While women entrepreneurs continue to struggle with gaining access to capital to fund their startups, they are seeing that some progress is being made and it is coming in different ways and forms. The most recent is the WXR Fund, the first ever venture fund investing exclusively in women entrepreneurs working in the extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) spaces.
This new venture capital funding resource chips away at the enormous funding challenge women face as reported by Crunchbase. Their study shows that funding of startups led by women dropped from 2.8% in 2019 to 2.3% in 2020, while startups led by men received more than 97% of venture capital dollars.
The inaugural $5 million WXR Fund had more than 50% participation by women, drawing in individual investors, family offices and strategic partners such as the Venture Reality Fund. The WXR Fund was founded in 2019 based on the founders’ beliefs that the “two greatest opportunities today for investors are the next evolution of computing and women-led startups”.
“We started WXR Fund to establish a beacon for underrepresented founders in this growing XR community,” said Martina Welkhoff, Managing Partner of WXR Fund. “Through this first fund, we have engaged women in all stages of investing – from LP to VC to founder. We see a tremendous untapped and outsized opportunity in the XR space. The close of this fund is just the beginning.”
Welkhoff with co-founder Amy LaMeyer experienced complementary professional journeys that led to the creation of the know-how and the vision to provide funding for startups in the spatial computing ecosystem. Welkhoff is a successful startup founder and industry luminary, while LaMeyer brings a different, yet essential perspective having been in corporate development, M&A, and in artificial intelligence. She is a globally recognized influencer. They are joined by founding venture partners Malia Probst and Abby Albright and later joined by Jason McDowall.
To date the vc fund’s portfolio is comprised of women innovators disrupting the healthcare, entertainment, education and retail sectors through immersive technology. Their funded ventures include shoppable virtual store platform Obsess, absurd: joy, Embodied Labs, Wavely Diagnostics, All3D.ai, Prisms of Reality and Scatter, with more investment announcements expected in coming months.
WRX’s founding team believe that opportunities abound for women entrepreneurs, particularly as a result of the pandemic spurring XR investment and adoption. It has now moved from beyond gaming and entertainment into all industry sectors, including healthcare, education and retail.
The 2021 Insider Intelligence Report on U.S. Virtual and Augmented Reality reported that 58.9 million people in the U.S. will use VR, and 93.3 million people will use AR at least once per month. In parallel Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other technology leaders are now introducing their own XR solutions to meet the demand.
“I actively seek out opportunities to move the needle for women in the technology space,” said Cathy Hackl, tech futurist, bestselling author, and WXR Fund LP. “Getting involved in the first ever venture fund focused on investing in two of the greatest opportunities of our generation, spatial computing and women-led startups, creates so much movement for emerging entrepreneurs in the XR, metaverse and AI sectors.”
Some are advocating for new models for women to gain greater access to capital such as Babson’s Vice Provost of Global Entrepreneurial Leadership Candida Brush who co-authored a report about this challenge. But for now the launch of this fund by the WXR team is laudable and adds one more vc fund for women to a foundation of capital support that hopefully will continue to grow.
Neha Singh, Founder and CEO of Obsess, describes how critical funding was for her startup.
“We started working with the team through the accelerator program in 2018 and have since closed two rounds of funding. WXR Fund has been a crucial part of our journey.”
