UK fund-of-funds secures £130m to back diverse investment teams: ‘We want to generate alpha for investors’

Bootstrap4F has completed the first close of its 'Women Backing Women' fund-of-funds at £130m.

Launched a year ago under the UK government's Invest in Women Taskforce, the vehicle is the first fund of funds in the UK with an explicit mandate to back female-led and mixed-gender investment teams.

Stéphanie Heller, Bootstrap4F co-founder and one of the managers of the Women Backing Women fund, frames the fund's thesis entirely around performance.

"If you have investors that think the same way, they will struggle to identify the outliers," she tells Impact Loop in an interview. "Venture is all about identifying the outliers. You need the diversity of thinking."

The fund is now actively engaging with VC fund managers for the first time, having been unable to do so meaningfully before capital was secured. "All of this is going to really start now," Heller says.

The vehicle is backed by Barclays, Nationwide, M&G and the British Business Bank, which committed £30m as anchor investor. The fund is targeting £250m by final close.

Which VCs meet the criteria

Bootstrap4F is looking for VCs that have a UK presence and invest in UK companies. They must have at least one woman at the partnership level and demonstrate a successful investment track record.

The fund will consider managers across sectors and stages, from early-stage bets to more mature growth portfolios.

The mandate is return-first, and teams will be assessed on conviction and commercial strength as much as composition. "We want to generate alpha for investors," Heller says.

Heller is also explicit that male-led firms are not excluded. "We are not closed to a male partnership that has opened their partnership to women," she says. "On the contrary, we really encourage it."

Opening doors to female founders

Fully female-founded businesses currently receive just 2% of UK equity investment, according to research by the UK government.

Women Backing Women is structured as a direct intervention into that pipeline, at the level where capital allocation decisions are actually made.

Heller believes the first close marks a vote of confidence from institutional investors.

"That first close really shows the conviction in the market," she said. "It shows that there is appetite for sophisticated investors to back more diverse teams."

Impact without a mandate

The fund carries no formal impact requirement, and managers will not be screened on the sectors they back. Heller is deliberate about keeping it that way, given the fund's return-first positioning.

But she expects an impact tilt to emerge regardless. "You find a lot of interest of mixed teams and female-led teams around themes such as climate and health," she said.

An analysis published by Impact Loop in January supports that view. The study found that 30% of impact VC funds either a fully female founding team or at least one female general partner – about six times the industry average.