Pink pantsuits & private equity: Girls in VC launches at Rice
Birth control pills, Barbie dolls and beer – women know what women need. Female inventors and founders have made countless contributions like these, but they’re often held back by rooms of male investors.
Women make up 8.6% of venture capitalists, 8% of venture capital firm partners and hold 7% of board seats. The disparity is pronounced for female founders, who receive less than 3% of total venture capital funding.
When Alena Powell, an associate at the Rice Student Venture Fund — the only on-campus opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience in venture capital — learned of these statistics, she said she was taken aback.
“These are literally single-digit numbers in a field managing billions and billions of dollars. Yet, only a very small percentage of that funding goes to women, and women hold very few leadership opportunities in these spaces,” Powell, a Wiess College sophomore, said.
Powell wasn’t alone in her reaction. Kaira Sheth, another associate at RSVF, also noticed the gender disparity both within the venture capital industry and at Rice.
“When we stepped into our first RSVF meeting, I think just four of the associates were women, and that’s something we noticed right off the bat, this discrepancy,” said Sheth, a Brown College sophomore.
The stark underrepresentation, both on campus and in the industry as a whole, prompted Sheth and Powell to take action, they said. At the start of the semester, they launched Rice Girls in VC, a new club dedicated to empowering women at Rice to see venture capital as a viable career path.
The club emerged from the realization that many women find venture capital intimidating due to the industry’s lack of female representation and the misconception that entering the field requires significant prior experience in the business world, Sheth said.
“Women think, ‘I see no representation, and this doesn’t seem like a feasible career path for me right out of undergrad, so why should I even consider it?’” Sheth said.
Pranai Reddy, the founder of RSVF, suggested Powell and Sheth start a Girls in VC chapter at Rice after seeing interest in the undergraduate business community.
“The whole goal of starting RSVF was to introduce venture capital to the entire Rice undergraduate community. The business major itself was new, along with organizations like Rice Business Society, Rice Women in Business and the Rice Entrepreneurship Club,” Reddy, a senior at Brown, said. “On the venture capital side, there was nothing like that, so I wanted to create a hands-on learning experience. When I saw an opportunity through a systematic chapter being started at different schools across the country, it felt like a natural progression to bring that representation to Rice.”
Powell said that rather than the prior knowledge and a background in finance that many assume is needed to pursue opportunities in venture capital, it is passion that truly sustains a person to pursue a career in the industry.
“As a freshman, I had not taken a single [entrepreneurship] class. I could not tell you the difference between a Series A and Series C startup or what the difference between a convertible note and a safe investment was,” Powell said. “I genuinely had no idea about all this [venture capital] terminology and what sort of different industries are popular right now. All I really knew was that I was super passionate to learn.”
“You can teach how to do all these analyses and how to read a balance sheet, but you cannot teach someone how to be interested in startups,” Powell said.
Powell said different majors in the club bring diverse perspectives and their knowledge can be extremely beneficial.
“If you have a computer science major who knows a lot about [artificial intelligence] and [large language models], being able to evaluate a startup that is in healthcare AI and having that exposure and that knowledge adds a new perspective to the team, especially if business majors or [economics] majors don’t know much about that, but are eager to learn,” Powell said.
With Girls in VC being the first venture capital club without an application-based model, the founders said they hope it can serve as a stepping stone for exploring the industry and joining RSVF, especially for those without prior knowledge.
In addition to her role in founding Girls in VC, Powell recently assumed the role of one of the managing partners for RSVF. Currently, RSVF is working on developing a more robust training program curriculum, Powell said. Powell hopes to open up training opportunities, not just to RSVF associates, but Girls in VC too.
“We can teach … the essentials of networking, sourcing and understanding the fund’s thesis,” Powell said. “We help them learn how to identify and source startups that align with that thesis. Additionally, there’s the financial aspect — when you get a balance sheet or are analyzing financial projections from a startup, we teach [people] how to navigate that process.”
Moreover, Girls in VC also aims to develop a mentorship program, an initiative alumni and women in the industry wish they had during their undergraduate career according to Powell.
“We currently have seven partnerships with different funds within the Houston and greater Texas area. Every girl we’ve spoken to has expressed excitement about this initiative. They’ve said things like, ‘We really love this, and we wish we had something like this when we were undergrads,’ and some of [the mentors] are even Rice alumni,” Powell said.
Powell said that even before the club’s kickoff event and marketing efforts, interest appeared high on campus.
“There’s definitely strong interest for us, and that also reemphasizes why we started this club,” Powell said. “Even though we haven’t had an official meeting or event yet, 40 girls have already heard about what we’re doing, are very interested, and want to learn more.”
Both Sheth and Powell are passionate about growing and transforming this interest into a community of shared passion through partnerships with Lilie. At the end of January, the club plans to have one of their first events at the Lilie Lab.
During that event, we’ll be having some activities explaining all the different pillars: the sourcing, networking, diligence, consulting with industry experts, as well as finally pitching to an investment committee,” Powell said.
As the Rice Business program has expanded, clubs on campus have emphasized more traditional finance career paths like consulting, investment banking and wealth management. Powell and Sheth said they hope Girls in VC will help expand horizons.
“We want to be that club where, [if] you’re interested in entrepreneurship, you’re interested in being a founder … you can come, and we’ll give you the resources to learn more,” Sheth said.
More from The Rice Thresher
Electives to fill your final credit hours
No matter how long you spend perfecting your schedule, the urge to drop a class after syllabus week is inevitable. Whether you’re looking to drop the 8 a.m. that seemed like a good idea or the class with mandatory attendance, consider these three credit-hour electives with open spots to complete your schedule.
Take a break with some dead days deeds
With finals soon approaching, study sessions take up most of our day. Need a break from staring at a screen? Need to stand up and stretch before you fall asleep? Find some ways to spend the hours you simply can’t look at your notes anymore.
Buzzwords & belonging: DFs discuss O-Week
Diversity, equity and inclusion are buzzwords that often get thrown around, but at Rice, students and administration work to bring them to life. It shows: Rice was recently rated fifteenth for most diverse colleges in America by Niche.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication by The Rice Thresher.