Who
are the Top Women in Stock Market?
While
the pandemic lowered women's total labour force participation rates and had a
disproportionately unfavourable influence on both female founders and
investors, women have made significant achievements since 2021, particularly in
the field of venture capital. Female-founded businesses surpassed the previous
annual transaction value record in just the first three quarters of 2021,
according to a recent Pitchbook analysis, and outperformed the broader market
in terms of exit size and timing. Furthermore, the number of female check
writers in the United States has climbed by approximately 3.5 per cent since
2019, with women now accounting for 15.4 per cent of GP positions – while much
more progress is needed in this area, it's apparent that change is steadily
being enacted across the sector.
Last
year's Midas List recognised twelve of the world's most successful venture
capitalists for making great bets on some of the most fascinating firms. We are
inspired by these women's perseverance and hope that their leadership signals
future industry growth. We're excited to highlight these ladies and their
accomplishments over the past year, which helped them reclaim their status on
the Midas List.
Anna
Fang
ZhenFund
Partner
& CEO
Xiaohongshu,
Huobi, YatsenGlobal, Meicai, Bolt Financial, DeepGlint, Yitu, and Nuro are
among the key investments.
Anna
has invested in over 600 startups as a partner and CEO of early-stage venture
fund ZhenFund. Anna's continuing leadership in the execution and care of the
firm's assets has earned her the highest placement yet on the Midas List, at
#12 this year. A handful of billion-dollar enterprises, like lifestyle and
retail portal Xiaohongshu, were among the investments made in 2021. Anna was
also a Bolt angel investor. Fang, who is based in Beijing, began her career as
an investment banker at JP Morgan in New York and later worked for General
Electric China in corporate business development.
Mary
Meeker
BOND
General
Partner
Airbnb,
Stripe, Canva, Instacart, Spotify, Plaid, Snap, Uber, On, Pinterest, LegalZoom,
and DocuSign are among the key investments.
Mary
Meeker, a founding general partner at BOND, where she focuses on high-growth
digital businesses after leaving Kleiner Perkins, has been a recurrent leading
VC on the Midas list for much of the past decade. She's invested in a slew of
high-profile startups, including Airbnb (which went public in December 2020),
Slack (which Salesforce bought for $27.7 billion in July 2021), and Canva,
which raised $40 billion in September 2021, making it one of the world's
largest privately-owned companies.
BOND
just closed its second fund with $2 billion in the capital in 2021 and its
third fund with $2.5 billion in the capital in 2022. BOND has made many
investments since last year's Midas List, including a $60 million Series D
round for Eucalyptus and a $100 million Series D round for Ironclad.
Mar
Hershenson
Pear
VC
Co-founder
& Managing Partner
DoorDash,
Guardant Health, Gusto, Branch Metrics, Aurora Solar, Heap, Affinity, Senti
Bio, and Memebox are among the key investments.
Before
making the Midas List in 2019, Mar Hershenson had a remarkable resume, thanks
to an early bet on DoorDash she made with Pear Ventures co-founder Pejman
Nozad. She graduated from Stanford with a PhD in electrical engineering, taught
there for nearly a decade, and started three successful businesses. In 2021,
she went to Stanford as a lecturer, but that hasn't stopped her from focusing
on her job at Pear– Last year, Heap and Branch Labs were valued at over $1
billion, and HR platform Gusto was valued at about $10 billion in August. Pear
recently took part in the $4 million Seed round of SZNS and the $3 million Seed
round of Axle Health.
Jenny Lee
GGV Capital
Managing
Partner
Xpeng,
Kingsoft Office, Agora, Didi Global, Zuoyebang, eHang, Momenta, Keep, and TodayCamera
are some of the key investments.
Jenny
Lee has earned her status as one of the most recognised VC investors in the
country – and the world – since joining Menlo Park-based GGV Capital as its
first China office head in 2005. Her concentration on hot segments of China's
burgeoning tech scene (edtech, robots, AI, and electric vehicles) has paid off
handsomely, and portfolio businesses like EV producer Xpeng are outperforming
their American counterparts. Jenny's knowledge extends beyond China; she was
named to the board of directors of Singapore's state-run investment giant
Temasek Holdings in October. She has just invested in Next-Gen Food's $100
million Series A round, and she is expected to aid the company's quick
international expansion.
Kirsten
Green
Forerunner
Ventures
Founder
and Managing Partner
Chime,
Faire, Warby Parker, Hims & Hers, Glossier, Curated, Prose, Flow Commerce,
HotelTonight, Homebase, The Farmer's Dog are among the key investments
Kirsten
Green maintains her position on the Midas List as the founder and managing
partner of Forerunner Ventures, which she joined in 2010 after working in
banking and angel investing. She serves on the boards of Curated, Faire,
Nordstrom, Prose, and Glossier, among others. Her investments in Hims &
Hers and Warby Parker paid off in 2021 when both companies went public via SPAC
and direct listing at valuations of $1 billion or more. She was also named to
Barron's list of the 100 Most Influential Women in US Finance in 2021.
