OverviewThe Pipeline Fund Fellowship (PFF) or Pipeline Fellowship is an angel investing bootcamp for women philanthropists with a goal of increasing diversity in the U.S. angel investing community and creating capital for women social entrepreneurs. The program includes three components: education, mentoring, and practice. The Pipeline Fellowship aims to diversify the investor pool and connect women social entrepreneurs with investors who understand them.
Click to see some of the Pipeline Fellowship videos: [1], [2], [3].
In 2012, only 22% of U.S. angel investors were women and only 5% were minorities, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. The Pipeline Fellowship, an angel investing bootcamp for women, works to increase diversity in the U.S. angel investing community and creates capital for women social entrepreneurs. Since launching its first angel investing bootcamp in April 2011, the Pipeline Fellowship has trained over seventy women, who have committed more than US$350k in investment, and has expanded from New York City to Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C..
Natalia Oberti Noguera
Founder & CEO
Dubbed “The Coach” by Marie Claire, Natalia (aka Ms. Oberti Noguera) is Founder and CEO of Pipeline Fellowship, an angel investing bootcamp for women that’s changing the face of angel investing and creating capital for women social entrepreneurs. Natalia holds a BA in Comparative Literature & Economics from Yale. She has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Mashable, Reuters Money, TechCrunch, The New York Times, and Fast Company’s Co.Exist Change Generation series. Natalia was named to the Forbes list “Top 20 Women for Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter,” as well as Latina.com’s “25 Latinas Who Shine in Tech.” Women’s eNews recognized her as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century for 2012 and Business Insider included her on its 2013 list “The 30 Most Important Women in Tech under 30.” You can find Natalia on Twitter (@nakisnakis).
Julia Smith
Special Project Manager
Julia Smith has been collaborating with Pipeline Fellowship Founder & CEO Natalia Oberti Noguera since 2010, when they teamed up to produce a well-received NYC-based TEDxWomen event that live-streamed the inaugural TEDWomen Conference and created a platform for nine diverse innovators to share their stories. In addition to her work with the Pipeline Fellowship, Julia serves as the Community Development Manager for NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network, after having launched her Chicago-based consulting practice. Previously, Julia worked at Idealist.org as a Communications Manager and co-founded 826DC, an education nonprofit. You can find her on Twitter (@juliacsmith).
Lauren Abele
Founding COO
As Founding COO, Lauren was part of the initial launch of the Pipeline Fellowship and assisted in building the program’s foundation since its first angel investing bootcamp in April 2011. During her tenure, the Pipeline Fellowship trained over seventy women—who committed more than US$350K in investment—and expanded to multiple cities across the United States. Lauren helped establish the Pipeline Fellowship as a leader in training women to become angel investors, as well as creating capital for women-led for-profit social ventures. Prior to the Pipeline Fellowship, she worked in the nonprofit and public sectors in economic development, environmental issues, and women’s empowerment. Lauren received her BA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MPA from Indiana University’s School for Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA). She is also a proud School for International Training (SIT) alumna. You can catch up with Lauren on Twitter (@laurenabele) and at about.me/laurenabele.
The Pipeline Fellowship is an angel investing bootcamp for women and includes three main components: education, mentoring, and practice. Applications for our spring 2014 programs in Boston, Chicago, DC, and NYC are being reviewed on a rolling basis.
The Pipeline Fellowship’s three main criteria are: a) Meeting one of the accredited investor definitions (i.e., US$200K in income or US$300K joint income with spouse for the past two years, or US$1M net worth) b) Interest in group learning model c) Passion for social entrepreneurship
The Pipeline Fellowship is a six-month angel investing bootcamp for women and the time commitment is approximately two full days per month during the six months. The Pipeline Fellowship program fee is US$4.5k. Each Pipeline Fellow also commits to invest US$5k in the same woman-led for-profit social venture at the end of the program.
Currently, the Pipeline Fellowship operates in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C..
For most of the Pipeline Fellows, this is their first angel investment. They are attracted by the program’s three components (education, mentoring, practice) and benefit from the diversity of each cohort. Pipeline Fellows are intergenerational (ranging from late twenties to 60+) and come from a variety of professional backgrounds.
