.

Investments
The FVF portfolio will be sector-agnostic and initially will be comprised of companies selected from Innvotec's existing portfolio, which includes more than 35 female-founded companies.

Among the others, it will include Worldness, an e-commerce platform of customisable solutions for retailers; cancer research firm TrueInvivo; greentech company U-Floor Technologies; Green Sea Guard, a shipping emissions monitoring system; Tengri, a producer of natural and sustainably sourced fibres; and Compare Ethics, a marketplace for sustainable fashion brands that prioritises fair wages, animal welfare and protection of the environment.

"This fund is well-positioned to assist growth in the medium to long term by providing expert advice alongside new equity," said Amir Kazmi, CEO of Innvotec. "The objective is to maximise returns, achieving significant capital gains across the portfolio and, ultimately, make a positive, measurable social impact."

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• UK / Ireland
• Venture