Joanne Wilson
Wilson in 2016
Born1961 (age 62–63)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materSimmons College
Occupation(s)businesswoman, angel investor
SpouseFred Wilson
Websitegothamgal.com

Joanne Wilson (born 1961) is an American businesswoman and angel investor. She is known for backing female-founded companies.[1][2][3]

Biography

Early life and education

Joanne Wilson was born in 1961.[4] Wilson studied at Simmons College in Boston, where she graduated in 1983.[5] She met her future husband Fred Wilson while in college and they moved to New York City.[6]

Career

Wilson began her career at Macy's, working in the retail apparel department for 4 years.[7] After Macy's she oversaw a company in the garment industry, then worked in sales for the startup magazine and events company called Silicon Alley Reporter.[7][8] She also chaired the nonprofit MOUSE (Making Opportunities in Upgrading Schools in Education), which focused on technology in inner-city schools.[9][10][11]

Wilson began investing in 2007.[12][13] She also runs the entrepreneurship blog Gotham Gal.[14] Through her investment fund, Gotham Gal Ventures, Wilson and her husband fund startups.[15][16]

In 2010, together with Nancy Hechinger from New York University she co-founded and co-chaired an annual Women Entrepreneurs Festival.[17][18][19]

From 2010 to 2015, she chaired the board of Hot Bread Kitchen, a nonprofit that promotes and trains female and minority bakers.[16][20][21] She also was the first co-Chair of Path Forward, a non-profit, established in 2018 with a mission to get people back to work after they’ve taken time off for caregiving.[22]

Since 2009, Wilson has been involved in real estate development in New York City.[23][24]

Investments

Wilson made her first investment into Lockhart Steele's startup Curbed.[12][13] Some of her early investments included Food52, Rick's Picks, DailyWorth, Hot Bread Kitchen and Scoot.[25][26][27] In 2014, she invested in Blue Bottle Coffee, a coffee roaster and retailer, and in Spoon University, a food media company, in 2015.[28][29] Later in 2015, she invested in Nestio, the NY-based leasing and marketing platform for residential landlords.[30]

Wilson became known for investing in women-led startups.[1][2][3] In 2012, 13 of her 17 investments were in tech and out of those 13, 10 were women-founded companies.[13] As of 2016, around 70 percent of her investments were in companies led by women.[12] By 2017, she has backed more than 90 female-founded companies, including 3 of the 11 black women-led startups to have raised over $1 million.[31][32][33]

In 2017, Wilson made two angel investments in the cannabis industry: Octavia Wellness and Beboe.[14][34]

Personal life

Wilson is married to venture capitalist Fred Wilson, a cofounder of Union Square Ventures.[35] The couple live in New York City. They have three children, two daughters and a son.[36][37][4] In 2016, Crain's New York Business included Fred and Joanne Wilson into its "Power Couples" list.[38]

