FEMALE & UNDERREPRESENTED FOUNDERS PITCH OFF 2021
OVERVIEW
Yale Angels is hosting a pitch off event for female & underrepresented founders on October 26, 2021 from 6 pm - 7:30 pm EST! We’re featuring five companies led by female & underrepresented founders from the Yale community. A panel of Yale alumni investors will select a single winner and award a prize of $10,000 at the live pitch off.
The five finalists are:
Advasys - Hedi Katz MPPM '93
DiversiBoard - Eleanor Brown JD '99
Jawsaver - Selina Tirtajana MPH '11
Liv-Labs - Melody Roberts '90
WovX - Veenu King MEM '22
All five finalists will receive high value pro bono services from Yale alumni.
This competition is sponsored by the Yale Office of Development.
It is co-sponsored by YaleWomen, the Yale Black Alumni Association (YBAA), the Yale Latino Alumni Network (YLAN), the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni (AAAYA), and Yale GALA, the Yale University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Alumni Association, and supported by YAA Shared Interest Groups.
SUBMISSION PROCESS & DEADLINE
The deadline to register for consideration and submit an overview deck is September 20, 2021 by midnight EST (note new deadline). The Yale Angels team will review all submissions and notify applicants of their final status by October 12, 2021. To apply:
Complete this registration form: https://forms.gle/JeU4qyHkz1aihyqj6
Submit pitch deck by September 20, 2021 by midnight EST to angels@accelerateyale.org
CRITERIA & REQUIREMENTS
Ventures for consideration must meet the following criteria and submission requirements:
Yale graduate student or alumna of any school or year. Yale affiliation will be verified against Yale databases. Current undergraduate students are not eligible.
Female founder(s)
Pre-seed or seed stage venture
Completed registration form
Pitch deck
The pitch deck should be no more than 20 pages and answer the following questions:
Problem Describe the pain of your customer. How is this addressed today and what are the shortcomings to current solutions?
Solution Why is your value prop unique and compelling? Why will it endure? And where does it go from here?
Why now? Why hasn’t your solution been built before now?
Market potential Identify your customer and your market.
Competition / alternatives Who are your direct and indirect competitors?
Business model How do you intend to thrive?
Team Tell the story of your founders and key team members.
Financials If you have any, please include.
Vision If all goes well, what will you have built in five years?
ABOUT THE JUDGES
Anna Barber ’90 JD ‘95
Partner
Anna is Partner and head of Launchpad at M13. She is interested in investing in and coaching founders of high growth startups. She is also Partner at the Fund LA, investing in early-stage startups in SoCal. She is a former Managing Director at Techstars LA. She has been a Founder, co-founder and early employee at e-commerce, media and ed tech startups. She has also been a former strategy consultant, corporate lawyer, talent manager, film producer, round-the-world traveler and outdoor adventurer. Anna is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School.
Managing Director
Paula Campbell Roberts (New York) joined KKR in 2017, and is a U.S. Consumer Economist and Managing Director on the Global Macro, Balance Sheet and Risk as well as Real Estate Americas teams. Prior to joining KKR, Ms. Roberts was an executive director at Morgan Stanley. Ms. Roberts started her career as a management consultant at Bain & Co. Ms. Roberts earned her MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BA from Yale University. Currently, Ms. Roberts serves on the boards of The Brearley School, the Northside Center for Childhood Development, the American Friends of Jamaica and the Harvard Business School African-American Alumni Association. She is also a Compass Charter School Advisory Board member and a Lincoln Center Leadership Fellow.
Molly Fowler ‘09
CEO
Molly Fowler serves as CEO of Dorm Room Fund, the nation's premier student venture fund. She is proud to work closely with the DRF student partners to back the strongest student founders. Since its founding, DRF has helped 350+ undergrad, MBA, PhD and other student founders grow their companies and raise billions of follow-on capital from some of the biggest names in venture. Under Molly's watch, 76% of DRF's investing team have become VCs or founders. Before joining DRF, Molly served on the investing team at First Round Capital; as an operator at Intersection, a Sidewalk Labs/Alphabet backed tech company; and as LA Mayor Eric Garcetti's Deputy Director of Communications. She cut her teeth on political campaigns in Southern California. When not hanging with DRF, Molly is the front woman of a country band and an occasional intern at her local wine shop.
Leslie Goldman ‘88
General Partner and Co-Founder
Leslie Goldman is General Partner and Co-founder of The Artemis Fund, a venture fund focused on high growth, tech-enabled, seed stage companies founded and led by women. Prior to launching The Artemis Fund with her two partners, Leslie spent 25 years as a corporate attorney and 3 years as an executive recruiter.
Leslie is an active member of the Launch Syndicate (Jason Calacanis), the Launch Fund and the Launch accelerator program in Silicon Valley, a founding member of PandoLabs and Rehabilitation Health in Park City, a Strategic Advisor to the Rebel Fund (a YCombinator Fund), and a member of the Investment Committee of Blue Ivy Ventures III and IV. She has directly invested in 60 early-stage companies and 11 venture funds in addition to The Artemis Fund.
Leslie holds a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from the University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law. She has three boys who are very supportive of her focus on gender equity!
Principal
Rebecca Liu-Doyle is a Principal at Insight Partners, an NYC-based venture capital and private equity firm with >$30B in assets under management, where she focuses on high growth application software, payments/fintech, and consumer internet. Over the course of her career there, she has helped deploy >$500 (in companies including Divvy, Finix, Linktree, Prose, Quantum Metric, and UserTesting), and currently sits on 15 boards. She was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital in 2020 and is an active member of All Raise. Rebecca started her career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company’s and graduated summa cum laude from Yale University.
QUESTIONS
To learn more about our pitch off sponsorship rates and benefits, to volunteer your services on a pro bono basis to the finalists, or for any other questions, please contact Wendy Maldonado D’Amico ‘93 (wendymaldonado.damico@gmail.com) or Ellen Su '13 (ellenfsu@gmail.com).
REGISTER TO ATTEND THE PITCH OFF
Reserve your spot to view the live pitch off on October 26 as an audience member here.