Are you ready to dive into the world of entrepreneurship and venture capital with an innovative twist? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, host Marcia Dawood chats with the vibrant Laurel Mintz, the Founder and General Partner of Fabric VC. Laurel's journey from a background in law and marketing to becoming a successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist is a captivating testament to her determination and forward-thinking mindset. Her unique perspective and passion for supporting diversity in venture funding sets the stage for an inspiring and informative conversation that sheds light on the power of women in finance and the future of investment. In this engaging episode, Laurel Mintz shares her personal investor journey and the pivotal moment that led her to start a venture capital firm. She discusses the origins of Fabric VC and the mission behind it, emphasizing the importance of weaving together diverse founders with funding. With a commitment to supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs, Laurel discusses the fabric thread count, a second layer of diligence that focuses on companies needing support from a marketing perspective. Her insightful approach to investing and dedication to empowering women in the financial landscape make this a must-listen episode for anyone interested in the intersection of entrepreneurship, diversity, and venture funding.
Are you ready to dive into the world of entrepreneurship and venture capital with an innovative twist? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, host Marcia Dawood chats with the vibrant Laurel Mintz, the Founder and General Partner of Fabric VC. Laurel's journey from a background in law and marketing to becoming a successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist is a captivating testament to her determination and forward-thinking mindset. Her unique perspective and passion for supporting diversity in venture funding sets the stage for an inspiring and informative conversation that sheds light on the power of women in finance and the future of investment.
In this engaging episode, Laurel Mintz shares her personal investor journey and the pivotal moment that led her to start a venture capital firm. She discusses the origins of Fabric VC and the mission behind it, emphasizing the importance of weaving together diverse founders with funding. With a commitment to supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs, Laurel discusses the fabric thread count, a second layer of diligence that focuses on companies needing support from a marketing perspective. Her insightful approach to investing and dedication to empowering women in the financial landscape make this a must-listen episode for anyone interested in the intersection of entrepreneurship, diversity, and venture funding.
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Marcia Dawood
Well, Laura, welcome to the show.
Laurel Mintz
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Marcia Dawood
Well, I'm really excited to talk to you and learn all about fabric VC, and I would love to hear how you got started on your journey. How did you even learn what angel investing was? And now you are the gp of a venture fund. Tell us everything.
Laurel Mintz
Oh my gosh. How much time do you have? In terms of my own investor journey, I always made an effort to be in rooms with women specifically, who were smarter than me and who had been in that world longer than me. I have never been a numbers person. I mean, you've known me a bit. Now I'm a relationship person, a marketing person, lawyer by background, but I always knew in my heart of hearts that financial wellness and investing was how we built a really more equitable future. So I was very intentional about being in rooms with really smart women like you who just got it and were able to take me along in that journey. And that's really how I started down this path.
Marcia Dawood
Amazing. So then how did you decide to even start a VC firm?
Laurel Mintz
Pure stupidity. Can I say that? No, I'm just kidding. So, as I mentioned, I was a corporate m, a attorney. When I started my career. The universe had a different path for me. Long story short, I ended up as an entrepreneur. I launched my first company in 2008, 2009. So that is to say that I apparently really enjoy working in very challenging environments.
And that first company is a digital and experiential marketing agency called Elevate my brand. We just celebrated 15 years, which is absolutely wild. Thank you.
Marcia Dawood
Congratulations. That's amazing.
Laurel Mintz
Oh my God, it's wild. It really is time. You blink and time just flies, as you well know. And because of kind of that confluence of experience and education and background, a lot of the private equity and venture firms have been coming to us for years to market them. And then last year, one of the partners was like, laurel, you need to go raise a fund. I've never seen someone with better earlier deal flow who's more committed to diversity. And really, frankly, Marcia has the ability to control the narrative of success with these brands because, as you know, 80% of the success, especially on the consumer and consumer tech side, is all around marketing. And he's really the one that pushed me.
At first, I was like, you're crazy. Very flattered. Thank you. No, thank you. And then again, as you know, I saw the stats in the market in terms of diversity, or should I say lack thereof. And once I saw that, I was like, if not me, who? If not now, when? I've got to be the change I want to see in the world.
