Female VC Lab

Co-Founder, CEO & General Partner, Embedded Ventures // Co-Founder, KittyCAD

Jenna Bryant is Co-Founder, CEO and General Partner at Embedded Ventures, a next generation venture capital firm that takes a commercial-first approach to investing in early-stage startups with applications that can serve the Department of Defense. Jenna is also the Co-Founder of KittyCAD, the world’s first and only company to build hardware design infrastructure for the internet. KittyCAD was incubated by Embedded Ventures.

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Joanna has dedicated her career to expanding access to capital in pursuit of inclusive justice for and alongside under-resourced people of color. She believes a combination of public, private, and philanthropic capital drives the most meaningful impact when coordinated towards a shared systemic goal.

Prior to Illumen Capital, Joanna advised and built capacity for local, state, and federal governments on driving taxpayer dollars towards meaningful results for overlooked and underestimated communities at Third Sector Capital Partners. She began her career at Wellington Management, defining and managing impact for the institutional asset manager's sole impact investing portfolio.

Ms. Kuang earned a B.A. in Mathematics from Duke University, and as a Robertson Scholar, she was also dual enrolled at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

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May Li is the founder and managing director of J20 Ventures, a solo woman-run VC firm investing in Zillennial markets. After starting the firm from her dorm room as a junior in 2017, she deployed Fund I straight out of college. As a first-gen AAPI woman, and a Zillennial herself, May’s unique perspective inspires her successful investment strategy.

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Susan Moring is a Principal at Cortado Ventures, an Oklahoma City-based, early-stage VC firm. At Cortado, Susan manages all aspects of the investment process including sourcing, due diligence, and post-investment portco support. A startup enthusiast, Susan has spent her career supporting entrepreneurs and the growth of Oklahoma’s startup ecosystem.

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Claude is a Vice President of Volition Capital’s internet and consumer investment team. She joined Volition in 2019 and focuses on investments in e-commerce and tech-enabled services, with sector interests in digital health, telco, and consumer subscription services.

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Alison has been investing in consumer brands for nearly a decade. Prior to Able, Alison was a General Partner & Managing Director at CircleUp Growth Partners where she led investments in early stage consumer brands. Before CircleUp, Alison was a Vice President at TSG Consumer where she invested in consumer and retail brands and worked closely with the e-commerce investments in their portfolio. She spent a year as an operator on the executive team of Backcountry.com, one of the TSG portfolio companies. Prior to TSG, Alison worked in investment banking at J.P. Morgan in the Consumer & Retail Group. Alison has served on the Board of Directors of Kosas Cosmetics, Nutpods and Mented Cosmetics. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and lives in San Francisco with her husband.

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Marcus Glover is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Lockstep Ventures, a venture capital firm that seeks to address issues that perpetuate racial inequality in the U.S.

Marcus has a mission to reimagine equity for Black America and is dedicated to investing and advising Black and women-led companies that are often overlooked, underfunded and underserved. As a leader of Lockstep Ventures, he has turned his passion into meaningful change while also inspiring and empowering a systematic shift in tandem with delivering investor returns.

In addition to his work with Lockstep Ventures, Marcus serves on the National Board of Directors of Defy Ventures, which advocates for criminal justice reform and lowering recidivism by building on incarcerated men and women's natural talents through entrepreneurship business ownership. Marcus also serves on the Time@100 Advisory Board.

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Cheryl Evans is a Director in MI Finance at the Milken Institute. She leads the new Lifetime Financial Security Program. Evans is an attorney and has worked in securities, finance, and business. She worked for 10 years at CFA Institute developing content, helping to lead their Future of Finance global initiative, and working in their Enforcement area. She was at Pensions & Investments magazine briefly. Evans spent 11 years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission working in Enforcement, and also in Trading and Markets and in Examinations. She was a part of the WorldCom team. She spent a number of years at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce focused on financial markets, securities litigation, other business litigation issues. She has held both civil and criminal litigation roles at the U.S. Department of Justice and was a federal judicial law clerk. She holds a second law degree in transnational business practice. In addition, she is trained as a wellness coach and has focused on transitions and chronic illness. And she sits on non-profit boards.

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A high-tech executive and serial entrepreneur who has been founding, leading and growing innovative companies for more than 25 years. Kim Folsom is the founder of Founders First Community Development Corporation (fka. LIFT Development Enterprises, Inc, small business growth accelerator, and founder and CEO of Founders First Capital Partners, the largest minority and women owned direct investor of revenue-based funding and advisory support, as well as FUUUSE.CMNTY.com the first online community for fueling underserved small business expansion. Our mission to is to fund and growth and advocate for diverse founder led, underserved, revenue-generating employer-based micro small businesses ($50K to $5M), secure funding and achieve exponential growth. As a social entrepreneur, Ms. Folsom is dedicated to leveraging the power of market forces and sound business practices to address disparities in revenue and job growth among businesses led by underrepresented founders. She has raised more than $30 million in institutional venture financing, and has founded or served as a key executive for multiple successful ventures, including showUhow (acquired by Sellpoints), DriveCam (now Lytx) and Seminarsource. Before devoting her energies to entrepreneurship, Ms. Folsom was an executive at National Dispatch Center, Luce Forward, Alltel Systematics and Great American First.

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Olivia is Global Head of Teachers' Venture Growth (TVG). Olivia has led TVG since it was formed in 2019 and was previously a Managing Director in OTPP's Infrastructure team. She began her career as a project engineer.

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