Who are the top women angel investors? We’ve got a list of top female angel investors in the U.S. ranked by the success rate of their portfolios and investment rate.
In this article, we look at the most active women angel investors, with at least 20 investments, as well as those whose portfolios had the highest proportion of exits such as acquisitions or IPOs.
Note on data: All data for this ranking was taken from Crunchbase, which is one of the most accessible platforms for founders. Crunchbase, like any other investment aggregator platform, does not have complete data, however. Still, we judge the available data to be more than sufficient for this ranking.
Most Active Female Angel Investors
To start, we took a look at the most active female angel investors with 20 or more investments as reported on Crunchbase. Esther Dyson, Cyan Banister, and Joanne Wilson are the most active women angel investors in the U.S.
1. Esther Dyson
Esther Dyson is an investor and philanthropist and the founder of Wellville, a nonprofit dedicated to demonstrating the value of long-term investment in health and equity.
Investments: 122
Diversity Investments: 22
2. Cyan Banister
Cyan Banister is a self-taught engineer who went on to hold several technical leadership positions including at IronPort, which was acquired by Cisco. Cyan is a prolific angel investor whose portfolio includes Uber, Thumbtack, SpaceX, and Postmates. She is also a former partner at Founders Fund and an author!
Investments: 103
Diversity Investments: 18
3. Joanne Wilson
Joanne Wilson is a blogger, active angel investor, Co-Founder Womens Entrepreneur Festival, and Founder at Gotham Gal Ventures.
Investments: 73
Diversity Investments: 43
LinkedIn | Twitter X | Crunchbase
4. Anne Wojcicki
Anne Wojcicki is the co-founder and CEO of 23andMe and a serial angel investor. Prior to founding 23andMe, Anne was a healthcare analyst at a number of investment firms including Passport Capital and Andor Capital Management.
Investments: 49
Diversity Investments: 18
5. Constance Freedman
Constance Freedman is the founder and Managing Partner at Moderne Ventures. She often co-invests as an angel along with Moderne’s own direct investments.
Investments: 47
Diversity Investments: 10
6. Meltem Demirors
Meltem Demirors is a leading figure in the blockchain and cryptocurrency world. She is the Co-Chair of the Cryptocurrency Council at the World Economic Forum and Director at the Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme at the Saïd Business School.
Investments: 42
Diversity Investments: 2
7. Edith Yeung
Edith Yeung is a General Partner at Race Capital and an active angel investor. One of Edith’s most notable investments was in Solana. Prior to Race Capital, Edith worked as General Partner at 500 Startups and was an executive at Dolphin Browser.
Investments: 36
Diversity Investments: 3
8. Mathilde Collin
Mathilde Collin the Co-Founder and CEO at Front App, a platform for customer communication, which she has led for over a decade. She is also fond of LEGO!
Investments: 32
Diversity Investments: 5
9. Ellen Levy
Ellen Levy is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Connect, which is an organization seeking to build bridges between Silicon Valley and the rest of the world. Ellen is also an active angel investor and advisor to several startups.
Investments: 32
Diversity Investments: 5
10. Julia Hartz
Julia Hartz is the Co-Founder and CEO of Eventbrite and a seasoned angel investor. Julia is also a board member at a few institutions and global companies and Aspen Institute Fellow.
Investments: 30
Diversity Investments: 11
11. Caterina Fake
Caterina Fake is a General Partner at Yes VC as well as a podcast host and board member at many high-profile organizations and tech companies such as Etsy.
Investments: 29
Diversity Investments: 9
12. Marissa Mayer
Marissa Mayer started her career at Google in 1999, and worked in leadership positions at Google for over 13 years. Afterward, Marissa went on to serve as President & CEO of Yahoo! and recently founded Sunshine, which creates advanced technology to make mundane tasks effortless.
Investments: 28
Diversity Investments: 14
13. Deborah Quazzo
Deborah Quazzo is a Managing Partner at GSV Ventures and Co-Founder of the annual ASU+GSV Edtech summit.
Investments: 26
Diversity Investments: 13
14. Kim Perell
Kim Perell is a successful serial founder, bestselling author, keynote speaker and prolific angel investor.
Investments: 26
Diversity Investments: 5
15. Chloe Sladden
Chloe Sladden is the Co-Founder and CEO or Honeycomb Labs, which is a collaborative parenting app. She is also a prolific angel investor and Founding Partner or #ANGELS.
Investments: 25
Diversity Investments: 10
16. Allison Pickens
Allison Pickens is a General Partner at The New Normal Fund where she focuses on AI and SaaS startups.
Investments: 25
Diversity Investments: 5
17. Claire Hughes Johnson
Claire Hughes Johnson is a Corporate Officer at Stripe and the Author of Scaling People.
Investments: 24
Diversity Investments: 9
18. Holly Liu
Holly Liu was a Co-Founder of Kabam, which was acquired for roughly by Netmarble and FoxNext. Holly is also a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at PKO Investments, a collective that invests in startups at the intersection of tech and entertainment.
