Women, Networking Groups, Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital in Massachusetts
Sunday's column focused on the growing infrastructure in Massachusetts that supports female entreprenuers. In the photo at right are Jill Cartwright, founder of Go Gaga, and Rebecca Schulman, founder of Papa Products, both mentioned in the opening of the story. (The day I interviewed them both, I happened to run into them at an evening event at Babson College.)
Innovation Economy readers have helped create a really great list of many of the networking groups dedicated to female entrepreneurs in Massachusetts. Feel free to continue adding to that list...
And on Twitter, I asked whether there are more than a small handful of women venture capitalists throughout New England. (I couldn't think of more than five.) The list breaks into the double digits, which surprised me... (Is anyone missing? I'm not including principals, associates, or administrative staffers -- just partners.)
- Geraldine Alias, Fidelity Ventures (Boston)
- Ellen Baron, Oxford BioScience Partners (Boston)
- Nilanjana Bhowmik, Longworth Venture Partners (Waltham)
- Maria Cirino, .406 Ventures (Boston)
- Jean George, Advanced Technology Ventures (Waltham)
- Venetia Kontogouris, Trident Capital (Westport, CT)
- Ann Lamont, Oak Investment Partners (Wesport, CT)
- Maggie LeFlore, MedImmune Ventures
- Margaret Lawrence, Pilot House Ventures Group (Boston)
- Lucy McQuilken, Intel Capital (Cambridge)
- Anne Mitchell at Fidelity Ventures (Boston)
- Gina Raimondo, Point Judith Capital (Providence, RI)
- Nina Saberi, Castile Ventures (Waltham)
- Kazumi Shiosaki at MPM (Boston)
- Lauren Silverman, Novartis Option Fund (Cambridge)
- Claire Wadlington at FA Technology Ventures (Boston)
- Daphne Zohar at PureTech Ventures (Boston)
Interesting, is it not, that most of the firms with women making investment decisions are based in Boston, not Waltham...? Mount Money is so progressive that way...
And I found it pretty brave for Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital to ask the question last week, "Are VCs Sexist?" His blog post was republished in PEHub and BusinessWeek.
"I find the preponderance of males in VC an annoying and stubborn phenomenon," Bussgang wrote. Yet Flybridge is one of many firms in New England that does not have a single woman involved in making investment decisions.
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About Scott Kirsner Scott Kirsner was part of the team that launched Boston.com in 1995, and has been writing a column for the Globe since 2000. His work has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, and Variety. Scott is also the author of the books "Fans, Friends & Followers" and "Inventing the Movies," was the editor of "The Convergence Guide: Life Sciences in New England," and was a contributor to "The Good City: Writers Explore 21st Century Boston." Scott also helps organize several local events on entrepreneurship, including the Nantucket Conference and Future Forward. Here's some background on how Scott decides what to cover, and how to pitch him a story idea.
Events
December 4: MIT Venture Capital Conference
Exploring investment trends in healthcare, digital media, energy and more.
December 4-6: Startup Weekend
Form a team around an idea on Friday, and unveil your prototype by Sunday.
December 10: CloudCamp Boston
An unconference geared to early adopters of cloud computing (applications and services that run over a network, rather than at the user's location)