Marcia Dawood
Absolutely. So before we get into all the details about fabric vc, tell us a little bit about elevate my brand, how you got to see different companies, how that turned into deal flow for you later. And what are some of the things that even entrepreneurs could look at to see how they could even work with elevate my brand?
Laurel Mintz
Well, marketing is such a critical component to the success of any company. B to b, b to c, I don't care what world you're in, marketing is critical. And so what I realized actually from starting the fund was that we have seen and worked with actually over 300 companies. Over 200 of them were diverse led and 40% had raised capital. So we kept seeing the startup raise, exit model, and at elevate, what we do is digital and experiential. So the digital side is web content, social advertising and creative. And then the experiential side are launch events, trade shows, conferences, national field marketing. But what we really started to understand there was the lack of education and empowerment around the difference between marketing and sales, or how to build the right marketing funnel content, and how to build that in a really smart and impactful way.
And all of those pieces are critical to the success of a brand. And then to your earlier question about how we got out there and saw the deal flow. As you know, haven't known me for a little while now. I'm pretty loud and boisterous in this space, and I have been very clear about building my own personal brand. And because of that, people know who we are, what we stand for, and how mission driven we are as a firm and a fund. And so we're so lucky to attract those kind of like minded founders and funders on both the elevate and the fabric side.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, that's awesome. All right, so tell us everything, fabric, vc, what do you invest in? What's the thesis? Tell us everything.
Laurel Mintz
Yeah, so fabric is named fabric because we are all about weaving together diverse founders with funding. You know, these stats, as I mentioned before, less than 2% of venture funding goes to diverse led businesses. And yet, studies show time and again that when people that look like us receive funding, we return on average at a 25% higher return rate. So that's when I saw the doing good and doing well and the confluence of those two things. And that's really the impetus behind fabric. But I will tell you, it took another woman in venture, Jessie Draper, who I'm sure everybody knows Draper family is so prolific in venture. I called her because I've been an LP in her fund and have worked with her because she's very consumer focused. And I called her and I said, jessie, I think I'm going to raise a venture fund.
What do you think? And Marcia, I've told you the story before, but her actual response, and I won't use the curse word on this show, but her actual response was, heck yeah, I'm in. Here's a check. Go raise a fund and I'm going to sit on your board. So really it was about women supporting women. And I curse her and thank her in equal parts every day, to be honest. But fabric is a $10 million us seed fund. Only investing with a diverse lens. So queer, BIPOC and female led consumer tech and future of categories.
So that's future of healthcare, future of fintech, future of workspace, which, as we know, affects diverse communities far greater.
Marcia Dawood
Absolutely. So give us an example of a couple of the companies that you've invested in.
Laurel Mintz
We just did our fund. One close one. So we are about to deploy capital into five really exciting companies. But we have already done several spvs, or special purpose vehicles. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the jargon, the first one was such an exciting, fun deal. Asian American, first generation female founder out of New York. Brilliant, brilliant founder company called Cadence. I'm sure each and every one of you listening will be stalked by them on your Instagram now.
Sorry, not sorry, but very much a consumer place. So there are these pods and modules that you put your serums and creams and jewelry and pills and things in for travel, but then they magnetically attach and magnetically label, and that is a proprietary and patentable technology. So again, very much a consumer play, but with a tech enablement piece that makes all of our lives so much easier. It's a really cool product.
Marcia Dawood
I have seen that product on Instagram. I think they're already stalking my Instagram. Awesome.
Laurel Mintz
They've done a great job. Yeah, well, they came to us and they had. So one of the things we've differentiated ourselves on because of the marketing piece is that we've added what we're calling the fabric thread count, which is a second layer of diligence aside from the founder and financial diligence, that allows us to see and really pick companies that need support from a marketing perspective. So we're coming in with part cash, part sweat to make sure that we can control their narrative of success. And when Cadence came to us, as you know, they had really great direct to consumer feedback already. They were already heavily in the market, but they needed support on their experiential fabrication teams, real estate relationships for pop ups, and big box retail partnerships. And so that was really how we could come in and support a brand that even was already doing great things in the marketing world. But we always look at picking deals where we can add value.
