The first fund for ALIAVIA Ventures, a venture capital firm based in California investing only in female-founded tech startups in Australia and the US, has closed with a total of AUD 13.5 million ($8.7 million).
High-profile family offices and investors, including Carol Schwartz (Trawalla, EQT, and Climate Council), Tattarang (the Forrest Family Office), Robyn & Victoria Denholm (Wollemi Capital Group), Dom Pym (Euphemia, Founder of Up Bank), and Cynthia Scott (Zip Co.), are providing the funding, according to ALIAVIA Ventures.
“The gender imbalance is appalling, and while there is a lot of talk that the inequality is shifting, we’re still a long way from parity,” said Marisa Warren, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ALIAVIA.
“We want to see more billion-dollar startups funded and led by women. As investors we have the power to change the world through what we invest in. We want to make our dollars count by investing in gender diverse teams that are having a real positive impact on the world, whilst also delivering superior returns,” he said.
She claims that the company uses a concentrated portfolio approach so they can dig in and support their founders in every way possible as they expand and create successful businesses.
This includes Australian startups aiming to grow in the US.
According to her, the company serves as a bridge by investing in an Australian company where the majority of investors based in the United States won’t and assisting them in successfully entering the market and achieving rapid growth there.
“The United States market is significantly different to Australia and we help our founders navigate the nuances, connect to our network of co-investors, corporates and individuals to get the US-traction required,
“We are so proud of the founders we’ve been able to back so far. Fund I is just the beginning of our multi-fund, multi-generational firm to drive gender diversity and equity in venture capital,” she added.
In an effort to support more female founders of tech companies that transform the world, ALIAVIA was established in 2021.
According to ALIAVIA, of the $238 billion allocated by venture capitals in 2022, 17% went to mixed gender teams and less than 2% to all-female-founded startups, despite the fact that women-founded businesses typically have a 35 percent higher return on investment (ROI) than all-male-led teams.
Since its founding, ALIAVIA has contributed about AUD 8.4 million ($5.38 million) to nine startups led by women in the technology sector, including Eugene, an Australian company that offers genetic testing at home, HowToo, an online training resource, Othelia, and Loupe, a startup based in the United States that streams art.
Australian-Americans Marisa Warren and Kate Vale, who previously held senior positions at Google, YouTube, Spotify, SAP, Microsoft, and Workday, founded ALIAVIA after personally experiencing the gender imbalance that pervades venture capital and technology.
With ALIAVIA, the team set out to correct this disparity and fill the funding gap.
