What would a world where women control the majority of wealth look like? In 2021, Fidelity reported that two-thirds (67%) of women are now investing savings outside retirement accounts and emergency funds in the stock market, representing a 50% increase from 2018.
Trish Costello, CEO and founder at Portfolia, the first investech company activating the wealth of affluent women, paves the way for equality in investing. At the core is a venture capital product with a community with $95 billion in collective wealth. Her business and investment model brings more women into the conversation and to the table. The company has 40 investments in top companies, including Maven Clinic, Everlywell and Future Family. Additionally, it has a 2,000-member community, over 150 total investments and 14 women-focused funds. Costello also appeared on the Forbes 50 Over 50 list.
“When you look at angel investing, and even venture capital at its best, it’s all about those communities wanting to come together and support the companies or the innovations, or the technology that you want to see happen,” Costello explains over a Zoom interview.
Costello began her career working in women’s rights as the executive director of a battered women’s shelter. She grew up surrounded by entrepreneurs and immersed in various family businesses. Costello learned early on that she had the capability to start new companies and leverage their potential. So, while working in women’s rights and seeing the disparities and challenges women face in business, she knew she wanted to take her expertise to leverage it to help women in business thrive.
Pivoting in her career, Costello joined a startup, which ultimately had a successful exit. During this time, she became interested in investing. She started as an angel investor, leading her to the Kauffman Foundation. She spearheaded and cofounded the Kauffman Fellows Program. She created the first training program for venture capital partners and launched the careers of many VC leaders, including numerous women investors.
“We realized in the 90s that there was no diversity,” she explains. “Even back then, from the beginning in 1995, the first class, 25% of them were women, and 25% were people of color. We were very visionary in that regard.”
Throughout her success, Costello started recognizing a culture around the VC industry that did not reflect how women liked to operate. Traditional VCs were not funding the types of founders, products, and solutions that women wanted, and adding one-to-two women to an existing venture firm was not shifting the equation.
She took the risk of moving out to San Francisco to start a traditional venture fund. While at a TEDx talk focused on women, one of the speakers inspired her.
“A woman from the financial services industry got up and said, ‘Very few people know this, but over the next ten years, women will control the majority of wealth in America,’” Costello shares. “‘It’s the first time ever in recorded history this has happened. And it will be trillions of dollars of wealth.’ I was listening to this, and the light bulb just went off. I don’t need to create another traditional venture capital fund, going out to institutions. What truly seems to me is creating a venture capital fund, where I activate those trillions of dollars or millions of dollars of wealth or billions of wealthy women and put us at the center so that we can make the investment decisions that we want back into companies that enhance our lives; creating wealth from that. So creating this new way of doing it.”
Costello’s idea was in motion. She was determined to strip the old culture and foster a new one to attract women investors. One main focal point at Portfolia is the company’s femtech vertical—the first venture capital fund ever focused on women’s health. One of the fund’s companies, Bone Health Technologies, addresses osteoporosis in women.
“The beginning of the raise is always the hardest,” Laura Chamberlin, CEO of Bone Health, states during a phone interview. “When we pitched Portfolia, they immediately understood the importance of what we’re doing and the unmet need. And the unmet need is what drives the business opportunity because we see this as a $30 to $50 billion addressable market. Portfolia understood it, and they invested before we had the data from the pivotal trial.”
Costello and her team are currently raising capital for their third femtech fund. However, they also invest in other markets such as rising America, which is Black, Latina X and LGBTQIA plus, SaaS and sustainability.
“Women themselves have never had access to venture capital, how it works, why it works, which is what I love about Portfolia,” comments Nola Masterson, Femtech Fund lead investor at Portfolia, during a phone interview. “It gives them access to how it works and why it works, but it doesn’t add an angel-level ask. It’s only $10,000 to get into 10 different plans or 10 different deals, which each fund does. And that’s the minimum; they can do more.”
As Costello continues to evolve as a leader, she focuses on the following essential steps:
- Don’t listen to the naysayers. Just because they can’t see your vision doesn’t mean you won’t be able to achieve it.
- Be clear on who you are during the pivot. What are you leaving behind that served you in your old life that isn’t necessary for the next venture? What do you have to set up to make you successful?
- Go for it. You will be at your greatest when you see that opportunity that nobody else does.
“We women are coming into a lot of wealth,” Costello concludes. “We’re educated like never before. We’re being rewarded with money. We’re inheriting money. That money means nothing if we don’t use it. Money in our world is power.”
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