Members of Transact Global at a conference in 2019.
Courtesy of Transact Global.
When venture capitalist Soraya Darabi set out to raise her first fund for TMV in 2016, the responses she received seemed contradictory and nearly impossible to navigate. She had built a 10-year track record of special purpose vehicle and angel investing, yet was being told by LPs to come back when they had a diversity fund, all while watching her potential commitments go to men who had a top-tier venture firm on their resume but no exits or notable portfolio companies under their belt. It was an arbitrary system and for Darabi; it didn’t make sense.
Two years later, as an LP in her friend Alexia Bonatsos’s fund Dream Machine, Darabi was reminded again of the struggles faced by emerging women managers. She and Bonatsos got talking about how the grind to raise a first or second fund is not unlike starting a startup, only a much more opaque process and there aren’t the TED Talks or guides. Darabi started meeting weekly with three other emerging women VCs: Virginie Raphael of FullCircle, Heather Hartnett of Human Ventures, and Marina Hadjipateras of TMV, to exchange fundraising notes and LP introductions.
When they expanded the discussion beyond the original group, they struck a nerve in the emerging women venture manager community and Transact Global was born. “Nothing like this existed in 2018,” Darabi says. “Transact was not an intentional community. It was created in terms of absolute necessity and grew because of absolute product fit. There weren’t any resources. There wasn’t a playbook in 2018 for first-time fund managers trying to navigate LP groups.”
Roxanne Varga of Station F (left) and Soraya Darabi of TMV (left).
Courtesy of Transact Global.
The peer group, formerly invite-only, has since grown to a network of more than 150 women across 12 countries and 10 different time zones, all looking to raise emerging venture funds. The group is now exiting from stealth and eager to expand its membership. “Let’s become the fastest growing group of emerging managers, who happen to be women,” she says. “The future of Transact is a peer-led community.”
Transact Global members are part of a constant support system, connecting through multiple WhatsApp groups with focus topics spanning from crypto stock picking and deal flow to term sheet details. There are also biweekly video calls where members have the opportunities to discuss best practices for fundraising with with LPs like Lo Toney of Plexo Capital, or Tiffany Lewis of JP Morgan. Darabi says members from Nigeria or Greece call in the middle of the night to participate.
While Transact isn’t the first organization looking to advance women in the venture market, Darabi says the key difference is the group’s focus on emerging managers. In addition to the resources it offers, Transact has also advanced funds for some of its members. LP introductions made through the group have helped women land more than $15 million in investor commitments, which while small in the grand scheme of fundraising, can give micro funds a big boost.
Shila Nieves Burney, the founder and general partner at Zane Venture Partners, is the recipient of one of these commitments. The Atlanta-based VC is looking to raise a $25 million debut fund to invest in diverse founders in the Southeast. She got involved with Transact in 2020 and was connected to a potential LP through Darabi shortly after. Within two weeks, Burney was able to secure her first seven-figure fund commitment. “It shows the power of collaboration,” Burney says. “These are all women, we are all busy. We all have our own fund and things we are doing in the entrepreneurial community. For us to take the time, we really want each other to be successful.”
When Darabi recently landed a commitment from Bank of America for TMV’s third fund, she paid it forward to the Transact community. BoA asked her for introductions to other diverse funds and she knew she had about 70. Darabi made a handful of connections and multiple funds in the Transact network received commitments. “Together we are negotiating term sheets, we are negotiating our LP commitments,” she says. “It’s providing transparency to a very opaque system.