We want to be smart money and really create an ecosystem of success for these founders.
Marcia Dawood
That's amazing. Love that. So tell us a little bit about the fundraising journey for you in raising fabric first fund, and then also a little bit just about what you've seen in the marketplace for women and people of color trying to raise.
Laurel Mintz
Well, it's why I was called to do this work. I mean, that less than 2% number has not shifted significantly in any real time. In fact, it's backslid in most recent years. A lot of that is due to the pushback that is happening in the ESG space with the fearless fund lawsuit, which is just so tragic and terrible. It's a challenge, I'm not going to lie. It's so horrible. It's so horrible. But I'm hopeful that they will be victorious in that lawsuit.
But it's a distraction, right? They're distracting the good work that they were doing investing in really amazing founders that happen to be diverse with the stupid lawsuit. So it's that side's challenge to creating more equity and parity in this space, which, if you look at it from a meta perspective, makes total sense. Because they don't want us to have control in those categories. Right? They want to keep it status quo. They want to make sure that they still have ownership over the 98% of the wealth in this market. But the truth is that women are going to be in control of a majority of the wealth in the next ten years. They're actually saying by 2030, we will be majority control, in control of majority of the wealth. So that is not something we've seen in terms of shifting the numbers upwards.
It has been very challenging, especially in this market. But I found that, again, you attract what you put out in the world. And so we've been very lucky to attract some incredible lps. Our lp base is 80% women and 40% women of color, which is incredibly unusual. Yeah, I'm really proud of that number. But as you know, Marcia, it takes a lot more education and empowerment to have a woman write a check than it does a man. And that's, again, because we just simply have not had a seat at that table. And that is the true gift in this work that I'm doing.
Founding the funders is really critical and important as well, of course. But being able to have conversations with hundreds and eventually it will be thousands of women, and giving me platforms like this to speak on is super helpful as well. I just want women to have a seat at the table. If you take nothing else away, listening in on this conversation, get out there and write some friggin checks. Get out there and understand what this ecosystem is like and how you can impact it and how it can impact your long term wealth. Because the truth is, none of us are getting rich on our w two s, right?
Marcia Dawood
That's right. So I find that the word investing, especially for women, is intimidating. It's almost like women sometimes feel that if they make a mistake making an investment and they don't get a financial return from that right away or whatever, they feel then like they could be judged as being a bad investor. And I think that mindset, we need to shift that away from thinking that, oh, investing is just one thing. I think investing so many things. You're investing in the future of the world that you want to see. You're investing in the types of people that you want to see succeed. It's not just that you're taking money and making a financial transaction.
Laurel Mintz
What are your 100%? And even when and if you make a financial bet and it doesn't go as you planned, you really need to look at it as what was the education and the lesson? Right. I don't believe in failure in any of these scenarios. And trust me, I've run multiple companies now. I've made some great bets, I've made some poor bets. You're not always going to be a winner. It's, again, unfortunately, a gender lens that we see through. Right. Men simply don't have that same risk aversion.
They're higher tolerance in terms of risk. And it's like the job analysis, right? Like a woman, to apply to a job has to have like 95% of the skill set where a man has like 50%. And again, it's just a gender bias. It's a cultural zeitgeist that is so backwards that we have to really change.
Marcia Dawood
Cultural zeitgeist. I love that. Use that. Totally. So after talking to women over and over again and getting 80% of your lp base to be female, 40% women of color, what were the couple things that you would say? And then you could literally see the light bulb going off. What were some of those sound bites, I guess, or nuggets of information that they were really looking for that kind of had them say, yes, I'm going to do this.
Laurel Mintz
Such a great question. The number one thing that was like, oh, I can actually do this, was honestly understanding what a capital call structure looks like, which sounds super technical, but all it means is how big is the minimum, and how is that money actually called in by the investment team, right. The capital call structure. So typically, you have what's called a minimum. Right. And for us, our first round was 100,000 minimum. And when women heard 100,000, they bopped at that. They're like, oh, God, I got to write $100,000 cash out of pocket today.
