推特女人帮：硅谷新势力

五年前，五位推特前成员和一位现高管组成了初创公司投资团体Angels。五年后，她们经常听到别人把她们和“PayPal帮”相比。后者是2007年被《财富》杂志叫响的名号，指的是几位硅谷大佬：彼得·蒂尔、埃隆·马斯克、里德·霍夫曼等。eBay收购PayPal后他们都离开了，并把自己拿到的收购资金用于塑造新一代硅谷初创公司。Angels对这样的类比付之一笑，并不完全认同。Angels的联合创始人、光速创投的合伙人珍娜·梅塞施密特曾经在推特担任全球业务发展与合作副总裁。她说：“我们是新的推特帮。”

现在这个比喻比以往任何时候都合适，涵盖的团体也越来越多。随着PayPal帮协助建立的公司，比如Facebook和Lyft等进入后IPO时代，更多硅谷女性开始跻身投资者行列。而且其中许多都在借鉴Angels的策略，那就是联起手来，这样会比任何单打独斗的女性更有实力。

去年年底，F7加入了Angels，它的七名成员都曾经或正在Facebook任职。另一个刚刚起步的10人团体也加入了Angels，这10位女性均出自于Uber，后来分别在不同的公司进入风投领域，并在她们的人脉网上分享投资项目和机遇。合为一体后，这三拨人有可能塑造出下一代硅谷人。

这些投资者当然愿意发现下一个Facebook，但和10年前的先行者相比，她们更有使命感。鉴于这些团队的结构，她们都很清楚硅谷的性别格局，但她们并不是专门支持女性。去年，美国完全由女性组成的创业团队只得到了2.2%的风投资金。这些女性创始人获得的资金总额比电子烟公司Juul的自行融资少了100亿美元。在这些投资者中，有些人还加入了All Raise等组织，后者的目标是为更多女性筹集资金或让她们成为风投合伙人，但这些组织才刚要进入真正的投资阶段。曾经在Facebook担任传媒合作负责人、如今是F7创始合伙人的凯莉·加雷兹戴说：“我们需要更多女性的声音来影响创新，而且要同时来自创业者和出资人两方面。”

F7是这些团体中唯一正式建立的基金的一个，它从今年3月开始做了8笔投资，平均规模不大，为5万美元（这些创始人投入的是个人资金，她们还没有为了提升投资额而寻求外部融资）。其中近半数投资进入了女性创立的公司。2015年以来，Angels已经为120多家初创企业提供了支持，其中包括Carrot（生育保健）和Bird（电动滑板车）。Angels表示，已经开始看到长期成效。Uber的人脉网囊括了来自Kleiner Perkins、红衫资本、红点投资和GV的投资者，它刚刚开始相互承揽投资项目，而且绝大多数都是通过一个活跃的WhatsApp群进行，但这些投资者感兴趣的是女性健康，当然还有自动驾驶汽车。

这些团体由曾经的同事组成是有原因的。来自这三个人脉网络的投资者将此归结为在“同一个战壕中”建立起来的信任以及并肩工作让她们在谈到钱时的放松程度。弗雷德丽克·德蒙曾经在Uber担任产品和工程经理，现在是GV的合伙人。她说：“这些人都一起经历过高速成长阶段，由此形成了终生纽带。我们有共同语言。”

和单枪匹马或两三人结伴的PayPal帮不同，这些女性形成了一个整体。在风投界，投资决策者中有11%是女性，男性则持有91%的初创公司权益，而且这些资金经常会成为天使投资，这种情况下团结就是优势。F7成员薏凡特·路易说：“其他六位女士可以带来如此之多的经验，和她们一起工作非常放心和舒服。”路易曾经是在Facebook负责销售和全球合作事务，加入F7前只做过很少的天使投资。就像该团体的另一位成员萝宾·瑞斯所说：“天使投资不存在竞争。没有理由不去分享。”

别人的效仿让Angels的成员感到荣幸，也倍受鼓舞。该组织成员、推特前产品负责人及Slack的前首席产品官埃普丽尔·安德伍德说，她们的共同投资正式形成了一项惯例，那就是天使投资人通过整个人脉网络进行合作，但“几乎仅限于男性之间”。

今年更多女性通过IPO进入了投资界，会有更多的类似团体在短时间内浮现吗？这些投资者当然欢迎这样的变化。安德伍德说：“但愿我们是在某种趋势的初期阶段。”对于美国最高法院的女性大法官数量何时才算足够的问题，女大法官鲁斯·巴德·金斯伯格回答说：“要到有九位的时候。”安德伍德引用了这句话，让Angels及类似团体成了这个问题的硅谷版答案。或者也可以回答说，要到股权结构表中都是女性的时候。

In the five years since five Twitter alumnae and one current executive banded together to invest in startups as #Angels, they’ve often heard one comparison: the “PayPal mafia.” A moniker popularized by Fortune in 2007, the nickname refers to the group of Silicon Valley bigwigs—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, et al.—who came out of the payments platform and used their payouts from its acquisition by eBay to shape the next generation of Silicon Valley startups. The #Angels laugh at the comparison, but they don’t entirely disagree. “We’re the new Twitter mafia,” says #Angels cofounder Jana Messerschmidt, a Lightspeed partner and former vice president of global business development and partnerships at Twitter.

