Women-Led VC Firm TMV Raises $64 Million To Back ‘Triple Bottom-Line’ Startups Benefiting The Planet

At first look, Soraya Darabi and Marina Hadjipateras may seem an uncommon enterprise capital cofounder pair.

Darabi’s profession took off within the small world of New York techies of the late 2000s, managing The New York Instances’ early forays into social media and a digital-first world earlier than cofounding a number of startups. Hadjipateras, in the meantime, was making her title in Greece, South Korea and the Philippines, representing her household’s delivery and serving to information it public.

However as cofounders of TMV, previously generally known as Path Combine Ventures, the 2 former school classmates match. “Our networks are utterly completely different, and subsequently complementary,” Hadjipateras says. “We now have the identical starvation and drive, and viewpoint on the world.”

Now with a brand new $64 million second fund backed by monetary giants together with Financial institution of America and J.P. Morgan Asset Administration, Darabi and Hadjipateras want to take TMV from “indie rock VC” to establishment. Phrase of TMV’s new fund was first reported on Saturday within the Midas Contact publication.

TMV’s origins hint to 2016, when Darabi and Hadjipateras, who had met learning overseas at Georgetown, determined to hitch drive. Darabi had appeared on the duvet of Quick Firm in 2010 and cofounded Foodspotting information and ecommerce model Zady; she was seeking to formalize her investing after personally backing firms together with medical scrubs vendor Figs, mattress maker Casper and residential meals service Hungryroot. Hadjipateras had returned to the U.S. from her operations work abroad to information Dorian LPG to a public providing, constructing out its investor relations and compliance; she was seeking to arrange a household workplace to spend money on startups herself. Each had been inquisitive about “triple backside line” firms, ones that put as a lot concentrate on social and environmental impression as they do enterprise success.

At first, their focus turned to a few sectors: technical and sustainable options, the care financial system and the way forward for work. Making about two dozen investments from that preliminary fund, the 2 backed billion-dollar firms together with healthcare supplier Cityblock, Kindbody in ladies’s well being and fertility and holistic medical enterprise Parsley Well being. The agency added two long-time enterprise companions, Evan Wray, a Forbes Below 30 alum and the CEO of Mavely; and Darshan Somashekar, an entrepreneur who offered a startup to Chegg, alongside the best way.

Regardless of its preliminary title and founders’ backgrounds, Path Combine Ventures didn’t concentrate on media, delivery or meals. One exception is Nautilus Labs, an organization offering software program for shippers that TMV backed with its first fund. CEO Matt Heider says that early on, Hadjipateras helped the startup acquire its first buyer, amongst a number of early ones, whereas making key business connections. Nevertheless it’s TMV’s shared priorities round making a worldwide impression past monetary outcomes, Heider says, that has made the agency a very robust match. “If you’re somebody who actually believes in constructing a enterprise that’s purpose-driven in that manner, there aren’t as many VCs on the market who consider in that as nicely,” he says.

At holistic medication supplier Parsley Well being, founder Dr. Robin Berzin took an funding from TMV in her seed spherical in 2017. Darabi examined the product early on, resulting in Berzin briefly serving as her physician. “I might inform she was going to be an excellent connector,” says Berzin. When Parsley raised its Sequence A the next yr, Darabi and TMV had been there to judge time period sheets and vet potential traders. “They’ve an unbelievable document of investing in women-led and women- co-led firms,” Berzin provides. “They’re considerate and proactive with out being overbearing.”

As we speak, TMV has grown to incorporate principal Emma Silverman and Lucas Turner-Owens, who’s becoming a member of full-time as a principal quickly, in addition to a CFO, artistic director and others. It misplaced the unique title: “in the event you discovered an organization that has meals within the title, you’re going to see a whole lot of chia seed and pistachio milk startups,” Darabi admits. The agency has added monetary inclusion and mobility as two areas of focus, whereas additionally serving to launch a neighborhood for ladies VCs, Transact International. One in three companies in TMV’s portfolio are feminine co-founded, and a majority are co-founded by a founder from an underrepresented background.

Elevating a second fund, nonetheless, was not the sleek path that Darabi says she’s sick of listening to friends declare to have skilled. When Covid-19 shut down their ambitions to fundraise from restricted companions in Europe, the duo paused to concentrate on their portfolio’s wants in mid-2020; Darabi additionally gave start to a daughter that summer time and went on depart. Reengaging that fall was a slog. “It’s important to stand up day-after-day and act such as you haven’t been rejected 5 occasions, and hold going,” says Hadjipateras.

However by January 2021, TMV had raised a primary shut and began investing, writing 22 checks over the course of the yr, seeking to usually make investments $1 million to $1.5 million for possession of about 10% in seed and early-stage startups. Closing out the fund acquired simpler as banks signed on. TMV was one of many first investments made by Venture Spark, J.P. Morgan Asset Administration’s $50 million initiative to again rising managers of numerous backgrounds. “TMV stood out as a cohesive group with complementary experience as operators with in depth networks enabling them so as to add worth to the founders they spend money on,” wrote Jamie Kramer, Head of the Various Options Group and Venture Spark’s funding committee chair, in a press release.

One key to success for TMV: communication. Many funds merely ship dry quarterly or annual updates with lists of their investments, says restricted companion Randy Reddig, a former member of the founding group at Sq. who has backed TMV and co-invested in its special-purpose automobiles for its rising winners. “They take it a step additional, and it helps us really feel nearer to them as managers, so we’re excited to again them,” he says. “They’re messaging and constructing their model in a manner that isn’t simply GPs sniping at one another on Twitter.”

That’s partly why, after years of not taking salaries and being advised they’re not a $100 million fund, TMV’s companions are cautiously optimistic about objectives of which monetary returns are only one half. “With our restricted companions and with our founders, we’re simply quietly attempting to under-promise and over-deliver,” says Darabi. “If we get that bit proper, then we get to remain in enterprise.”