April 9, 2021

Editor’s Note

This week’s Women’s PE Briefs features personnel moves at B Capital Group, SoftBank Vision Fund, L Catterton, Palladium Equity Partners, Harlem Capital, Balderton Capital, MidOcean Partners, Next Frontier Capital and Growth Capital Partners. You’ll also read about new investments by Lerer Hippeau’s Caitlin Strandberg, BOND’s Juliet de Baubigny, Lux Capital’s Deena Shakir, Anne Wojcicki, Hummingbird Ventures’ Lola Wajskop, Nextech Invest’s Melissa McCracken, ClearVue Partners’ Kathleen Ying, Sandbox Industries’ Kelsey Maguire, Northzone’s Wendy Xiao Schadeck, Lynx Equity Limited’s Ashley Manis, Bihua Chen’s Cormorant Asset Management and Linnea Roberts’ GingerBread Capital. We also have news on liquidity events for Ambina Partners’ Christine Blehle, Astia Angels, Global Health Funds’ Zina Affas Besse and Avestria Ventures, which was founded by Linda Greub and Corinne Nevinny. Also don’t miss the webinar that we will be hosting on Wednesday focused on the Annual Meeting. You can learn more about it here.

- David Barry

Video Voices

In the Spotlight...

Avestria Ventures, which was founded by Linda Greub and Corinne Nevinny, is poised to generate an impressive first exit – an event that comes as the women’s health-focused firm prepares to close its first fund. Alydia Health, which was co-founded by Jesse Becker Alexander in 2011, is being acquired by Organon, which is being spun-off from Merck as a separate publicly traded company. Organon will pay up to $240 million for Alydia, which includes $215 million upfront plus a $25 million contingent milestone payment. Investors put a total of $32.5 million into Alydia, which is focused on making childbirth safer. Other investors in the Menlo Park, Calif. company included Astia Angels, whose CEO is Sharon Vosmek; AXA Investment Managers, which was led into Alydia’s $13.9 million Series C round a year ago by Zina Affas Besse; and the Global Health Investment Fund. Avestria, which is closing its debut fund at $10 million, invested a total of $800,000 in Alydia, Linda tells Women’s PE Briefs. The firm, she said, stands to receive up to $5.8 million, which would represent an IRR of more than 273 percent.

Alydia is developing technology designed to prevent the maternal morbidity and mortality caused by postpartum hemorrhage. PPH is one of the most common complications of birth, resulting in pharmacologic treatment in up to 10 percent of mothers and potentially resulting in emergency interventions such as hysterectomy and blood transfusions. Alydia’s Jada System is intended to provide control and treatment of abnormal postpartum uterine bleeding or hemorrhage when conservative management is warranted. The system received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August. Organon, which is focused on being a global leader in women’s health, will look to help Alydia grow Jada, potentially into Europe and other developed countries as well less developed markets where it has a presence.

Jesse conceived of the device when she was a 21-year-old student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. She founded Alydia with Nathan Blair. Jesse, an advisor to Alydia, is now an entrepreneur in residence at the Sacramento State Carlsen Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Sacramento, Calif.

Both Avestria and Astia Angels – which backs women-led companies – invested in Alydia’s $10.3 million Series B round in September 2018. Linda said she and Corinne came to know of Alydia through Wende Hutton of Canaan Partners, who as an individual was an advisor to the company. “One of the things we loved about the technology from the beginning was that it was so simple,” said Linda. “Essentially the Jada device applies suction to the uterine cavity and stimulates normal uterine contractions to stop postpartum bleeding.” They also saw that the problem Alydia was seeking to address was a significant one. Postpartum hemorrhaging, points out Linda, impacts 10.8 percent of all deliveries worldwide and results in the death of approximately 186,500 women annually.

Alydia was one of four investments that Linda and Corinne rolled into Avestria when they created the firm in 2019. The two had previously been founders of LMN Ventures, which had focused on backing clean, green, health, wellness, fitness and education-oriented businesses that improve the quality of life. A desire to focus on health care – and specifically women’s health companies – led to Linda and Corinne forming Avestria, whose investments also include Raydiant, which provides improved guidance as to whether an emergency caesarean delivery is needed, and Genome Medical, Inc., a genomics medical practice company co-founded and led by Lisa Alderson.

