Episode 285: Anna Palmer - General Partner, Flybridge

It goes without saying, but we need more capital going towards female founded companies. While we still have a long way to go, there has been some progress in this regard with dedicated funds like XFactor Ventures. The fund, which is focused on pre-seed and seed investments, was launched in 2017 by Flybridge with Anna as a Co-Founder with a strategy of having women founders invest in other women founders. Fast forward, XFactor now has a portfolio that consists of over 70 companies that are all founded by women and an investment team of successful female founders who have started companies like Away, Figs, and others. After two startups, which were both acquired, Anna transitioned to a role as a fulltime venture capitalist by joining the Flybridge team in 2020 as a General Partner. She is focused on making investments in sectors such as commerce 3.0, marketplaces, mobile, consumer and eCommerce. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Examples of community driven companies like Chief and how they are leveraging this model as a strategic advantage, plus the details of the laptop sticker test at Flybridge. * Anna’s background story and her transition from law to entrepreneurship. * All the details on Fashion Project, an online designer clothing donation company and a great story of how a pitch contest saved the company. * How Anna made the transition to investing fulltime and the process for making an investment. * Various reasons why a VC might not fund your company. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.