Right. It can be very intimidating. It's intimidating for me. It's a big number. But when I realized that, so we built our capital call structure over an 18 month period, and that was very intentional to give access to more women. And so when I told them that, and I said, hey, it's an 18 month capital call structure, which means your first check is only 30k. Not only, it's 30k significant for a lot of women and men. The next one is months later.
So you get to write a check, build the coffers. Write a check, build the coffers. That was a real light bulb moment, and I don't think that's been questioned enough or maybe explained enough in how venture is structured in terms of capital call. And once I opened their eyes to that, they were like, oh, I can write a $30,000 check. And I want to do this campaign, Marshall, love this. I want to do a campaign called better than a Birkin because I feel like that's where women spend a lot of their money is on fashion and designer. And trust me, I love all of that. But this is going to have such a bigger impact long term.
So I think it was like those two kind of conversations is like, you spend all this money in all these luxury goods, or you donate all this money to these amazing charities, when actually the impact for you and the founding teams and the trickle down of that is far greater and has far greater reaching impact long term.
Marcia Dawood
That's great. We did several spvs, or I've done several spvs with different groups, and we've talked on the podcast before about single purpose vehicles and how they've been used. We've had a couple service providers who actually put together the single purpose vehicles come on the show. But what I found was there was a sweet spot of right around 25 or $30,000 in fact, we would put our tickets. I wouldn't even call the minimums. Then I would just say, okay, well, if you're going to invest in the SPV, because we were usually going to be an SPV into something, either into a fund or into a company, whatever. And their minimum was much higher. So if their minimum was like 100, then they would go direct.
But if they were coming to the SPV, we just had tickets. And I said, you can do one ticket would be 25, two tickets, 50, like that. And I found that that $25,000 was just such a sweet spot that women were like, okay, that I can wrap my head around. But when you're talking about 100 grand or 250k, which is typical venture capital fund of the old days, it was too much. So, really interesting about the capital calls. Were there any other things? Any other light bulbs?
Laurel Mintz
Light bulbs. I mean, it was really just about around the conversation. Like, I would start talking about venture, and then I had to pull back and say, actually, Marcia, tell me what you know about venture. How much do you actually understand about this? And oftentimes, more often than not, they were like, honestly, I have my roth, my four hundred and one k. I own a piece of property, and I'm in stocks and bonds. That's all I do right now. So I had to peel it back even further and give them the basic, basic of what venture is and what it could do for them. So, again, it's been my true joy and honor to be able to educate and have these conversations with so many powerful women.
But it's incredible. I mean, I have some of the highest level people in some of the biggest corporations in the world who have never understood venture and never been given this opportunity. That is a shame. And that is what we're here to change.
Marcia Dawood
So how do you think we can, besides, of course, having more conversation and getting more people aware, what are some of the things that could help make this easier?
Laurel Mintz
That's a great question. Well, we have made a commitment to create a real ecosystem around what we're building here. I am leaning into what we know on the marketing side and really preaching this from so many different platforms. On our social platforms for fabric, we have the ABC's adventure and venture vernacular, where we do a lot of education and content and make it really fun. And then we also, most recently, have launched our pitch days. So in my mind, I was like, well, if I've got to listen to all these pitches, might as well open it to the network and they can all listen to these pitches, see how we ask questions of the founders, see the difference between different founders in different categories, and then we add a QR code in the chat, and anyone who is live on those pitches can offer real time feedback to the founders. So to us, it's really about creating an ecosystem. And so my call out, if you are looking to get involved or interested and want to understand a bit more, just start showing up into pitch days, right? Understand how to ask questions or how to listen to founders.
What we're looking for on the funder side, just show up in the rooms. Like, showing up is half the battle for all of this, honestly, it is.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, I absolutely love that. Let me just make sure I understand. So anybody can come to the pitch days?
Laurel Mintz
Anybody can come. We did a soft launch. We wanted to test it in November of last year. It's virtual, so anyone from all over the world, because we have a pretty Vast network, we had 100 people show up live, and 60 companies apply to pitch. It was wild.
Marcia Dawood
Oh, my gosh. And then how many companies pitched?