Investments: 24
Diversity Investments: 8
19. Julia Lipton
Julia Lipton is the Founder of Awesome People Ventures, which invests in Web3.
Investments: 23
Diversity Investments: 3
20. Julie McDermott
Julie McDermott invests in seed-stage startups in sectors ranging from biotech to healthtech to fintech. Julie was also named to the Business Insiders Top 100 Seed Investors list. She was previously an executive at multiple financial institutions.
Investments: 21
Diversity Investments: 15
21. Julia Popowitz
Julia Popowitz is an active technology angel investor with angel investments in high-profile startups such as Alt12 (acquired by Honest Co), Aumni (acquired by JP Morgan), BetterUp, and Gusto. She is also a member of the angel group Broadway Angels.
Investments: 21
Diversity Investments: 6
22. Natalie Carnegie
Natalie Carnegie is the Founder and General Partner at Carnegie VC. Natalie’s angel investments include high-profile startups such as Flexport, Houseparty, and Wefunder.
Investments: 21
Diversity Investments: 6
23. Shana Fisher
Shana Fisher is the Managing Partner at HLVP, an early-stage venture capital fund. Shana’s investments include Pinterest and ClassPass.
Investments: 20
Diversity Investments: 3
Top Female Angel Investors According to Exit Rate
To rank the top women angel investors, we looked at the rate at which their portfolio companies reach an exit such as an acquisition or initial public offering (IPO). According to their portfolio’s exit rate, Kim Perell is the top female angel investor in the U.S. Other top female angels include Marissa Mayer, Caterina Fake, Constance Freedman and Shana Fisher.
Rank | Angel Investor | Number of Investments | Exit Rate |
1 | Kim Perell | 26 | 50.0% |
2 | Marissa Mayer | 28 | 47.8% |
3 | Caterina Fake | 29 | 44.0% |
4 | Constance Freedman | 47 | 39.5% |
5 | Shana Fisher | 20 | 38.9% |
6 | Julia Popowitz | 21 | 38.1% |
7 | Esther Dyson | 122 | 30.2% |
8 | Ellen Levy | 31 | 27.6% |
9 | Cyan Banister | 103 | 27.5% |
10 | Joanne Wilson | 73 | 22.0% |
11 | Natalie Carnegie | 21 | 19.0% |
12 | Deborah Quazzo | 26 | 17.4% |
13 | Edith Yeung | 36 | 14.3% |
14 | Julie McDermott | 21 | 10.5% |
15 | Chloe Sladden | 25 | 8.3% |
16 | Holly Liu | 24 | 8.3% |
17 | Mathilde Collin | 32 | 6.7% |
18 | Claire Hughes Johnson | 24 | 4.8% |
19 | Julia Lipton | 23 | 4.3% |
20 | Anne Wojcicki | 49 | 4.3% |
21 | Allison Pickens | 25 | 4.0% |
22 | Meltem Demirors | 42 | 2.5% |
Women Angels Investing in Diverse Founders
We also wanted to see which women angels were investing in diverse founders such as other women, Black, Latina, and Asian founders. Our team judged this by the ratio of their portfolio that were investments in diverse founders, as defined by Crunchbase.
Julie McDermott, Joanne Wilson, Marissa Mayer, Deborah Quazzo, and Ellen Levy have the highest rate of diversity investments among female angels.
Rank | Angel Investor | Investments | Diversity Investments | Diversity Investment Rate |
1 | Julie McDermott | 21 | 15 | 71.4% |
2 | Joanne Wilson | 73 | 43 | 58.9% |
3 | Marissa Mayer | 28 | 14 | 50.0% |
4 | Deborah Quazzo | 26 | 13 | 50.0% |
5 | Ellen Levy | 31 | 14 | 45.2% |
6 | Chloe Sladden | 25 | 10 | 40.0% |
7 | Claire Hughes Johnson | 24 | 9 | 37.5% |
8 | Anne Wojcicki | 49 | 18 | 36.7% |
9 | Julia Hartz | 30 | 11 | 36.7% |
10 | Holly Liu | 24 | 8 | 33.3% |
11 | Caterina Fake | 29 | 9 | 31.0% |
12 | Julia Popowitz | 21 | 6 | 28.6% |
13 | Natalie Carnegie | 21 | 6 | 28.6% |
14 | Constance Freedman | 47 | 10 | 21.3% |
15 | Allison Pickens | 25 | 5 | 20.0% |
16 | Kim Perell | 26 | 5 | 19.2% |
17 | Esther Dyson | 122 | 22 | 18.0% |
18 | Cyan Banister | 103 | 18 | 17.5% |
19 | Mathilde Collin | 32 | 5 | 15.6% |
20 | Shana Fisher | 20 | 3 | 15.0% |
21 | Julia Lipton | 23 | 3 | 13.0% |
22 | Edith Yeung | 36 | 3 | 8.3% |
23 | Meltem Demirors | 42 | 2 | 4.8% |
Corrections and Additions
We hope that you found this list of top women angel investors helpful and interesting. We try our best to provide accurate information, but if we missed something, please reach out to let us know via email to sergio [at] betaboom.com. Thanks!
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