A new venture-capital fund focused exclusively on investing in companies founded and led by women will start fundraising this week with a $30-million goal that could make it the biggest of its kind in Canada.
Led by Toronto-based entrepreneur Elaine Kunda, Disruption Ventures will kick off fundraising May 1, and already has Canadian VC and financial heavyweights championing it — including Relay Ventures, which has agreed to co-invest in startups with Disruption when they overlap in their areas of specialty.
The idea for the fund came to Ms. Kunda in 2012, when her venture-backed digital women’s media network, B5Media, was acquired by Alloy Digital. As she pondered her next steps, she spoke with other female entrepreneurs and found that many faced challenges trying to raise venture capital. At the time, she says, the idea of a women-focused fund had a hard time gaining.