In The Room with Jesse Draper
In this week’s episode, we welcome Jesse Draper, Emmy-nominated television star turned venture capitalist who founded Halogen Ventures, an early-stage venture firm focused on investing in female entrepreneurs. You’ve seen her on TV in The Naked Brothers Band and as the host of The Valley Girl Show, interviewing tech and business entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. As a fourth generation venture capitalist, Jesse moved away from entertainment to build her own venture firm, Halogen Ventures, which invests entirely in female founding teams. Having recently closed her second fund, Jesse is just getting started on changing the technology ecosystem for the better.
Jesse shared with Madison and Claudia the value of building a brand for yourself, her experiences on being an angel and an institutional investor, and her thoughts on the future for female founders. Let’s open the door.
Key Theme 1: Building a Brand for Yourself
Creator of The Valley Girl Show, Jesse was one of the original digital-first talk show hosts. In a time when digital distribution and Youtube were becoming mainstream, Jesse built a brand in the technology and entertainment ecosystem for interviewing powerful technology leaders. Through The Valley Girl Show, Jesse learned from and shared the stories of household names in technology like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. Jesse was disappointed to realize that even after a few seasons the majority of her guests were still male. “Where were the female founders?” she wondered. After asking this question, loudly and publicly on her established platform, Jesse found them. This set the stage for her firm, Halogen Ventures, today.
Key Theme 2: Transitioning from Angel to Institutional Investor
As an angel investor turned venture capitalist, Jesse walked us through the difference in these investor profiles. Angel investors can be anyone with the luxury to deploy their personal capital into high-risk businesses such as early-stage consumer and technology companies. Oftentimes these are high-net worth individuals given the nature of these check sizes can range from $5,000 ro $50,000. Institutional investors primarily invest other sources of capital into early stage business. These other sources of capitals come from endowments, pension funds, family offices etc. Jesse’s second institutional fund for Halogen VC, is $21 million aggregated across these types of investors or limited partners.
Key Theme 3: The Future for Female Founders
As a founder of a venture firm, Jesse is the minority both as a partner at a venture firm and a founder of one herself. While firms with female partners are on the rise, there is still a long way to go on backing female founders. Jesse vehemently shared her belief in the power of investing in women. “Investing in women led businesses is ultimately better business.” While data shows that women raise less money, they are in the long run more profitable and see higher returns. Jese is empowering the future of female founders by exclusively investing in female founding teams.
Thank you for tuning into this week’s episode of The Room. We loved talking to Jesse about her founding journey to building Halogen Ventures and her unconventional path from entertainment. Interested to learn more about what it takes to start a venture firm? Check out our very first podcast with Matt Rodgers and Swati Mylavarapu, co-founders of Incite.org. See you next week, in The Room at 10 am Eastern, 7 am Pacific.