The firm re-invested in Alydia’s 2020 round. Linda said that Anne Morrissey – who led Alydia between 2016 and early 2020 – and her team “did a great job executing the clinical trials” and that the feedback from physicians “was incredibly enthusiastic.” The company, she said, benefitted from the fact that its trials were completed just prior to COVID shutting down numerous other trials. After landing FDA clearance, the company’s launch of Jada “was strong right from the beginning” with “more incoming orders from hospitals than the small initial salesforce could manage,” she said. Organon’s acquisition, she said, will soon make the Jada technology “and its life-saving benefits” available “to women all over the world” and also “provides important validation to the strong economics of investing in women's health."

Zina joined Alydia’s board after last year’s round. She is a managing partner with Global Health Funds, which advises AXA IM on its health care investments. Global Health Funds manages funds investing in lifesaving and life-improving therapies that can be made available globally at affordable prices while generating attractive returns. The company’s board also includes Phyllis Whiteley, a life sciences consultant who is a venture partner with Playground Global and Shacey Petrovic, CEO and president of Insulet Corporation. Erica Rogers, CEO of Silk Road Medical, has been an observer on the board. https://www.alydiahealth.com/.

Next Acts: Women on the Move

Daisy Cai leaves her role as a partner with SoftBank Vision Fund to take on a key role with B Capital Group. Read more…

Emily Henderson has left her role as an investment director with RJD Partners to join another UK private equity firm. Read more…

Balderton Capital adds Shikha Ahluwalia to its investment team. Read more…

Laura Tuttle is named co-chief investment officer of Boston Family Advisors, an investment and wealth management firm that caters to private equity and venture capital executives and entrepreneurs. Read more…

Sally Pofcher leaves her role as an operating partner with L Catterton to take the reins of one of the firm’s portfolio companies, one well known for its children’s clothes. Read more…

Nancy Mitchell leaves her role as a partner with law firm O’Melveny & Myers, LLP to join a private equity firm. Read more…

Harlem Capital promotes Gabby Cazeau and Kelly Goldstein and brings aboard Nicole DeTommaso as the diversity-focused venture firm closes its second fund. Read more…

Kirsten Suddath leaves her role as a senior associate with Blackhorn Ventures to join Next Frontier Capital. Read more…

MidOcean Partners adds industry veteran Leslie Tanca to its investor relations team. Read more…

N4 Partners adds Jacqueline Wallace to its team. Read more…

After more than a decade as chief human resources officer at HP, Inc., Tracy Keogh is set to join a private equity firm. Read more…

After five years as director of investor relations at Court Square Capital Partners, Catherine Coleman has joined another private equity firm. Read more…

Kristin Williamson, Megan Milne, Rachel Tsiouris-Gabriele and Xiaying Zhang are among those who Hamilton Lane has promoted. Read more…

Operator Collective, which is led by Mallun Yen and Leyla Seka, names Tekedra Mawakana, Claire Hughes Johnson, Stacy Brown-Philpot and Erica Schultz to its newly formed board of advisors. Read more…

The Dementia Discovery Fund, which was created to invest in and create companies pursuing therapeutic approaches for age-related dementias, adds Lynne Hughes to its team. Read more…

Patient Square Capital hires Laura Furmanski to head its newly established proprietary research and due diligence center of excellence. Read more…

Norwest Venture Partners has promoted Kathryn Weinmann and Hannah Kim. Read more…

Women Investing in Women

Good Growth Capital, whose team includes managing partners Maureen Stancik Boyce, Amy Salzhauer and Carolyne LaSala, invests in a company founded and led by Christina Qi. Read more…

Lerer Hippeau’s Caitlin Strandberg buys into Jacklyn Rome’s effort to ease an acute pain point for divorced parents. Read more…