The Pipeline Fellowship has seen the ripple effects of training women to become angels—in addition to continuing to invest in startups, Pipeline Fellowship alumnae have gone on to join later stage angel networks, as well as launch an accelerator and angel groups.
Pipeline Fellows are looking to invest in women entrepreneurs building tomorrow’s The Body Shop, Honest Tea, method, Seventh Generation, Warby Parker, and Zipcar. Some of the women-led for-profit social ventures that secured funding from Pipeline Fellows after presenting at a Pipeline Fellowship Pitch Summit include:
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The pipeline fellowship pitch summit is an opportunity for invited women entrepreneurs to present their for-profit social ventures for a chance to secure funding.
Companies eligible to apply to a Pipeline Fellowship Pitch Summit must meet the following four criteria:
a) Woman co-owner and/or co-founder
b) For-profit legal structure
c) Social and/or environmental mission
d) Duly organized and validly existing as a company in a U.S. state
Pipeline Fellowship Founder & CEO Natalia Oberti Noguera is known for saying, “The numbers are low, but they're not zero.” In addition to its angel investing bootcamp for women, the Pipeline Fellowship increases visibility of more voices in the angel investing, venture capital, and entrepreneurship communities through a series of events.
The Pipeline Fellowship Conference is an all-day event on angel investing open to the public. Invited speakers range from serial entrepreneurs to seasoned angel investors and VCs.
Some of our past Conference speakers include representatives from: 500 Startups, Acumen Fund, Astia, Black Founders, Criterion Ventures, Echoing Green, Golden Seeds, Goodwin Procter, Illuminate Ventures, RSF Social Finance, StarVest Partners, SoftTech VC, TechStars, and Tiger 21.
Pipeline Fellowship's Changing the Face of Angel Investing interview series spotlights women and people of color influencers who are doing their part to increase diversity in the angel investing, impact investing, VC, and entrepreneurship ecosystems.
The Q&A with Pipeline Fellowship alumnae series is an opportunity to learn about a graduate’s journey into angel investing.
What makes the Pipeline Fellowship different from other fellowships is that it is an angel investing bootcamp with a specific focus towards women philanthropists with a goal of increasing diversity in the angel investing community and creating capital for female social entrepreneurs. Generally, when one considers an entrepreneurial fellowship, it caters towards the founders, this particualr fellowship is aimed at teaching female investors how to become Angel Investors through three core competencies: education, mentoring, and practice.
The Pipeline Fellowship holds workshops on topics ranging from Due Diligence, Valuation, Portfolio Strategies, and Measuring Impact. The workshops are led by experts, including seasoned angel investors, VCs, experienced entrepreneurs, and impact investing professionals.
The Pipeline Fellowship matches Pipeline Fellows with seasoned angel investors who share best practices and lessons learned.
The Pipeline Fellowship Pitch Summit is an opportunity for invited women entrepreneurs to present their for-profit social ventures for a chance to secure funding.
The impact of such a program like Pipeline Fellowship is dual sided. On one end of the spectrum there is the Pipeline Fellowship’s angel investing bootcamp for women that could be used to introduce female college students to the world of investments, private equity, business evaluation, and financial modeling. On the other end of the spectrum there is the Pipeline Fellowship Pitch Summit that provides opportunitiies for eager entrepreneurs to seek capital for the ventures. Ultimately, the experiential learning that can transpire through this fellowship can be specifically tailored towards college students so they can witness both sides of the financial world. Students can learn how to evaluate businesses as well as have an opportunity to showcase their businesses and seek funding and mentorship to grow their companies.
To bring a program like Pipeline Fellowships to a college, one would need to first identify prospective students interested in being "investors" and faculty or local business executives to be the "mentors". It would also help if the university or some other entity could sponsor the investments to give more credibility. Then advertisements could be made around the campus to solicite student entrepreneurs to submit proposals for grant funding. Next, the mentors who can work with the prospective student-investors to evaluate the proposals and determine what investments they would like to make. From this point, the system becomes more like a mentor-mentee relationship where the student learns about venture finance and gain mentorship from faculty or business executives. Additionally, the students, whose ideas get funded can work on developing their business ideas, minumum valuable product, customer discovery, financial model, and business plan to inevitably grow their business.
To learn more, go to: http://pipelinefellowship.com Questions? Email Pipeline Fellowship: info@pipelinefellowship.com
