Top Angel Investors for Women and Founders of Color

Female Founder Summit

Woman and multicultural founders are often judged with exceeding scrutiny. That’s why it’s important to find angel investors with a proven history of investing in diverse founder teams, such as those below.

In this article, we rank angel investors with the highest investing rates in women and founders of color according to available Crunchbase data.

We used the ratio of these angels’ diversity investments to the total number of their investments, or “Diversity Investment Rate,” as a measure of their willingness to invest in women and diverse founders. We also looked at the success of their portfolio as measured by their companies’ exit rate.

Assuming that diverse founders value both the angel investors’ propensity to invest in folks like them and to help them succeed, we combined those two factors in a “combined score,” which is how we arrived at our ranking of angels. Note that we only looked at angels with at least 20 investments since these ratios are much less meaningful for very small portfolios.

Without further ado, here are the top angel investors for women and diverse founders.

Top 50 Angels Investing in Women and Founders of Color

Topping our list of top angel investors for women and founders of color is the late Tony Hsieh. Although the startup community lost Tony some time ago, we decided to keep him on this list as a tribute to his amazing work with founders. Thank you, Tony! You continue to inspire us!

Not including Tony Hsieh, Julie McDermott is the top angel investing in women and founders of color! Rounding out the top three stops are also Marissa Mayer and Joanne Wilson.

RankAngel InvestorDiversity Investment RateExit RateCombined Score
1Tony Hsieh46.4%63.6%0.86
2Julie McDermott71.4%10.5%0.84
3Marissa Mayer50.0%47.8%0.81
4Joanne Wilson57.5%22.0%0.75
5Troy Carter39.1%52.2%0.71
6Brian Lee33.3%58.3%0.68
7Ullas Naik38.6%46.2%0.67
8Jonathan Abrams36.4%50.0%0.67
9Chung Ng36.4%47.4%0.66
10Dave Morin31.1%56.9%0.65
11Ellen Levy45.2%27.6%0.64
12Matthew Luckett30.4%55.6%0.64
13Jesse Robbins28.6%58.8%0.63
14Joe Greenstein36.4%40.9%0.62
15Deborah Quazzo48.1%16.7%0.62
16Andy Rankin23.8%65.0%0.62
17Geoff Judge33.3%45.5%0.61
18James Pallotta33.3%44.4%0.61
19Allen Morgan23.8%63.2%0.61
20Chris M. Willliams41.7%27.3%0.60
21Dave McClure28.8%51.9%0.60
22Ben Narasin29.6%50.0%0.60
23Ron Suber31.8%44.4%0.59
24Pejman Nozad21.7%63.6%0.59
25Caterina Fake31.0%44.0%0.58
26Keith Rabois20.6%64.5%0.58
27Payam Zamani37.5%30.8%0.58
28Mark Leslie34.6%36.4%0.58
29Andrew Mitchell30.8%43.8%0.58
30Erik Moore33.3%38.1%0.57
31Marc Andreessen14.6%75.0%0.57
32Mitchell Kapor23.6%56.9%0.57
33Erik Blachford28.0%47.8%0.57
34Paul Sethi29.4%44.8%0.57
35David Tisch22.5%58.5%0.57
36Emmett Shear42.3%17.4%0.56
37Paige Craig27.7%46.3%0.56
38Shervin Pishevar24.5%51.7%0.55
39Adeyemi Ajao24.2%51.6%0.55
40Jonathan Keidan34.0%31.7%0.54
41Kal Vepuri36.1%27.3%0.54
42Baron Davis38.9%21.6%0.54
43Farzad Nazem19.0%61.1%0.54
44Clark Landry33.7%30.9%0.54
45Benjamin Ling25.3%47.2%0.53
46Lee Linden28.8%39.7%0.53
47Michael Kassan28.6%40.0%0.53
48Bradley C. Harrison26.0%44.4%0.53
49Reid Hoffman24.1%48.0%0.53
50Ben Orthlieb40.9%13.6%0.52
Data via Crunchbase

It’s interesting to note that the investors at the top of the above list have moderate portfolios, usually 20-30 investments.

Top 50 Angel Investors by Diversity Investment Rate

Looking at just the diversity investment rate of angel investors with at least 20 investments, we get the following ranking:

