Kauffman Fellows Welcomes Class 28
Kauffman Fellows welcomes another talented cohort into its global network of industry-leading venture capital investors who are diverse cohort across sector, stage, geography, gender, ethnicity, and age
> Read the full post in the Kauffman Fellows Journal! www.kauffmanfellows.org/journal/class-28
Today we are honored to introduce the 60 newest members of the Kauffman Fellows global network of innovation investors. Class 28 is a group of highly successful investors fueling entrepreneurs everywhere and supporting entrepreneurship as a catalyst for economic growth and social change.
Hailing from top firms, including Maveron, Pivotal Ventures, Female Founders Fund, Felicis, Flybridge, monashees, and Ulu Ventures, among others, these Fellows have big funds to deploy and are senior leaders in the industry:
- $55.8B total AUM
- 85% are direct VC investors
- 10% are limited partners
- 82% are in senior positions (GP/MD/MP
- 42% are founding members of a firm
- 76% hold board seats
Globally Diverse Trailblazers in VC
Using a holistic two-year program and leveraging a global network as a lifelong resource, Kauffman Fellows selects, accelerates, and connects emotionally intelligent leaders in venture capital so they can lead and invest with purpose. Each year, we add a new cohort of 60 accomplished Fellows who attend the two-year program part-time while they are investing full-time. We intentionally recruit, build, and design the incoming cohort with diversity as our north star and driving force.
Class 28 joins a network of 882 Fellows spanning 58 countries and representing over 765 VC firms around the globe. These Fellows have started hundreds of funds, raised and deployed hundreds of billions of dollars in capital, and helped found and pave the way for some of the world’s most groundbreaking companies.
Kauffman Fellows Class 28 is a truly phenomenal group of global innovation investors who are incredibly diverse across sector, stage, geography, gender, ethnicity, and age.
- 42% women
- 55% people of color
- 47% U.S. domestic; 53% international
- Representation from 16 countries
- Our first Fellow from Lebanon!
Some examples of the unique leaders in Class 28 include:
- Co-founder of Google’s Area 120 incubator (Adrianna Samaniego)
- On the forefront of Abu Dhabi’s push into tech (Amer Al Ameri)
- Pro rally racing driver (Rakan AlRashed)
- A LatAM VC pioneer based in Brazil with 5 unicorns under his belt (Anderson Thees)
- Co-founder of XFactor Ventures, one of the most active funds backing female founders (Anna Palmer)
- Track national champion, political party National Vice Chairman, and local TV talk show host. (Nathaniel Harding)
- Seasoned crypto investor and Web 3.0 pioneer (Emma Cui)
- Solo GP who launched the first female-focused VC fund LatAm (Anna Raptis)
- An LP whose firm has invested in over 100 funds owned and led by underrepresented managers (Carolina Huaranca Mendoza)
- Award-winning researcher (Gal Noyman Veksler)
- The youngest woman in Europe to be internally promoted at a firm to GP (Evgenia Plotnikova)
- A pioneer in Africa’s tech ecosystem, leading investments into 150+ startups, including 3 unicorns and 14 realized exits (Idris Bello)
- West Point grad and US Army leader (Lance Dietz)
- Founder of world-leading quantum technologies investment fund alongside 2022 Nobel Prize Alain Aspect (Olivier Tonneau)
- A top 50 climate tech investor who has invested in over 30 climate startups with current market cap of over $5B (Phoebe Wang)
> Read the full post in the Kauffman Fellows Journal! www.kauffmanfellows.org/journal/class-28
