Capital F, one of the few all-female-led VC firms, announced Wednesday the $17 million close of its debut fund. The firm backs companies building in the “female economy” — or the markets where women drive demand. That mainly falls into three buckets for the firm, Margaret Coblentz, the firm’s co-founder, told TechCrunch — women’s health, digital commerce, and AI tools.
The latter is increasingly important since “women are disproportionately the victims of trust and safety violations,” Dawn Dobras, the co-founder of Capital F, added. Coblentz and Dobras spent the last 30 years running companies together. Dobras was notably the CEO of the clean beauty retailer Credo Beauty and spent a decade at Gap before moving on to the clothing retailer Charlotte Russe.
Coblentz also worked at Charlotte Russe before launching her own luxury knitwear brand, which eventually exited. Coblentz said she and Dobras decided to come together and launch a firm after spending years at the executive top ranks and realizing that “there weren’t a lot of women there.” “If you had asked me maybe 15 years ago, ‘are you going to go into venture?’ I don’t know that I would have said yes,” Coblentz said. She and Dobras started angel investing after their corporate careers, and always knew that “who writes the check and who owns the company matters quite a bit.” They first worked together almost 17 years ago at Charlotte Russe and figured, well, second time was the charm.
The result was Capital F, named after their favorite F words, Dobras said. Dobras said Capital F doesn’t back a founder until they’ve spoken to at least two of their 10 LPs. They were working with the disadvantage of essentially being new fund managers.
Over the past decade, there has been a lot of talk about the importance of investing in more technology that centers women’s issues, such as women’s health, which has long been underfunded and underfocused. Coblentz said that, in many ways, those conversations have led to some innovations that are starting to have an impact. They also mentioned companies in their portfolio, like Malama, which offers doula support for people on Medicaid.
The firm has cut checks to 13 companies. It backs early-stage companies, writing checks between $250,000 and $1 million. Portfolio companies include the telemedicine startup Hey Jane, the hormone-tracking platform Stardust, and Steller Sleep, which Google acquired last year.
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