Linnea Roberts’ GingerBread Capital sees the potential in a direct-to-consumer, customizable eyewear brand co-founded and co-led by Sophia Edelstein. Read more…

Hummingbird Ventures’ Lola Wajskop guides the firm into a company co-founded by Rachel Mumford that is seeking to prevent avoidable deaths. Read more…

The Engine, whose managing partner and CEO is Katie Rae, re-invests in Syzygy Plasmonics, Inc., which was created around research from Rice University Professor Naomi Halas. Read more…

Tappan Hill Ventures, whose president and managing director is Linda M. Fingerle, and Elevate Ventures, whose chief investment officer is Ting Gootee, re-invest in Casted, a marketing platform for branded podcasts whose CEO and co-founder is Lindsay Tjepkema. Read more…

Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Nicole Quinn backs Real, a therapy startup founded and led by Ariela Safira – a company which in 2020 was seeded by such investors as Forerunner Ventures’ Kirsten Green; Female Founders Fund, whose founding partner is Anu Duggal; and BBG Ventures, which is led by Susan Lyne and Nisha Dua. Soccer star Megan Rapinoe and entrepreneur and actress Gwyneth Paltrow are also investors in the company. Read more…

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The Dish on the Deal

Lux Capital’s Deena Shakir and 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki dial into a telehealth company. Read more…

Nextech Invest’s Melissa McCracken and Cormorant Asset Management, which is led by Bihua Chen, invest in a portfolio company of Canaan Partners’ Nina Kjellson that is focused on developing compounds targeting drug resistant cancer cells. Read more…

ClearVue Partners’ Kathleen Ying drives her firm into a provider of self-driving truck technology. Read more…

Ambina Partners’ Christine Blehle oversees the private equity firm’s sale of portfolio company Washify to a private equity-backed company. Read more…

The Riverside Company’s Nancy Graham and Caitlin McGrath are involved in yet another add-on acquisition for the firm’s Logically platform. Read more…

Sandbox Industries’ Kelsey Maguire guides the firm’s Blue Venture Fund into a provider of on-demand virtual care services. Read more…

Northzone’s Wendy Xiao Schadeck seeds a company striving to make decentralized finance more accessible. Read more…

CureDuchenne Ventures, whose CEO is Debra Miller, invests in a company focused on using intracellular biologics to transform the treatment of devasting diseases – a company whose board includes Carole Nuechterlein, head of the Roche Venture Fund. Read more…

Ashley Manis, vice president of M&A Scandinavia at Lynx Equity Limited, will be looking for her newest company to clean up – literally. Read more…

BOND Partner Juliet de Baubigny joins the board of Otrium after the growth-stage firm invests in the Dutch online fashion marketplace. Read more…

Hull Street Energy, whose founder and managing partner is Sarah Wright, is set to acquire yet another power generation station. Read more…

Gresham House Ventures’ Maya Ward leads the firm’s investment in a contract research organization. Read more…

Archangels, whose head of new investments is director Sarah Hardy, seeds a Scottish company that is developing a device to enable earlier detection and monitoring of difficult-to-detect cancers. Read more…

B Capital Group’s Rashmi Gopinath guides her firm into a company whose aim is help a billion people find the right job. Read more…

Backstory: Industry Data and Analysis

Female Founders Fund, which is led by Anu Duggal, has released its annual report on the amount of capital going into female-founded startups. Utilizing Pitchbook data, the firm reports that a total of $22.6 billion was invested in 2,641 such companies compared with $22.2 billion invested in 2,785 deals in 2019. It also found that the portion of entirely female-founded companies increased to 6.5 percent from 6.2 percent. You can read the entire report here: https://blog.femalefoundersfund.com/2020-review-of-funding-for-female-founders-4ae2c3334c10.

