Who are the Top Women in Stock Market?

 

Who are the Top Women in Stock Market?



While the pandemic lowered women's total labour force participation rates and had a disproportionately unfavourable influence on both female founders and investors, women have made significant achievements since 2021, particularly in the field of venture capital. Female-founded businesses surpassed the previous annual transaction value record in just the first three quarters of 2021, according to a recent Pitchbook analysis, and outperformed the broader market in terms of exit size and timing. Furthermore, the number of female check writers in the United States has climbed by approximately 3.5 per cent since 2019, with women now accounting for 15.4 per cent of GP positions – while much more progress is needed in this area, it's apparent that change is steadily being enacted across the sector.

Last year's Midas List recognised twelve of the world's most successful venture capitalists for making great bets on some of the most fascinating firms. We are inspired by these women's perseverance and hope that their leadership signals future industry growth. We're excited to highlight these ladies and their accomplishments over the past year, which helped them reclaim their status on the Midas List.

Anna Fang

ZhenFund

Partner & CEO

Xiaohongshu, Huobi, YatsenGlobal, Meicai, Bolt Financial, DeepGlint, Yitu, and Nuro are among the key investments.

Anna has invested in over 600 startups as a partner and CEO of early-stage venture fund ZhenFund. Anna's continuing leadership in the execution and care of the firm's assets has earned her the highest placement yet on the Midas List, at #12 this year. A handful of billion-dollar enterprises, like lifestyle and retail portal Xiaohongshu, were among the investments made in 2021. Anna was also a Bolt angel investor. Fang, who is based in Beijing, began her career as an investment banker at JP Morgan in New York and later worked for General Electric China in corporate business development.

Mary Meeker

BOND

General Partner

Airbnb, Stripe, Canva, Instacart, Spotify, Plaid, Snap, Uber, On, Pinterest, LegalZoom, and DocuSign are among the key investments.

Mary Meeker, a founding general partner at BOND, where she focuses on high-growth digital businesses after leaving Kleiner Perkins, has been a recurrent leading VC on the Midas list for much of the past decade. She's invested in a slew of high-profile startups, including Airbnb (which went public in December 2020), Slack (which Salesforce bought for $27.7 billion in July 2021), and Canva, which raised $40 billion in September 2021, making it one of the world's largest privately-owned companies.

BOND just closed its second fund with $2 billion in the capital in 2021 and its third fund with $2.5 billion in the capital in 2022. BOND has made many investments since last year's Midas List, including a $60 million Series D round for Eucalyptus and a $100 million Series D round for Ironclad.

Mar Hershenson

Pear VC

Co-founder & Managing Partner

DoorDash, Guardant Health, Gusto, Branch Metrics, Aurora Solar, Heap, Affinity, Senti Bio, and Memebox are among the key investments.

Before making the Midas List in 2019, Mar Hershenson had a remarkable resume, thanks to an early bet on DoorDash she made with Pear Ventures co-founder Pejman Nozad. She graduated from Stanford with a PhD in electrical engineering, taught there for nearly a decade, and started three successful businesses. In 2021, she went to Stanford as a lecturer, but that hasn't stopped her from focusing on her job at Pear– Last year, Heap and Branch Labs were valued at over $1 billion, and HR platform Gusto was valued at about $10 billion in August. Pear recently took part in the $4 million Seed round of SZNS and the $3 million Seed round of Axle Health.

Jenny Lee

                                                          GGV Capital

Managing Partner

 

Xpeng, Kingsoft Office, Agora, Didi Global, Zuoyebang, eHang, Momenta, Keep, and TodayCamera are some of the key investments.

Jenny Lee has earned her status as one of the most recognised VC investors in the country – and the world – since joining Menlo Park-based GGV Capital as its first China office head in 2005. Her concentration on hot segments of China's burgeoning tech scene (edtech, robots, AI, and electric vehicles) has paid off handsomely, and portfolio businesses like EV producer Xpeng are outperforming their American counterparts. Jenny's knowledge extends beyond China; she was named to the board of directors of Singapore's state-run investment giant Temasek Holdings in October. She has just invested in Next-Gen Food's $100 million Series A round, and she is expected to aid the company's quick international expansion.

Kirsten Green

Forerunner Ventures

Founder and Managing Partner

Chime, Faire, Warby Parker, Hims & Hers, Glossier, Curated, Prose, Flow Commerce, HotelTonight, Homebase, The Farmer's Dog are among the key investments

Kirsten Green maintains her position on the Midas List as the founder and managing partner of Forerunner Ventures, which she joined in 2010 after working in banking and angel investing. She serves on the boards of Curated, Faire, Nordstrom, Prose, and Glossier, among others. Her investments in Hims & Hers and Warby Parker paid off in 2021 when both companies went public via SPAC and direct listing at valuations of $1 billion or more. She was also named to Barron's list of the 100 Most Influential Women in US Finance in 2021.

