Key Sentence:
- Two years after founding venture capital firm Moxxie Ventures, Katie Jacobs Stanton approached an old friend on Twitter as an equal partner in the company’s new fund.
Alex Router joins Moxxie Ventures as director of his second $85 million funds. Most recently, Ruther was the President of Kitty Hawks Larry Page Air Taxi. With the fund, the partners wanted to continue investing in startups in several tech areas at an early stage, but this time they wrote more extensive inspections and ran more rounds. News of the new fund and Moxxie partners was announced for the first time in Forbes’ Midas Touch newsletter over the weekend.
In an interview, Stanton said he believes Moxxie Ventures can compete because of its focus on underrepresented founders and the company’s experience and Roetter can offer entrepreneurs. Stanton was with Google for six years, working in the Obama administration and then for more than five years at Twitter, where he led international growth and media partnerships.
Most recently, she co-founded #Angels, a group of current and former female executives on Twitter that she has personally invested in, and spent three years at Color Genomics as Chief Marketing Officer. Roetter tangled with Stanton at Google, then worked closely with his chief technology officer at Twitter from 2010 to 2016 before spending three years at Kitty Hawk.
Our operational experience is both unique,” said Stanton. “Then [our focus is on] how to create a fairer table for restraint, on the investment side and also for venture funds.”
Of the 27 companies in Moxxie’s first fund, 36% were founded by women, 40% by blacks, 8% by black founders, and 43% by immigrant founders. In addition, nearly half (46%) of Moxxie’s growing base of limited partners, investors who provide VC money to invest, are women, while more than half (68%) are female check writers. Eighteen percent of its LPs are marked as black, local, or colored, equating to 29% of the capital raised.
While Moxxie’s first fund is still relatively young, five of the company’s portfolios – Certn, Clubhouse, Daily, Near, and Superpeer – have put together subsequent rounds. Both Stanton and Rosette were also active private investors when Stanton launched the first Moxxie fund.
It supported 40 companies; today invested in 50 people, including Airtable, Cameo, Coinbase, and Shape Security. Angel Roetter’s portfolio includes Stedi, Veho, and several companies he invested in with or after Stanton, including Clubhouse, Digits, and Mainstreet.
But Stanton learned some lessons the hard way with Moxxie’s first fund. Several institutional investors have stated that they cannot support debut funds, either in size or with independent partners. And with the checks pouring fast and furiously into the startup with the higher deposit amount, he must collect seven special vehicles or SPVs to bet on his new winner, which is a time-consuming and less profitable option.