Laurel Mintz
We wanted to keep it a little tight. So it was six companies. It was ten minutes each, and then five minute q and a from the audience and from my investment committee. So it was a two hour slug of time, but it goes so fast. It's. Wow. I know it's a lot. I mean, I would love to do 50 in a day, but it's just too much time to ask of people.
So we're keeping them tight, but now we've got them happening quarterly, and we actually have full sponsorship. I closed two lps after that first one. It makes you show up in a different way, because you're not just like, hey, I'm thinking about raising a fund. You're like, I'm raising a fund. I'm creating an ecosystem. Show up and see the work that we're doing. So I think it made it more tangible than just saying, like, we're thinking about launching a fund.
Marcia Dawood
I can't even tell you how much I'm in love with this whole thing.
Laurel Mintz
I mean, that is so great. You got to join us, because we found.
Marcia Dawood
So at next wave Impact fund, Alicia Rob, who had set that up, there were nine of us on the investment committee, and we would do the same thing. We would have the company's pitch and all of the lps. It was back when 99 were allowed in the fund. So we had 99 people, nine of us, plus 90 lps, and we would allow them to come onto the calls virtually and watch the company's pitch and then we would ask questions and that's how they'd learn. And they loved it. They used to talk about it all the time that even if they only came on and saw a pitch like once or twice a year, they learned so much during the entire process that then they felt like they could go out and write other checks and do other things. Gosh, this whole idea is just so fabulous. And the fact that you're letting anyone come on so that they can learn, I mean, that's the only way you're going to understand what this was.
I mean, I didn't know anything about what angel investing was until I went to my first meeting in 2012. I thought it was like a group of people that got together and bought stocks. I had no idea.
Laurel Mintz
Right?
Marcia Dawood
And I see the first entrepreneur pitch and I'm like, I'm hooked. I'm in.
Laurel Mintz
It becomes addictive.
Marcia Dawood
Fascinating.
Laurel Mintz
Yes. It's my new luxury goods purchase. Investing becomes an addiction because you're like, I want to tap into this industry and I don't know anything about this market. And what about these founders in emerging markets? I haven't talked about that. Sky is the limit. And it's just so exciting.
Marcia Dawood
That is amazing. All right, well, so as we wrap up, leave us with one of the cool companies you've seen. It doesn't matter if you are investing. Not investing, but tell us about some really cool technology that your mind was blown by.
Laurel Mintz
Oh, my gosh. I have so many exciting companies. We have literally like 143 companies in our deal room right now that we're diligencing. So we could be doing a whole hour on just this. But a company I'm very excited about right now is called active armor. Female CEO, female team. They are reimagining casting. So I've never broken a bone, but everyone that I know who has tells me how disgusting it is.
Have you ever broken a bone, Marcia?
Marcia Dawood
I absolutely have not, which is kind of crazy.
Laurel Mintz
I know. We're knocking on wood. Everyone knock on wood for us on that.
Marcia Dawood
Yeah, everybody knock on wood.
Laurel Mintz
But all my friends that have kids always tell me the horror stories about how disgusting these casts are. You can't get them wet. So this company, active armor, is custom 3d printing casting for any part of the body on site in hospitals. Fully antibacterial, antimicrobial, and fully submersible in water. It's going to change the game as we know it in casting.
Marcia Dawood
Wow.
Laurel Mintz
Yeah.
Marcia Dawood
So cool. That is amazing. Yes. And I've always heard about, like, they're so itchy and people are trying to.
Laurel Mintz
Like, smells like you have to shower with your arm or your leg out the shower so you don't get it wet. Yes. It's just been horrible. And then think about all the contact sports, like all of the professional sporting teams where people hurt themselves, even sprains that need all. It's just going to be a game changer. It's really, really exciting.
Marcia Dawood
That is so exciting. Well, Laurel, thank you so much for coming on the show. This was so much fun. And I'm sure we could sit here and talk for hours, but love what you're doing. And I will definitely put links in the show notes so that people can get a hold of you that they can sign up if they want to come to the fabric vc demo days. So excited.
Laurel Mintz
Well, thank you so much for having know. I know that you and I are so aligned on what we're trying to do together. And giving me a platform to have these conversations is so meaningful. Marcia, so thank you.