Expect Green to help consumer companies bridge the gap and enter the metaverse this year; she recently revealed that Forerunner has made a number of unannounced investments in the space, saying, "I think it's [time] to get in there and start exploring." Green is also a founding member of All Raise, an industry group dedicated to advancing women in the asset class and changing the industry from the inside out.

Luciana Lixandru

Sequoia

Partner

UiPath, Miro, Deliveroo, Hopin, Vinted, and Xentral are among the key investments.

Luciana made her worldwide Midas debut in 2021 on the strength of a portfolio led by UiPath, after years of being a mainstay on the Midas List Europe. In April 2021, the robotic automation company went public in one of the largest software IPOs ever, surpassing a $35 billion valuation and securing her place on this year's List.

Luciana was recently designated co-head of Sequoia's Arc programme, which tries to uncover "outlier" founders, coach them with some of the world's top VCs, and support their firms with $1 million initial investments. Luciana has also assisted with the firm's recent US/Europe seed fund launch, as well as Veed's $35 million Series A round and Upway's seed round.

Nisa Leung

Qiming Venture Partners

Managing Partner

Gan & Lee, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Venus Medtech, Zai Lab, Sinocelltech, Broncus Medical, Jacobio Pharmaceuticals, and CanSino Biologics are among the companies that have made significant investments.

Qiming Venture Partners' healthcare investments are led by Nisa Leung, who manages approximately $6 billion in assets. She was a driving force behind Hong Kong's and China's biotech booms, guiding investments in cutting-edge businesses including Gan & Lee, which just launched the first human trials of biosynthetic human insulin from a Chinese company. Notably, Leung was involved in four rounds of financing in New Horizon Health prior to its public offering in 2021, which was 4,133 times oversubscribed, making it the most oversubscribed stock in HKEx history. She was also instrumental in Qiming's $700 million investment deal with Abogen Bioscience last year.

Jing Hong

Gaocheng Capital

Founding Partner

Meituan, Beike, Huochebang, Mobike, Youzan, Yitu, and Bairong are all key investments.

Jing Hong was the highest-debuting China-based investor on the Midas List in 2021. After starting his career in venture capital at General Atlantic and then becoming a partner at Hillhouse, Hong founded Gaocheng Capital, which now manages over $700 million.

The software-focused fund, according to Hong, is looking for founders that "have a really long-term vision, are patient in building up the organisation, and creating a significant opportunity for their business – not just a quick victory." Gaocheng's recent Series B investment in GWT, a commercial water purifier developer aiming to modernise the industry and eliminate plastic, exemplified this mindset.

Ann Miura-Ko

Floodgate

Co-founder & Partner

Key investments: Lyft, Bolt Financial, StarkWare, Monthly, Refinery29, Accompany, Emotive

Floodgate Capital was created by Ann Miura-Ko in 2008. When Lyft went public in 2019 at a valuation of $24 billion, she got a 10,000x return on her $1.2 million investment. She was also an early backer of Refinery29, which was purchased for $400 million by Vice Media. Miura-Ko also invested early in fintech decacorn Bolt Financial and blockchain firm StarkWare, which was recently valued at $6 billion. She is a member of the Yale University board of trustees and the co-director of a tech leadership fellowship at Stanford University, where she earned her PhD in quantitative computer security modelling. Along with fellow Midas Lister Kirsten Green, she is a member of All Raise. Miura-Ko was nominated to Barron's 100 Women Shaping the World of US Finance list in 2021.

Reshma Sohoni

Seedcamp

Founding Partner

UiPath, Revolut, Wise, Hopin, Sorare, Pleo, Wefox, Curve, and Rossum are among the key investments.

Reshma Sohoni co-founded Seedcamp in 2007 and has since invested in hundreds of successful startups. She has previously been named to the Forbes Midas List Europe, but this is her first year on the global list. Seedcamp's portfolio firms raised more than $5 billion in 2021, more than twice as much as any previous year in the firm's history. In the last year, it has invested in more than 50 businesses.

UiPath, which went public in April 2021 at a $31 billion valuation, and Wise, which went public in July 2021 at an $11 billion valuation, are two recent exit highlights. Sohoni also ventured into the field of DeFi in 2021, investing in Sorare, a fantasy football (soccer) platform based on NFTs, in a $680 million Series B financing.

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