If you have data and analysis relevant to women in the private equity industry that you would like to share, please feel free to forward it to David Barry, Editor

Stepping Out in Public

A company that Bihua Chen’s Cormorant Asset Management backed roughly six months ago has filed to go public. Read more…

Dialogue Health Technologies, Inc., which was co-founded by Anna Chif, has gone public. Read more…

Sophia Park Mullen, a senior managing director with EnTrust Global, will help lead a special purpose acquisition company that the investment firm has helped form. Read more…

PowerSchool Holdings, whose board includes Vista Equity Partners’ Betty Hung, files to go public. Read more…

LumiraDx, whose board includes Dr. Lu Huang of Morningside and which recently filed to go public, has instead decided to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. Read more…

Panacea Acquisition Corp. II, a special purpose acquisition company whose chief investment officer is EcoR1 Capital’s Caroline Stout, goes public – a SPAC whose board includes EcoR1 colleague Sarah Marriott and Canaan Partners’ Nina Kjellson. Read more…

That’s a Wrap: Fund Closures

Vision Ridge Partners, whose investor relations activities are headed by Carolyn Fiuza, quickly raises its third sustainable asset fund – a fund that principal Emma Russell and vice president Mary Macpherson will help deploy. Read more…

Kathryn Finney’s initiative to support black entrepreneurs garners support from such investors as Pivotal Ventures, which was founded by Melinda Gates; The Impact Seat, which is led by Barbara Clarke; and First Close Partners, which is led by former Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. Read more…

KKR, whose capital raising efforts are led by Alisa A. Wood, closes its fourth Asian fund. Read more…

SkyKnight Capital, whose fundraising activities are led by partner Mara Hunt, flies through the fundraising process for its third fund. Read more…

The D.E. Shaw Group has closed a distressed-focused fund that will be co-led by Marianna Fassinotti. Read more…

Grain Management, whose director of investor relations is Kathlika Fontes, has closed its third flagship fund – a fund that will be deployed by an investment team that includes principal Jenny Zhang, vice president Diya Berger and senior associates Haley Grant and Hind Hassan. Read more…

If you have news about fund closures in the private equity industry, please feel free to forward it to David Barry, Editor.

Leading Ladies: Women-Run Companies in the News

Investors put a sizable amount of capital into Scribe Therapeutics, Inc., which was co-founded by Jennifer Doudna, who is the co-inventor of CRISPR and in 2020 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Read more…

Investors get behind a Spanish company co-founded and led by Carolina Aguilar that is developing a system for treating epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Read more…

Cerba HealthCare, whose CEO is Catherine Courboillet, is poised to once again get a new private equity owner. Read more…

ChargerHelp, which was co-founded by Kameale C. Terry and Evette Ellis to provide repair services to electric vehicle charging stations, receives a burst of capital. Read more…

Immune-Onc Therapeutics, Inc., whose founder and CEO is Charlene Liao, secures additional capital. Read more…

Tara Comonte steps down from her role as president and chief financial officer of publicly traded Shake Shack to lead a venture-backed in vitro fertilization company. Read more…

A personal hygiene company founded and led by Frances Tang secures seed funding. Read more…

A flower delivery startup founded by Catherine Metrycki receives seed capital. Read more…

A private equity firm has acquired a company led by Sian Jones that aims to help create a less complex sustainable energy sector. Read more…

RA Capital Management seeds a company co-founded and led by Virginia Burger that is focused on discovering new medicines for patients with life-threatening diseases. Read more…

Galvanize, a venture-backed developer of governance, risk management and compliance software whose president and CEO Laurie Schultz, has been acquired for a reported $1 billion. Read more…

Bravo! And the Award Goes to...

The five women who made Trusted Insight’s 2021 All-Star Institutional Investors’ list. The list recognizes institutional investors who helped lead their teams through these turbulent times. The women making the list are Ilene Spitzer, director of investments, The Rockefeller University; Natalia Ilmark, senior investment manager, private equity, Skandia Mutual Life Insurance Co.; Sarah Anderson, director of investments, University of Missouri System; Avantika Patel, director of investments, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; and Kate Butler, managing director at Melba Investments.

If you have news about awards presented to women for their work in the private equity industry, please feel free to forward it to David Barry, Editor.

