Joanne Wilson (born 1961) is an American businesswoman and

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

. She is known for backing female-founded companies.

Biography

Early life and education

Joanne Wilson was born in 1961. Wilson studied at

Simmons College Institutions of learning called Simmons College or Simmons University include: * Simmons University, a women's liberal arts college in Boston, Massachusetts * Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black college in Louisville, Kentucky * Ha ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, where she graduated in 1983. She met her future husband Fred Wilson while in college and they moved to New York City.

Career

Wilson began her career at

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

, working in the retail apparel department for 4 years. After Macy's she oversaw a company in the garment industry, then worked in sales for the startup magazine and events company called Silicon Alley Reporter. She also chaired the nonprofit MOUSE (Making Opportunities in Upgrading Schools in Education), which focused on technology in inner-city schools. Wilson began investing in 2007. She also runs the entrepreneurship blog Gotham Gal. Through her investment fund, Gotham Gal Ventures, Wilson and her husband fund startups. In 2010, together with Nancy Hechinger from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

she co-founded and co-chaired an annual Women Entrepreneurs Festival. From 2010 to 2015, she chaired the board of

Hot Bread Kitchen Hot or the acronym HOT may refer to: Food and drink *Pungency, in food, a spicy or hot quality *Hot, a wine tasting descriptor Places *Hot district, a district of Chiang Mai province, Thailand ** Hot subdistrict, a sub-district of Hot Distric ...

, a nonprofit that promotes and trains female and minority bakers. She also was the first co-Chair of Path Forward, a non-profit, established in 2018 with a mission to get people back to work after they’ve taken time off for caregiving. Since 2009, Wilson has been involved in

real estate development Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw Real Estate, land and the sale of developed land or parcels ...

in New York City.

Investments

Wilson made her first investment into

Lockhart Steele Lockhart Steele is an American blogger best known for the ''Curbed'' family of real estate, restaurant, and shopping news sites. Early life and career Lockhart Steele was raised in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. He graduated from St. ...

's startup

Curbed ''Curbed'' is an American real estate and urban design website founded as a blog by Lockhart Steele in 2006. The full website, founded in 2010, featured sub-pages dedicated to specific real estate markets and metropolitan areas across the Unit ...

. Some of her early investments included

Food52 Amanda Hesser (born 1971) is an American food writer, editor, cookbook author and entrepreneur. Most notably, she was the food editor of ''The New York Times Magazine'', the editor of '' T Living'', a quarterly publication of ''The New York Times'' ...

, Rick's Picks, DailyWorth,

and

Scoot Scoot Pte Ltd, operating as Scoot, is a Singaporean low-cost airline and a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Airlines. It began its operations on 4 June 2012 on medium and long-haul routes from Singapore, predominantly to various airports t ...

. In 2014, she invested in

Blue Bottle Coffee Blue Bottle Coffee, Inc., is a coffee roaster and retailer once headquartered in Oakland, California, United States. In 2017, a majority stake in the company was acquired by Nestlé (68%). It is considered a major player in third wave coffee. T ...

, a

coffee roaster Roasting coffee transforms the chemical and physical properties of Coffee processing, green coffee beans into roasted coffee products. The roasting process is what produces the characteristic flavor of coffee by causing the green coffee beans to ...

and retailer, and in Spoon University, a food media company, in 2015. Later in 2015, she invested in Nestio, the NY-based leasing and marketing platform for residential landlords. Wilson became known for investing in women-led startups. In 2012, 13 of her 17 investments were in tech and out of those 13, 10 were women-founded companies. As of 2016, around 70 percent of her investments were in companies led by women. By 2017, she has backed more than 90 female-founded companies, including 3 of the 11 black women-led startups to have raised over $1 million. In 2017, Wilson made two angel investments in the

cannabis industry The cannabis industry is composed of legal cultivators and producers, consumers, independent industrial standards bodies, ancillary products and services, regulators and researchers concerning cannabis and its industrial derivative, hemp. The can ...

: Octavia Wellness and Beboe.

Personal life

Wilson is married to venture capitalist Fred Wilson, a cofounder of

Union Square Ventures Union Square Ventures (USV) is an American venture capital firm based in New York City. The firm has backed more than 130 startups, including Twitter, Etsy, Stripe, Coinbase, Zynga, Tumblr, Stack Overflow, Meetup, Kickstarter, MongoDB, Flurry, ...

. The couple live in New York City. They have three children, two daughters and a son. In 2016, ''

Crain's New York Business Crain Communications Inc is an American multi-industry publishing conglomerate based in Detroit, Michigan, United States, with 13 non-US subsidiaries. History Gustavus Dedman (G.D.) Crain, Jr. ( Gustavus Demetrious Crain, Jr.; 1885–1973), pre ...

'' included Fred and Joanne Wilson into its "Power Couples" list.

Bibliography

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Joanne 1961 births Living people American investors American venture capitalists American women philanthropists American women writers Simmons University alumni American women investors 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople Angel investors