Women 2.0 profiles women angel investors in our weekly “This Is What An Angel Investor Looks Like” series.
By Angela Giacchetti (Associate, Pipeline Fellowship)
Meet Pipeline Fellowship alumna,Golden Seeds</> managing director and angel investor Kellee Joost. Kellee was a member of the second New York class of the Pipeline Fellowship, which trains women philanthropists to become angel investors. The Pipeline Fellowship aims to diversify the investor pool and connect women social entrepreneurs with women investors who get them.
Meet Angel Investor Kellee Joost
How and why did you decide to become an angel investor?
“I met a woman entrepreneur in a South African township who started a business and it was helping her overcome deplorable conditions to improve her life and the lives of many others—I thought this is a notion worthy of investment.”What investments have you made?
Company: OneDay Response
Founder(s): Tricia Compas-Markman*Company: Bespoke Global
Founder(s): Gwen Carlton*, Pippa McArdle**Company: CraveBox
Founder(s): Aliza Freud*, Kitty Kolding**Women founders!
One piece of advice to an angel-in-training?
“Pay more attention to the founders than the business idea when evaluating an investment. Investing is a long term relationship so you’ll want to like them, work with them, and feel confident that they can execute.”One piece of advice to entrepreneurs looking for capital?
“Assuming you are already leveraging your network and leaving no potential investment stone unturned, make sure you know your financial model forward, backward, sideways, and for every imaginable and unimaginable scenario.”What do you look for in an entrepreneur or founding team?
“I want to see a relentless pursuit of the end goal while exhibiting flexibility and creativity to overcome the hurdles along the way.”What are your investment deal-breakers?
“50/50 co-founder agreements. Someone has to have the final say and who that will be must be determined at the beginning, and not when the company is at a crossroad.”What types of companies do you look to invest in?
“When I first started, I thought I would focus on a particular niche, but so far I’ve been drawn to very different kinds of companies. What they have in common is strong, thoughtful women at the helm.”How has your background played a role in your angel investing?
“I’ve walked miles in the entrepreneur’s shoes—from the startup to the exit, and with the peaks and valleys in between. So, I have a good idea of what the entrepreneur might need, even before she knows she needs it.”Favorite quote?
“Life is an adventure to be lived, not a problem to be solved.” — UnknownRandom fact?
“Anchovies on pizza? Absolutely.”
Apply to the Pipeline Fellowship and help change the face of angel investing!
This post was originally posted at The Pipeline Fellowship.
Women 2.0 readers: Know more women angel investors? Let us know in the comments!
About the guest blogger: Angela Giacchetti is an Associate at the Pipeline Fellowship, an angel investing bootcamp for women philanthropists created to increase diversity in the U.S. angel investing community and generate capital for women social entrepreneurs. Angela holds a BA in Gender Studies and Political Science from the State University of New York at Purchase College. Follow her on Twitter at @agiacchetti.
