At $50 million, Anthemis’ Female Innovators Lab Fund becomes the largest early-stage Fintech fund dedicated to companies founded by women
Visa and BMO join Barclays and Aviva as investors in FIL
NEW YORK, 27 April 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Anthemisa specialist asset manager that creates value by driving financial systems change, today announced further investment from institutions including Visa and BMO for its Female Innovators Lab (FIL) Fund. Anchored by Barclays, with investment from Avivamake up the fund now in total 50 million dollars, making it the largest early-stage fintech fund with a focus on female founders. With this latest increase, the fund will invest in more early-stage companies and continue its focus on designing, buying in and scaling female-founded embedded finance startups.
Launched in 2019 and led by Anthemis’ Global Head of Venture Studio, Katie PalencsarThe FIL fund actively invests in women-led startups across the board North AmericaUnited Kingdom and Europe. FIL’s approach is modeled on Anthemis’ embedded finance investment mission, targeting business models that deploy financial services across a diverse set of industries, including sustainability, beauty, e-commerce and more. FIL combines Anthemi’s early-stage asset management capabilities with an unparalleled network of strategic investors, which diversify sourcing deals and provide unparalleled strategic support to the FIL portfolio.
Through the venture studio and fund, Anthemis has brought in over 1,500 early-stage women-owned companies and shaped and funded portfolio companies such as Addition (a workplace financial wellness platform), Pile (a cash management tool for businesses) and Upkeep (a marketplace). for beauty treatments).
“Women make up half the world’s population, they control 70% of global household spending, profits are higher when they’re in the c-suite, and the startups they build have a faster path to exit—but somehow, women-led companies still collected just two percent of all U.S. venture capital investment last year. Women-founded companies are a huge market opportunity, but at the same time chronically underfunded. FIL is purpose-built to seize that opportunity, helping women develop high-growth, high-impact startups at the intersection of finance, technology and society,” said Palencsar. “Expanding with a partner like Visa – a world leader in digital payments – and BMO – the eighth largest bank in North America by assets – giving us the capital, strategic partners and global reach to unlock a new group of female leaders paving the way for fintech and embedded finance.”
“Women power economies around the world, but they are still underrepresented in the fintech sector with many barriers to overcome,” said Charlotte HoggVisa’s CEO, Europe. “At Visa, we believe partnering with diverse businesses, banks and fintechs is critical. Only by doing so can innovative financial and business services be nurtured that address the needs of all communities and underrepresented groups. We are excited to partner with Anthemis to execute on our shared purpose to support women’s economic advancement and to help bring the benefits of going digital to everyone, everywhere.”
As one of the earliest asset managers to establish a diversity and inclusion mandate, Anthemis is uniquely suited to lead FIL. Women make up 69% of people across investments, 48% of portfolio company founders are women or people of color and 58% of all Anthemis employees are women.
“BMO’s investment in Anthemis’ Female Innovators Lab Fund aligns with our Zero Barriers to Inclusion strategy, which includes creating economic progress and removing barriers to inclusion for women and women-owned businesses everywhere,” said Andrew Harrison, head of US partnerships at BMO. “Through our support of FIL and the continued success of WMNfintech, North America’s largest nonprofit fintech industry program for women-led fintechs developed by BMO and 1871, we are bridging the gender gap by empowering more women to bring innovative technology forward.”
To learn more about the Female Innovators Lab Fund or to pitch the team, please visit https://www.anthemis.com/female-innovators-lab/
About BMO
Serving clients for 200 years and counting, BMO is a highly diversified financial services provider – the eighth largest bank, by assets, in North America. With assets under management 1.15 trillion dollars per 31 January 2023and a team of diverse and highly engaged employees, BMO offers a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to 12 million clients and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, BMO Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets .
About Anthemis
Anthemis is a specialist asset manager that creates value by driving financial systems change by investing in businesses committed to resilience, transparency, access and fairness. Founded in 2010, our deep understanding of financial systems, endless passion for new technologies and steadfast commitment to social causes inspire everything we do. By creating fertile ground for a diverse group of startups, investors, entrepreneurs, institutions, academics and visionaries to converge, we believe we can solve the financial system’s most pressing challenges.
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SOURCE Anthemis Group
