Company raises venture capital for women-owned businesses
By Terry Troy
Any entrepreneur will tell you that starting a business is a challenge. Raising venture capital to fund that business takes the whole process to another level. Now add into the equation that it’s a women-owned business, and the task seems almost impossible.
But that could be changing.
Accelerating Angels is a new Columbus-based business designed to give women entrepreneurs a path to hard-to-access capital. Co-founded by Cindi Englefield, a self-described serial entrepreneur, and Mary McCarthy, the co-founder of the Women’s Small Business Accelerator, Accelerating Angels offers the opportunity to invest in early-stage, high growth and exceptionally run women-owned businesses with technology products or services that solve a problem.
“Mary and I heard that less than 2% of women get venture capital and we were shocked by that,” says Englefield. “For multiple reasons, we found that an even smaller percentage of that 2% were women of color.”
However, companies with female founders historically generate 35% higher returns than male-owned companies.
“They also tend to exit funding quicker through either an IPO or an acquisition,” adds Englefield. “The startups that we are targeting are positioning themselves to be acquired. They are innovative, mostly tech companies that are preparing for high growth and an exit.
“We are on a mission to change those statistics with the creation of a $3 million fund, which we are currently in the middle of raising. Right now, we are at a little over a million, but we plan to close the gap on the $3 million by the end of the year.”
In the meantime, Accelerating Angels has already started to invest in women-owned businesses.
“We started our pitch meetings last October and have been inviting companies in to meet with investors,” adds Englefield. “After our due diligence, we have made a decision to invest in two companies.”
Those two companies are SureImpact and Groupize. The former is based in the Columbus area, while the latter has its headquarters in Boston, but has ties to Ohio.
“With Groupize, it’s clear that we are not limiting our scope to Ohio, we want to be national in terms of our reach,” says Englefield. “However, we are a little partial to companies from Ohio.”
SureImpact is an online SAS (Software as a Service) platform.
“We work with government, nonprofits and other social enterprises, providing software that allows funders like the city of Columbus, state of Ohio and other big foundations access to data that allows them to track grants and funds in real time, so they can see how their grants, funds and investments in social change are improving lives and changing circumstances,” says Sheri Chaney Jones, founder and CEO. “We are currently working with 429 different organizations but have formed partnerships with Microsoft and Blackbaud—so we will be using the funds from Accelerating Angels for strategic growth to support and service those partnerships.”
Accelerating Angels has a team of more than 14 advisers, says Englefield, many of whom have either specific industry expertise, “or they have access to specific industry resources, so we can ascertain if a company is a solid investment before we cut a check,” she says.
“Eventually, we hope to invest in more than 20 companies that are the very best female-owned businesses that will give an excellent return to our investors.”