36 female VCs launch All Raise, an initiative to increase funding for women from 15% to 25% in 5 years and double the percentage in partner roles in 10 years
Given my somewhat short break … Kristen Bellstrom / Fortune : YouTube Shooting, All Raise, Midas List: Broadsheet April 4 Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch : AllRaise wants to increase the amount of venture funding female founders receive Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal : Women VCs band together to break up Old Boys' Club Tweets: Katie Jacobs Stanton / @katies : Tremendous women making an important impact. And way to go @bizcarson on your first @Forbes cover story! All rise, @AllRaise. http://twitter.com/... Jennifer Lum / @lum : .@AllRaise's mission is to accelerate the success of female funders & founders. Double the % of female partners in 10yrs, Increase the % of female founders in 5yrs. Thanks @ktrae @paldsworth @daynagrayson @annimaniac @aileenlee & team! http://www.allraise.org/
Context & Ripple Effects
All Raise launches weeks after [[a:926314|PitchBook's tally showed all-female founding teams took just ~2.2% of the $85B US VCs invested in 2017]], turning scattered frustration into a coordinated pledge by 36 partners: lift female founders' share of funding from 15% to 25% in five years and double women in partner roles in ten.
The initiative moves fast beyond a press release — within days its members recruit ~120 female entrepreneurs into a national mentoring network, and it begins publishing its own scorecards, including the [[a:871492|2024 update showing ~18% of US VC firms now have at least one female partner, double the 2018 level]].
First-order effects
- The 36 founding VCs convert their firms' hiring and check-writing into public commitments, giving LPs and founders named benchmarks — 25% of funding, doubled partner representation — to hold them against.
Second-order effects
- Firms with no woman partner — still 65% of US VC firms as of the 2019 data, when 52 women became new VC or general partners, up 37% year over year — face rising competitive and reputational pressure to hire, since peers are now visibly counting.
Third-order effects
- By 2024 the self-reported metrics show the model working faster than promised: firm-level female partnership has already doubled versus 2018, and PitchBook credits female founders with almost 28% of total US deal value in 2023 — past the 25% goal on that measure — suggesting coordinated peer benchmarking, not one-off pledges, is what moves allocation.
The trend: Venture capital's diversity push is shifting from individual firm gestures to an industry-wide benchmarking regime where a founder-led coalition publishes the scorecards and firms compete against them.