Women Angels for Women-Led Startups

When Amy Norman and Stella Ma started pitching investors in 2009 on their geography-oriented startup, Little Passports, both had young children and Norman was pregnant. The majority of the investors they met were men, several of whom asked whether the business would be profit-focused or a lifestyle company—read: a glorified hobby. All of them passed, and word got around Silicon Valley that “there’s no way women like these could grow a company fast enough” to satisfy venture capitalists, Norman says.

Today the San Francisco-based company generates revenue of $5 million a year from sales of monthly subscription packages of maps and games to parents looking for a fun way to teach their kids geography. Norman and Ma eventually raised almost $2 million for their business—much of it from a female investor group, which saw the potential that eluded many men.