Inside Female Founders Fund’s Mission to Support Women-Led Companies

As a business leader, says serial entrepreneur Anu Duggal, you have three key roles:

1. Set the vision.
2. Hire great people.
3. Ensure you always have money in the bank. 

When growing one of her first businesses, an e-commerce company called Exclusively.in, Duggal realized that many women sacrifice the first two roles to spend time raising money. That was especially true for Duggal, and remains so for women in general. “Almost everybody we met throughout that journey was male,” Duggal says. “And when we looked around at our team, our executive leadership, our customer base, we were really primarily female.” 

Duggal went on to become the founding partner of the venture capital firm Female Founders Fund. She spoke about her pivotal insight in a recent interview with Inc. editor-at-large Tom Foster.

A decade later, the total share of venture capital going to companies with female founders remains around 2 percent, according to data from PitchBook. But that hasn’t stopped Duggal from making a name for herself and her firm with some huge exits for companies they’ve invested in.

As Inc. previously reported, Female Founders Fund had its first exit when Walmart acquired the fashion brand Eloquii in 2018 for a reported $100 million. In 2021, Fiserv acquired the hospitality software platform BentoBox for a reported $300 million, and Edgewell acquired razor brand Billie for $310 million.

What makes Female Founders Fund different? Duggal says the five-person firm spends most of its time with founders helping them fill out their funding round after the Female Founders Fund has invested. This means connecting them with other potential investors and board members who can help grow their business and help refine their pitches and decks. They also offer up to 40 events per year focused on other topics such as hiring, she says.  

To find out more about how Duggal and Female Founders Fund are changing the game for women-led companies, check out the full interview with Duggal and Foster in the most recent episode of Inc.’s Your Next Move podcast.