Venture capital fund works to help women
By Rebecca Reimers
In 2022 startup teams composed entirely of women received less than 2% of allocated venture capital according to TechCrunch.com. Discouragingly, that's down from 2.4% in 2021. Amboy Street Ventures is chipping away at the imbalance by funneling 70% of its own investments into women-led companies.
Amboy is the world's first venture capital firm that invests in women's health and sexual health technology startups. Such investments help ensure success for promising startups by providing capital in exchange for company equity.
The venture capital firm participates in Silicon Couloir Teton Entrepreneurs and Mentors Service program and uses the nonprofit's co-work space in downtown Jackson.
At Silicon Couloir we believe private business can perhaps have the largest social impact of the three main sectors: government, nonprofit and private business.
Amboy Street Ventures is an unequivocal illustration of this maxim.
Amboy, a mission-aligned investment fund, is changing the landscape of venture capital for women in four important ways: First, it's a women powered fund investing in companies, which are led by women. These women also use female founded portfolio companies, with capital from women.
Over 50% of Amboy's limited partner investors are women, many of whom are Jackson locals, in comparison to the 2% average of women limited partners across other venture capital firms. And, most importantly, Amboy is the world's first venture capital fund in the sector of sexual health and women's health.
From a business perspective, Amboy is a rising star. Just last month, Amboy closed a $20 million round and saw over one thousand deals in 2022. Founder Carli Sapir, a Jackson resident, was named as a Forbes 30 under 30 this year, an exclusive group of leaders under 30 years old across a range of industries.
"I don't think I could have started Amboy Street Ventures without Silicon Couloir," Sapir said. "I found a group of people that resonated with my work quickly and decided to lean in whether it was through mentorship in Silicon Couloir TEAMS mentoring program or through investment. It's a more helpful and tighter community than I have found anywhere else." For society as a whole, Amboy is changing the conversation about sexual health and women's health. "Our mission at Amboy Street is to destigmatize women's health and sexual health for all genders," Sapir said. "Every single one of our portfolio companies is doing that in some way. There is so much shame around these women's health and sexual health issues that should not be shameful. They're just part of everyday life and health care. Having these companies brand themselves as 'No shame, no stigma, and just immediate accessible solutions' has been changing the industry."
Key focus areas of Amboy are: maternal health and fertility, menstruation and hormonal health, menopause and aging, abortion access and contraception, LGBTQIA-plus health and gender-affirming care, and sexual health and pleasure.
Illustrating the need for greater conversation and change in these areas, Sapir points to a John Hopkins survey that found only 20% of obstetrics and gynecology physicians are educated on menopause. Amboy has two portfolio companies that offer specialized menopause services.
"The reason why these things are brushed under the rug and stigmatized is a lack of education," Sapir said. "And these companies are really bringing the solutions to the forefront of people's attention."
Sapir found an organic path to her current role. She began working in engineering and then a private equity firm after college and couldn't help but notice she was the only woman on the North American team. Seeking more women in the field, she joined networks and met women investors sharing opportunities to invest in early-stage female-founded companies. She also gained a group of female founder friends raising money for their own startups. When she saw promising opportunities, Sapir brought the startups to her investor network, which resulted in significant capital raises for the startups. Over time Sapir had increasing requests to assist with company fundraising. In 2019 she started the Female Founded Club, an online networking organization that has assisted over 1,000 female founders and raised capital from over 500 venture capitalists.
"And by the way," Sapir said, "I was still working a day job in private equity. I was doing this at night as a hobby. There was no business model."
Having found her sweet spot in investing and motivated by a desire to change the landscape, Sapir founded Amboy Services in May 2020. Since that time she has brought on two general partners and an analyst, all of whom are women. Her general partners came from the go-to consulting agency for women's health and sexual health companies. Sapir approached the team about consulting for her companies and they countered with becoming co-general partners.
The company name is inspired by the first birth control clinic in the United States, which Margaret Sanger opened at 46 Amboy St. in Brooklyn in 1916. At the time both birth control and abortion were illegal in the U.S., and simply publishing or circulating information on either topic was deemed obscene and illegal by the federal Comstock Act. Sanger was arrested at least eight times in her career, but persevered and founded the American Birth Control League, and served as its president until 1928. The league was one of the parent organizations of the Birth Control Federation of America, which in 1942 became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Like Sanger, Sapir and her partners are bold pioneers for equity by providing opportunities for companies with new ideas and approaches to women's health and sexual health to thrive.