No Females in Starring Roles

We would have loved to have written about...Aveanna Healthcare filing to go public, but the company has no women on its board. https://www.aveanna.com/board-of-directors.html

Do you know of a notable fund or deal that did not involve any senior women? Please let us know so we can draw attention to it. Forward details to David Barry, Editor.

Casting Call! 

APG Asset Management: Secondaries Associate, Global Private Equity – New York, NY
APG manages the pension assets (€568 billion, as of February 2021) of around 4.7 million Dutch citizens. We perform a responsible task for one in every five families in the Netherlands. APG firmly believes that participants benefit from a collective pension system. We support this pension system with our knowledge and expertise. APG’s Global Private Equity platform includes Primaries, Secondaries and Co-Investments. The Secondaries Associate will be responsible for supporting the diligence, underwriting and monitoring process for secondaries private equity investments on a global basis. The role is focused on acquiring limited partnership interests as well as executing GP-led deals (including continuation funds and private equity fund restructuring transactions). The ideal candidate will have 1 - 3 years of relevant work experience in investment banking and/or secondaries fund investing with strong analytical/technical skills. If interested, please direct all inquiries or send your resume to Alice Wang at alice.wang@apg-am.com.

Polaris Growth Fund: Associate – Boston, MA
Polaris Growth Fund is recruiting two Associates for an anticipated start date of early to mid 2022. Polaris Growth Fund continues Polaris Partner’s successful track record of investing in growing and profitable technology companies, including software, internet, and technology-enabled services. The fund targets control, leveraged recapitalizations of businesses with $5-$25M of revenue. As an Associate, you will be offered a well-rounded experience with exposure to all aspects of investing including sourcing and theme building, deal execution, and portfolio company strategy and oversight. This position represents a unique opportunity for a passionate and detail-oriented team player to have immediate impact on a small, entrepreneurial and growing team. The ideal candidate will have 1-3 years of investment banking, corporate development or private equity experience. Please direct all inquiries or send your resume to Sabrina Chiasson McLaughry at sabrina@polarispartners.com.

Cambridge Associates: Investment Director, Venture Capital – San Francisco, California
Cambridge Associates is a leading global investment firm. We aim to help endowments and foundations, pension plans, and high net worth private clients implement and manage custom investment portfolios that generate outperformance and enable them to maximize their impact on the world. Working alongside its early clients, Cambridge Associates pioneered the strategy of high-equity orientation and broad diversification, which since its inception in the 1980s has been a primary driver of performance for institutional investors. Today, we deliver a range of portfolio management services, including outsourced CIO, non-discretionary portfolio management, investment staff extension, and asset class mandates. Cambridge Associates maintains offices in major financial centers across the globe, with headquarters in Boston, MA. As part of a highly collaborative global Private Investments team, the Investment Director’s primary responsibility will be to identify, evaluate and monitor high-quality private investment managers, particularly in the venture capital and growth equity strategies. The Investment Director will serve as a key resource on VC and GE managers and funds in North America. The ideal candidate will 5+ years of relevant experience and familiarity with private investing. MBA or CFA is strongly preferred. Please apply here.

Nuveen: Senior Associate, Private Infrastructure – Charlotte / NYC
Nuveen is the investment management arm of TIAA with more than $1.1 trillion in assets under management. It is the 15th largest asset manager, serving more than 1,000 institutional clients in 40 countries with specialist knowledge across a wide array of asset classes, including Fixed Income, Equities and Alternatives. Nuveen has been an active impact investor for more than three decades, and over the last eight years has deployed over $1 billion in equity in relevant impact investments. Nuveen seeks to add a Senior Associate to its Private infrastructure team. The team makes equity and subordinated debt investments across the power, transportation, social, and digital sectors. The Senior Associate role will assist in all aspects of the team’s activities, including transaction screening, underwriting and structuring new investment opportunities as well as portfolio management responsibilities. The ideal candidate will have 5-7 years of experience, including private infrastructure investment experience. Please direct all inquiries to the Nuveen Career Website via this link.

Interested in posting a job opportunity in Women’s PE Briefs for free? Contact us at WPEBriefs@falkmarquesgroup.com.

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