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09/11/13 | Uncategorized

The List of Female VCs Gets an Awesome Addition

Long-time Women 2.0 mentor and SimpleHoney co-founder Joyce Kim joins Freestyle Capital.

By Jessica Stillman (Editor, Women 2.0)

Who doesn’t love a story with a happy ending?

Back in March, we gave a shout out to Josh Felser, a partner a Freestyle Capital, who tweeting his dissatisfaction at the number of women who had applied for an open leadership position at the fund. Happily, six months later Felzer’s outreach has paid diversity dividends.

Freestyle announced this week it’s hiring serial entrepreneur Joyce Kim as a principal. That’s doubly good news, as Kim is not only a rock star entrepreneur herself, having led two startups to a successful exit, but also a dedicated supporter of female founders and a long-time Women 2.0 mentor.

Along with the hiring of Kim, Freestyle, which was founded by successful entrepreneurs Josh Felser and Dave Samuel and invests in early-stage companies, announced it has raised a second $40 million fund. What sort of investments are they looking to make going forward? Felser explained their philosophy to AllThingD’s Liz Gannes:

Freestyle’s pitch to startups is, “We’re all entrepreneurs,” according to Felser. “I don’t invest unless I see a pitch and think I’d consider starting the same thing myself.”

Adding Kim and the additional money… means that Freestyle will try to invest earlier on in startups’ lives, since it can spend more time with them. Felser said he is also eager to “institutionalize the Series A bridge,” meaning that the firm will set itself up to give its seed investments money if they show progress but need more time before they can secure additional funding on good terms.

Kim, a lawyer, “is the ideal person to join the firm” and help pursue this vision, Samuel told TechCrunch.

Are you optimistic that we’ll soon see many women VCs?

jstillman Jessica Stillman (@entrylevelrebel) is an editor at Women 2.0 and a freelance writer with interests in unconventional career paths, generational differences, and the future of work. She writes a daily column for Inc.com and has blogged for CBS MoneyWatch, GigaOM and Brazen Careerist, among others. 

Photo credit: Maria Ly via Flickr..

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