RankAngel InvestorNumber of InvestmentsNumber of Diversity InvestmentsDiversity Investment Rate
1Julie McDermott211571.4%
2Joanne Wilson734257.5%
3Marissa Mayer281450.0%
4Deborah Quazzo271348.1%
5Tony Hsieh281346.4%
6Ellen Levy311445.2%
7Emmett Shear261142.3%
8Chris M. Willliams241041.7%
9Chloe Sladden241041.7%
10Ben Orthlieb22940.9%
11Jeff Dean331339.4%
12Troy Carter23939.1%
13Baron Davis542138.9%
14Ullas Naik441738.6%
15Payam Zamani401537.5%
16Andy Dunn321237.5%
17Claire Hughes Johnson24937.5%
18Julia Hartz301136.7%
19Jonathan Abrams22836.4%
20Chung Ng22836.4%
21Joe Greenstein22836.4%
22Andre Iguodala22836.4%
23Kal Vepuri361336.1%
24Anne Wojcicki511835.3%
25Mark Leslie26934.6%
26Jonathan Keidan531834.0%
27Clark Landry1013433.7%
28Brian Lee391333.3%
29James Pallotta301033.3%
30Geoff Judge24833.3%
31Erik Moore24833.3%
32Holly Liu24833.3%
33Sean Rad21733.3%
34Drew Houston311032.3%
35David Carrico25832.0%
36Ron Suber22731.8%
37Neil Parikh22731.8%
38Dave Morin611931.1%
39Caterina Fake29931.0%
40Andrew Mitchell26830.8%
41Matthew Luckett23730.4%
42Shiva Rajaraman23730.4%
43Alex Pattis23730.4%
44Ben Narasin27829.6%
45Semyon Dukach27829.6%
46Nasir Jones441329.5%
47Paul Sethi341029.4%
48Tony Robbins24729.2%
49Jack Dorsey31929.0%
50Milad Alucozai31929.0%
Data via Crunchbase

Julie McDermott, Joanne Wilson, and Marissa Mayer have the three highest rates of diversity investments in their portfolio. Way to go!

Top 50 Angel Investors by Total Number of Diversity Investments

And finally, looking just at those angels with the most investments in founders of color or women, we have the following ranking:

RankAngel InvestorNumber of InvestmentsNumber of Diversity InvestmentsDiversity Investment Rate
1Edward Lando4365612.8%
2Mark Cuban2484618.5%
3Joanne Wilson734257.5%
4Marc Benioff1834021.9%
5Daniel Curran1854021.6%
6Fabrice Grinda2573915.2%
7Shervin Pishevar1513724.5%
8Clark Landry1013433.7%
9Elad Gil1963417.3%
10Paul Buchheit1713319.3%
11Scott Belsky2013316.4%
12Alexis Ohanian1673118.6%
13Louis Beryl1163025.9%
14Wei Guo1452920.0%
15Wayne Chang902628.9%
16Kevin Moore932628.0%
17Kevin Hartz962627.1%
18Scott Banister1502416.0%
19JaMes Sowers802328.8%
20Kevin Mahaffey1192218.5%
21Esther Dyson1232217.9%
22Baron Davis542138.9%
23Lee Linden732128.8%
24Reid Hoffman872124.1%
25Bradley Horowitz922122.8%
26David Tisch892022.5%
27Kevin Lin1082018.5%
28Dave Morin611931.1%
29Benjamin Ling751925.3%
30Tim Draper1071917.8%
31Gokul Rajaram1901910.0%
32Naval Ravikant264197.2%
33Anne Wojcicki511835.3%
34Jonathan Keidan531834.0%
35Sahin Boydas691826.1%
36Cyan Banister1031817.5%
37Lachy Groom1101816.4%
38Sam Altman1111816.2%
39Ullas Naik441738.6%
40Dave McClure591728.8%
41Eric Schmidt591728.8%
42Bryan Rosenblatt681725.0%
43Justin Kan781721.8%
44Justin Mateen1341712.7%
45Jon Oringer1491711.4%
46Max Levchin1021615.7%
47Tom Williams1171613.7%
48Julie McDermott211571.4%
49Payam Zamani401537.5%
50Avichal Garg611524.6%
Data via Crunchbase

Once again, those angels with the biggest portfolios don’t necessarily have the highest diversity investment rates.

Target Less Active Angels

Perhaps the most interesting finding of our analysis is that those angels with the most angel investments seem to also have among the lowest diversity investment rates.

Out of about 900 investors in our data set, the most active angel investors cluster around the middle of the list with regard to their diversity investment rate. Incidentally, many of the most active angels also tend to have mediocre exit rates of their portfolio companies.

What does this mean for female founders and founders of color?

Perhaps the best investors for diverse founders are those with a moderate level of activity rather than the most active and often most well-known ones.

An Important Caveat on the Data Set

As with all data, there are likely some missed or inaccurate data points. All data for this analysis came from Crunchbase, and it seems accurate enough for comparative purposes. However, I would not worry too much about whether the 26th ranked investor should really be in the 25th spot, for example.

It’s worth noting that this data is from Crunchbase, which classifies “Diversity Investments” as those in startups founded or led by individuals that identify as Black or African American, Native American, Middle Eastern/North African, South Asia, East Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, or Woman. While Black, Latinx, and female founders seem to be fairly accurately recorded in the dataset, other groups are clearly undercounted from a spot check we performed.

Conclusion

Underrepresented founders face enough hurdles in their journey, and hopefully, this list is a good starting point for those of you looking for angel investors that will evaluate you and your startup fairly.

Also, be sure to check out our mega guide for finding and pitching angel investors.

As always, I look forward to your comments and feedback on this list!


Sergio Paluch - Managing Partner at Beta Boom -- a pre-seed VC fund

About the Author: Sergio is a Managing Partner at Beta Boom—a pre-seed and seed fund investing in tenacious underdog founders solving impactful problems.

His mission is to level the playing field for underestimated founders and empower them to build huge, impactful businesses.

Tell us about what you’re building.

If you’re seeking pre-seed or seed investment and think Beta Boom is a fit, reach out.

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