Expect
Green to help consumer companies bridge the gap and enter the metaverse this
year; she recently revealed that Forerunner has made a number of unannounced
investments in the space, saying, "I think it's [time] to get in there and
start exploring." Green is also a founding member of All Raise, an
industry group dedicated to advancing women in the asset class and changing the
industry from the inside out.
Luciana
Lixandru
Sequoia
Partner
UiPath,
Miro, Deliveroo, Hopin, Vinted, and Xentral are among the key investments.
Luciana
made her worldwide Midas debut in 2021 on the strength of a portfolio led by
UiPath, after years of being a mainstay on the Midas List Europe. In April
2021, the robotic automation company went public in one of the largest software
IPOs ever, surpassing a $35 billion valuation and securing her place on this
year's List.
Luciana
was recently designated co-head of Sequoia's Arc programme, which tries to
uncover "outlier" founders, coach them with some of the world's top
VCs, and support their firms with $1 million initial investments. Luciana has
also assisted with the firm's recent US/Europe seed fund launch, as well as
Veed's $35 million Series A round and Upway's seed round.
Nisa
Leung
Qiming
Venture Partners
Managing
Partner
Gan
& Lee, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Venus Medtech, Zai Lab, Sinocelltech,
Broncus Medical, Jacobio Pharmaceuticals, and CanSino Biologics are among the
companies that have made significant investments.
Qiming
Venture Partners' healthcare investments are led by Nisa Leung, who manages approximately
$6 billion in assets. She was a driving force behind Hong Kong's and China's
biotech booms, guiding investments in cutting-edge businesses including Gan
& Lee, which just launched the first human trials of biosynthetic human
insulin from a Chinese company. Notably, Leung was involved in four rounds of
financing in New Horizon Health prior to its public offering in 2021, which was
4,133 times oversubscribed, making it the most oversubscribed stock in HKEx
history. She was also instrumental in Qiming's $700 million investment deal
with Abogen Bioscience last year.
Jing
Hong
Gaocheng
Capital
Founding
Partner
Meituan,
Beike, Huochebang, Mobike, Youzan, Yitu, and Bairong are all key investments.
Jing
Hong was the highest-debuting China-based investor on the Midas List in 2021.
After starting his career in venture capital at General Atlantic and then
becoming a partner at Hillhouse, Hong founded Gaocheng Capital, which now
manages over $700 million.
The
software-focused fund, according to Hong, is looking for founders that
"have a really long-term vision, are patient in building up the
organisation, and creating a significant opportunity for their business – not
just a quick victory." Gaocheng's recent Series B investment in GWT, a
commercial water purifier developer aiming to modernise the industry and
eliminate plastic, exemplified this mindset.
Ann
Miura-Ko
Floodgate
Co-founder
& Partner
Key
investments: Lyft, Bolt Financial, StarkWare, Monthly,
Refinery29, Accompany, Emotive
Floodgate
Capital was created by Ann Miura-Ko in 2008. When Lyft went public in 2019 at a
valuation of $24 billion, she got a 10,000x return on her $1.2 million
investment. She was also an early backer of Refinery29, which was purchased for
$400 million by Vice Media. Miura-Ko also invested early in fintech decacorn
Bolt Financial and blockchain firm StarkWare, which was recently valued at $6
billion. She is a member of the Yale University board of trustees and the
co-director of a tech leadership fellowship at Stanford University, where she
earned her PhD in quantitative computer security modelling. Along with fellow
Midas Lister Kirsten Green, she is a member of All Raise. Miura-Ko was
nominated to Barron's 100 Women Shaping the World of US Finance list in 2021.
Reshma
Sohoni
Seedcamp
Founding
Partner
UiPath,
Revolut, Wise, Hopin, Sorare, Pleo, Wefox, Curve, and Rossum are among the key
investments.
Reshma
Sohoni co-founded Seedcamp in 2007 and has since invested in hundreds of
successful startups. She has previously been named to the Forbes Midas List
Europe, but this is her first year on the global list. Seedcamp's portfolio
firms raised more than $5 billion in 2021, more than twice as much as any
previous year in the firm's history. In the last year, it has invested in more
than 50 businesses.
UiPath,
which went public in April 2021 at a $31 billion valuation, and Wise, which
went public in July 2021 at an $11 billion valuation, are two recent exit
highlights. Sohoni also ventured into the field of DeFi in 2021, investing in Sorare,
a fantasy football (soccer) platform based on NFTs, in a $680 million Series B
financing.