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 Saujani 2013, p. 121.
  2. 1 2 Anid et al. 2016, p. 109.
  3. 1 2 O'Brien, Sara Ashley (May 5, 2015). "How this investor is bridging the 'bravado gap'". CNN Business. Archived from the original on April 10, 2015. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  4. 1 2 "Meet 'Gotham Gal' Joanne Wilson, an outspoken angel investor and a Woman of Influence". New York Business Journal. January 4, 2016. Archived from the original on January 6, 2017. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  5. ↑ "Alumnae/i achievements". Simmons. Simmons University (Fall 2012): 14. 2012. Retrieved November 10, 2019 – via yumpu.com.
  6. ↑ Shontell, Alyson (April 13, 2014). "FRED WILSON Q&A: The Legendary Investor Talks Retirement, Tumblr's Exit, And Getting Over A Tough Year". Business Insider. Archived from the original on November 24, 2018. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  7. 1 2 Suster, Mark (April 19, 2011). "8 Startup Lessons You Could Learn From Gotham Gal". Fast Company. Archived from the original on November 10, 2013. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  8. ↑ Rewick, Jennifer L. (February 29, 2000). "Silicon Alley Reporter Seeks Some Silicon Alley Investors". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  9. ↑ "Joanne Wilson: The Woman Empowering Angel Investor". Columbia University. 2016. Archived from the original on June 20, 2016. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  10. ↑ "Activate New York 2013: Judging panel". The Guardian. September 18, 2013. Archived from the original on September 5, 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  11. ↑ Allbritton, Chris (April 23, 2000). "A MOUSE THAT ROARED The crusade to get city students online". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on November 10, 2019. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  12. 1 2 3 Johnson, Mary (February 18, 2016). "Gotham Gal Joanne Wilson is an angel investor — and 'chick magnet'". Albany Business Review. Archived from the original on March 2, 2017. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  13. 1 2 3 Shontell, Alyson (February 29, 2012). "Meet Joanne Wilson, an investor in 17 startups who's part of a tech power couple". Business Insider. Archived from the original on March 27, 2013. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  14. 1 2 Williams, Alex (March 17, 2017). "The Hermès of Marijuana". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 10, 2019. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  15. ↑ Chernova, Yuliya (February 28, 2014). "Sweeten.com Tries to Make Home Renovation Process Less Bitter". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on November 12, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  16. 1 2 Kowitt, Beth (September 3, 2014). "The Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink". Fortune. Archived from the original on August 25, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  17. ↑ Allison, Keith (April 11, 2014). "Looking Forward at the Women Entrepreneurs Festival". New York University. Archived from the original on April 23, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  18. ↑ Krotz 2015, p. 53.
  19. ↑ Marinova, Polina (January 28, 2016). "What Women Want". Fortune. Archived from the original on September 1, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  20. ↑ Waldman Rodriguez & Turshen 2015, p. 293.
  21. ↑ Waldman Rodriguez, Jessamyn (December 7, 2015). "Farewell to Outgoing Board Chair Joanne Wilson". hotbreadkitchen.org (Press release). Archived from the original on November 17, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  22. ↑ "Notable Women in Tech". Crain's New York Business. April 8, 2019. Archived from the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
  23. ↑ Hughes, C.J. (September 21, 2012). "On the Waterfront, Minus the Stevedores". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 1, 2015. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  24. ↑ Hughes, C.J. (January 17, 2020). "Five Stories Tall and Made of Wood". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 22, 2020. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
  25. ↑ Boyd Myers, Courtney (December 11, 2011). "Breakfast of Champions: Joanne Wilson on writing, investing and mentoring". The Next Web. Archived from the original on October 8, 2016. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  26. ↑ Primack, Dan (January 6, 2012). "Venture capital deals". Fortune. Archived from the original on December 1, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  27. ↑ Perez, Sarah (September 12, 2012). "Scoot, The "Zipcar For Scooters," Grabs $550K In Seed Funding". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  28. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (January 30, 2014). "Tech Investors Buy Themselves Some Blue Bottle Coffee". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on August 24, 2014. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  29. ↑ Shieber, Jonathan (July 14, 2015). "Spoon University Raises $2M To Serve A Food Network To Millennials". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on July 15, 2015. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  30. ↑ Tepper, Fitz (December 1, 2015). "Residential Real Estate Platform Nestio Lands An $8M Series A Round". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on January 1, 2016. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  31. ↑ Cabot & Walravens 2017, p. 70.
  32. ↑ Kunst, Sarah (February 22, 2016). "Just 4% of Female-led Startups Are Run by Black Women—I'm One of Them". Fortune. Archived from the original on March 5, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  33. ↑ O’Connor, Clare (February 27, 2017). "Inside one woman investor's plan to get black female founders funding". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
  34. ↑ Berke, Jeremy; Robinson, Melia (May 17, 2018). "The rising stars of marijuana's investment scene that everyone from Wall Street to Silicon Valley should know". Business Insider. Archived from the original on August 31, 2019. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  35. ↑ Pimsleur 2015, p. 135.
  36. ↑ Cabot & Walravens 2017, p. 71.
  37. ↑ Feld & Batchelo 2013, p. 61.
  38. ↑ "Fred Wilson & Joanne Wilson". Crain's New York Business. 2016. Archived from the original on November 9, 2019. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
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