Anu Duggal learned early how to confront a challenge. The founding partner of Female Founders Fund started her career as a consultant at McKinsey the week of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Then, she graduated business school weeks before the onset of the 2008 financial crisis and saw half of her class accept roles at soon-to-be-underwater Lehman Brothers. Her own job offer at Starwood was rescinded.
When Duggal had the idea to launch a venture firm that would invest in women in 2012, her timing finally came with a stroke of luck. After the initial challenges of raising a fund as a first-time manager—she took 700 meetings to raise $5.85 million—things were looking up. “I was lucky to start at a point in time when things were definitely on the upswing,” she remembers. “Every few months, we were seeing our companies raise a Series A or Series B. Market dynamics were very strong.”
