Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures invests in companies and funds that, alongside its work in policy advocacy and philanthropy, help to advance women’s power. One subcategory is caregiving—lobbying for paid family leave and other policies that support women, and finding ways to support that mission in the for-profit sector too, as French Gates discussed with me recently.
The VC fund Magnify Ventures has a remarkably aligned thesis—and Pivotal just came back as an LP in its $46 million Fund II, Fortune is the first to report.
Magnify was cofounded by general partners Joanna Drake and Julie Wroblewski. And it’s no coincidence it has a lot in common with Pivotal. Wroblewski was one of the earliest execs at the firm, and she launched its original funds of funds practice, backing funds that could then go on to back companies that improve women’s lives. She chose to leave and launch a fund that would advance similar goals, with the idea that a fund directly investing in startups could “go faster” to back early-stage founders in the care economy. (Since then, Pivotal has also expanded its investing practice to directly backing a handful of startups itself, but it still focuses mainly on funds with 27 investments in funds as an LP and 13 in early-stage companies.)
