Female VC Lab

Alison has been investing in consumer brands for nearly a decade. Prior to Able, Alison was a General Partner & Managing Director at CircleUp Growth Partners where she led investments in early stage consumer brands. Before CircleUp, Alison was a Vice President at TSG Consumer where she invested in consumer and retail brands and worked closely with the e-commerce investments in their portfolio. She spent a year as an operator on the executive team of Backcountry.com, one of the TSG portfolio companies. Prior to TSG, Alison worked in investment banking at J.P. Morgan in the Consumer & Retail Group. Alison has served on the Board of Directors of Kosas Cosmetics, Nutpods and Mented Cosmetics. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and lives in San Francisco with her husband.

A high-tech executive and serial entrepreneur who has been founding, leading and growing innovative companies for more than 25 years. Kim Folsom is the founder of Founders First Community Development Corporation (fka. LIFT Development Enterprises, Inc, small business growth accelerator, and founder and CEO of Founders First Capital Partners, the largest minority and women owned direct investor of revenue-based funding and advisory support, as well as FUUUSE.CMNTY.com the first online community for fueling underserved small business expansion. Our mission to is to fund and growth and advocate for diverse founder led, underserved, revenue-generating employer-based micro small businesses ($50K to $5M), secure funding and achieve exponential growth. As a social entrepreneur, Ms. Folsom is dedicated to leveraging the power of market forces and sound business practices to address disparities in revenue and job growth among businesses led by underrepresented founders. She has raised more than $30 million in institutional venture financing, and has founded or served as a key executive for multiple successful ventures, including showUhow (acquired by Sellpoints), DriveCam (now Lytx) and Seminarsource. Before devoting her energies to entrepreneurship, Ms. Folsom was an executive at National Dispatch Center, Luce Forward, Alltel Systematics and Great American First.

Melissa Stevens is the executive director of the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy, leading its work with individual and family philanthropists and foundations seeking to deploy their capital to make a transformative, sustainable impact. Since co-founding the Center in 2015, she has overseen the creation and execution of strategies which have influenced $1 billion in philanthropic capital, and managed the development of programs and organizations including the Melanoma Research Alliance, the largest private funder of melanoma research.

Sapphire Ventures is a leading venture capital firm that partners with visionary teams and venture funds to build companies of consequence. For nearly two decades, Sapphire has been investing capital, resources and expertise in innovative startups and technology-focused venture funds around the world. With more than $6.8B in AUM across Sapphire Ventures, Sapphire Partners and Sapphire Sport, and with team members in Austin, London, Palo Alto and San Francisco, Sapphire is well-positioned to help scale companies and venture funds, elevating them to become global category leaders.

Trailyn VC is an early seed stage venture fund investing in diverse deep-tech founders in the US. Trailyn VC leads and invests in areas of Blockchain, AI, AR/VR, IoT and Quantum Computing.