American businesswoman and investor
Joanne Wilson (born 1961) is an American businesswoman and
angel investor . She is known for backing female-founded companies.
[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]
[19]
From 2010 to 2015, she chaired the board of
Hot Bread Kitchen , a nonprofit that promotes and trains female and minority bakers.
[16]
[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.
[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.
[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 . The couple live in New York City. They have three children, two daughters and a son.
[4] In 2016,
Crain's New York Business included Fred and Joanne Wilson into its "Power Couples" list.
[38]
Bibliography
Saujani, Reshma (2013).
Women Who Don't Wait in Line .
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt .
ISBN
978-0-544-02778-7 – via
Google Books .
Feld, Brad; Batchelo, Amy (2013).
Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur .
John Wiley & Sons .
ISBN
978-1-118-49386-1 – via
Google Books .
Krotz, Joanna (2015). Being Equal Doesn't Mean Being The Same . Motivational Press.
ISBN
978-1628652505 .
Pimsleur, Julia (2015).
Million Dollar Women: The Essential Guide for Female Entrepreneurs Who Want to Go Big .
Simon & Schuster .
ISBN
978-1-4767-9029-9 – via
Google Books .
Waldman Rodriguez, Jessamyn; Turshen, Julia (2015).
The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook: Artisanal Baking from Around the World .
Clarkson Potter/Publishers .
ISBN
978-0-8041-8618-6 – via
Google Books .
Anid, Nada; Cantileno, Laurie; Morrow, Monique J.; Zafar, Rahilla (2016).
The Internet of Women: Accelerating Culture Change . River Publishers.
ISBN
978-87-93379-68-8 – via
Google Books .
Cabot, Heather; Walravens, Samantha (2017).
Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech .
St. Martin's Publishing Group .
ISBN
978-1-250-11226-2 – via
Google Books .
References
^
a
b 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 .
^
a
b
"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 .
^
"Alumnae/i achievements" . Simmons (Fall 2012).
Simmons University : 14. 2012. Retrieved November 10, 2019 – via yumpu.com.
^ 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 .
^
a
b 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 .
^ Rewick, Jennifer L. (February 29, 2000).
"Silicon Alley Reporter Seeks Some Silicon Alley Investors" .
The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved November 10, 2019 .
^
"Joanne Wilson: The Woman Empowering Angel Investor" .
Columbia University . 2016. Archived from
the original on June 20, 2016. Retrieved November 10, 2019 .
^
"Activate New York 2013: Judging panel" .
The Guardian . September 18, 2013. Archived from
the original on September 5, 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2019 .
^ 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 .
^
a
b
c 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 .
^
a
b
c 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 .
^
a
b 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 .
^ 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 .
^
a
b 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 .
^ 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 .
^ Marinova, Polina (January 28, 2016).
"What Women Want" .
Fortune . Archived from
the original on September 1, 2019. Retrieved November 17, 2019 .
^ 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 .
^
"Notable Women in Tech" .
Crain's New York Business . April 8, 2019. Archived from
the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved November 25, 2019 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ Primack, Dan (January 6, 2012).
"Venture capital deals" .
Fortune . Archived from
the original on December 1, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2019 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 .
^
"Fred Wilson & Joanne Wilson" .
Crain's New York Business . 2016. Archived from
the original on November 9, 2019. Retrieved November 10, 2019 .
External links