Anu Duggal founded Female Founders Fund in 2014 around a straightforward premise: female founders were being systematically underfunded relative to their performance, and a firm built specifically to be their first institutional check could both correct that gap and generate strong returns. The firm backed Jennifer Hyman's Rent the Runway years before its 2021 Nasdaq listing, along with Maven Clinic, Zola, and Tala. Duggal has scaled the firm to $140 million in total capital across its funds, most recently closing a $29 million Fund IV in December 2025, while keeping its core focus on seed-stage healthcare, AI-first software, and consumer categories underrepresented founders are building in.
Rent the Runway's 2021 Nasdaq IPO - Female Founders Fund was an early backer of Jennifer Hyman's marketplace years before its public debut