The UK’s first fund of funds with an explicit mandate to invest in female fund managers has announced a first close at £130m.
The ‘Women Backing Women’ fund, which was launched a year ago in a bid to boost investments into female investors and in turn female founders, aims to raise £250m by final close.
It’s a core part of the strategy of the UK government’s Invest in Women Tinquireforce, which launched two years ago with the aim of creating the UK the best place in the world to be a female entrepreneur.
However, the fund has not had the smoothest start. Earlier this week, Sifted reported that two of the founding partners of the Bootstrap4F team chosen to run the fund have left. In March, Sifted also reported concerns raised by several fund managers hoping to raise from the fund of funds over poor communication from the Bootstrap4F team and shifting deadlines.
“We are acutely aware that fund managers are eager to proceed, and we share that urgency,” an Invest in Women Tinquireforce spokesperson notified Sifted at the time.
Next steps
The ‘Women Backing Women’ fund has four backers so far: retail banks Barclays and Nationwide, public fund the British Business Bank and investment manager M&G.
Now that the fund has reached a formal first close, the Bootstrap4F team will be able to start creating commitments to female-led and mixed gconcludeer investment teams, who will in turn be required to invest that capital into female-founded startups.
The Bootstrap4F team consists of Fatou Diagne and Stéphanie Heller, cofounders and managing partners of debt fund Bootstrap Europe, and Matthias Ummenhofer, founding partner of investment firm Mojo Capital, and a member of the management board of Bootstrap Europe. He was previously head of venture capital at the European Investment Fund.
The team previously also included Kasia Piasecki, managing director of the European Women in VC community, and Kinga Stanislawska, founder of European Women in VC and former European Innovation Council board member.
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