Today the analogy is more apt than ever—to a growing number of groups. As the companies that the PayPal mafia helped build, including Facebook and Lyft, transition into their post-IPO eras, more Silicon Valley women are coming into investor-level money. And many are taking a cue from #Angels’ strategy: Pooled together, their capital is more powerful than one woman’s alone.

Late last year, the #Angels were joined by F7—a group of seven former and current Facebookers—and by a still nascent group of 10 women who worked at Uber and have since gone into venture at separate firms, sharing deals and opportunities across their network. Together, these three groups could mold the next generation of Silicon Valley.

These investors would certainly love to find the next Facebook, but they’re more mission-driven than their predecessors of a decade ago. Given their makeup, all are attuned to the gender dynamics of Silicon Valley—even if they’re not exclusively backing women. Last year, U.S. female-only founding teams received just 2.2% of venture capital funding. Altogether, female founders took in $10 billion less than the ¬e-cigarette company Juul did by itself. Some of these investors are also involved in All Raise and other organizations aiming to get more women funded and into VC partnerships, but these groups are about making the investments themselves. “We need more female voices shaping innovation, and we need that from both founders and funders,” says Kelly Graziadei, a former director of media partnerships for Facebook and a founding partner of F7.

Since March, F7, the only one of these groups to formally create a fund, has made eight investments with a modest average check size of $50,000 (the founders are investing their personal capital and haven’t sought outside money to grow that amount yet). Nearly half of those investments have been in female-founded companies. Since 2015, #Angels has backed more than 120 startups, from Carrot (fertility care) to Bird (e-scooters), and says it’s starting to see long-term results. Uber’s network, which includes investors at Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Redpoint, and GV, is just getting started on sourcing deals through one another—mostly via a very active WhatsApp group chat—but its investors are interested in women’s health and, of course, autonomous vehicles.

There’s a reason these groups are taking shape among former colleagues. Investors from all three networks mention the trust developed from their time in the trenches together—and a level of comfort discussing money that comes from working side by side in a business context. “The network of people who have been through hypergrowth together—it creates bonds for life,” says Frédérique Dame, a former product and engineering manager at Uber who’s now a partner at GV. “We all speak the same language.”

Unlike the PayPal mafia, who mostly struck out on their own or in duos or trios, these women are sticking together. In a venture landscape in which women make up 11% of venture capital decision-makers and men hold 91% of startup equity—the ¬money that often turns into angel investments—solidarity has its advantages. “It’s so comforting and supportive working with six other women who have so much experience to bring to the table. It makes it less scary,” says Yvette Lui of F7, who was a director of sales and global partnerships at Facebook and had done only a little bit of angel investing prior to F7. As Robyn Reiss, also of F7, puts it: “Angel investing is not competitive. There’s no reason not to share.”

The women of #Angels are flattered—and encouraged—by others following in their footsteps. The founding of their investment collective formalized a long-standing practice of angel investors collaborating across their networks, but “almost exclusively among men,” says #Angels’ April Underwood, former director of product at Twitter and former chief product officer at Slack.

With more women coming into liquidity through this year’s IPOs, could there soon be more groups taking shape? These investors would certainly welcome such a change. “Hopefully, we’re in the early stages of a trend,” Underwood says. She quotes Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, making #Angels and its peers Silicon Valley’s answer to the correct number of women on the bench: “When there are nine.” Or when there’s a cap table with only women on the page.

各团体简介

F7

Facebook的六位前成员和一位现高管于去年出资建立。它已经支持了8家初创企业，平均投资额为5万美元，其中包括共享办公初创公司Codi、技术-销售求职平台Flockjay和非营利性融资平台NPX。

#Angels

五位前推特成员（和一位现任高管）自2015年以来已经分别为120家初创企业提供了支持。她们的投资包括生育保健初创公司Carrot、电子商务品牌Brandless、电动滑板车公司Bird以及合作服务公司Airtable。

Uber

10位前员工分别进入了GV、Kleiner Perkins和红杉资本等风投公司。合伙人在女性健康和自动驾驶汽车等领域通过她们的人脉网络来承揽投资项目。（财富中文网）

本文另一版本登载于《财富》杂志2019年11月刊，标题为《数字中的实力》。

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

The Families

F7

Six former Facebookers and a current executive pooled their money in a fund last year. With an average check size of $50,000, the fund has backed eight startups, including coworking startup Codi, tech-sales job platform Flockjay, and nonprofit funding platform NPX.

#Angels

=The five Twitter alumnae (and one current executive) have separately backed 120 startups since 2015. Their investments include fertility startup Carrot, e-commerce brand Brandless, e-scooter company, Bird, and collaboration service Airtable.

Uber

Ten alumnae went into venture firms including GV, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia. Partners are sourcing deals from their network in categories like women’s health and autonomous vehicles.

A version of this article appears in the November 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “Strength in Numbers.”