Blazing a Trail (and Building a Family) as a Pioneering VC

07/16/19 • 28 min

Ginger More was a true pioneer in the male-dominated venture capital world of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, and she is who the next gen want to grow up to be. Born the second of three children to a schoolteacher and a fireman, Ginger attended the University of Bridgeport as a math major, and she married while she was still in school. She began a family as a military wife and also while working full-time at Wright Investors’ Service. She even completed the totally grinding three-year charter financial analyst certificate program on her own time with young kids.

In 1978, she joined Oak Investment Partners and became a partner there just two years later. At Oak, Ginger invested in a number of IT and healthcare companies, and she was responsible for Oak’s investment and board positions in market making companies like Genzyme, Stratus, and Compaq.

Genzyme went on to set new standards for the industry. At a time when rare diseases were completely neglected by the pharmaceutical industry, the company built their business to serve exactly that unmet need.

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Feeding the World (and Saving the Planet) - A Conversation with Julia Collins

Julia Collins has dedicated her career to tackling some of the most difficult problems that our world faces: food insecurity, agricultural damage, ecological dead zones. Our food system is critical to everyone on this planet and Julia is the woman audacious enough to tackle it, head on. Julia has also dedicated her career to food. She started as a restaurateur working alongside Danny Meyer among others to open some of New York City's hottest restaurants.

Then came tech inspiration, leading Julia to co-found Zume Pizza, recently shortened to Zume, a robotic food delivery company based in the bay area. Started in 2015, Zume aims to make healthy food fast and accessible. The company shortens and automates the entire supply chain of food delivery, preparing the food while it's being delivered to the customer and it all started with a crowd favorite pizza.

Zume is one of those rare companies that has reached unicorn status. The company is valued at $2.25 billion and Julia is the first black woman to reach unicorn status with her company. Just to put it in perspective, a 2015 study showed that only 12 black women founders had raised at least $1 million in venture capital funding. By 2017 that number had nearly tripled to 34, but there is still a long way to go and Julia is working hard to make sure her story is no longer in outlier.

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Building a Brand (and Dream) with Fewer Better Things

Karla Gallardo is the co-founder and CEO of Cuyana, a San Francisco-based women's clothing and lifestyle brand. She and her co-founder Shilpa Shah founded the company in 2011 with the concept of fewer, better things. Born and raised in Ecuador, her story is one of immigration, determination, careful planning, and family. With an immigrant mentality, Karla put her all into achievement and traditional definitions of success: an ivy league education, a STEM degree, a coveted career in investment banking.

But, she always had an urge to build something bigger, a company that would impact the bottom of the pyramid. Now, since starting Cuyana with a $20,000 loan, and a hat, of all things, as their first product, the company's attracted tens of millions of dollars in investments.

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