In 2008, Sonja Hoel Perkins became a mother. She had spent years in venture capital, often as the only woman in the room. Now the room looked different to her. In a 2024 interview, she recalled becoming troubled by how few women and people of color occupied positions of power. Two years after her child’s birth, she helped start Broadway Angels.
The idea had a practical attraction. Here were women who had already built careers financing companies or running them. They had judgment, contacts and money to invest. Bringing them together could give each woman access to something her individual success hadn’t necessarily supplied: a working circle of peers.
- The work: share startup opportunities and investment research.
- The rule: each member decides where her own money goes.
- The distinction: women investors, founders of any gender.
01 / A room with room to disagree
In a September 2022 interview, Perkins described an unusually economical routine. More than 60 women met roughly six times a year. Companies received 20 minutes to pitch. Before reaching the meeting, a business needed a member who had invested or was seriously considering it. Interested investors could follow up afterward.
Notice where the effort sits: before the presentation. Someone in the network has already found the company worth investigating. The meeting lets others examine that interest. It does not oblige them to inherit it.
- 1A member takes an interestAlready invested or seriously considering it
- 2The network compares notesA screened pitch and shared due diligence
- 3Each investor makes her callIndividual decisions. Individual capital.
Meeting format described by Perkins in 2022.
That distinction is the mechanism. Collaboration can become a long search for a verdict everyone tolerates. Here, the investigation can be collective while conviction stays personal. A skeptical member need not stop an enthusiastic one from investing. The structure leaves space for a company that divides the room.
“We have created friendships with purpose.”
Sonja Hoel Perkins · September 2022
02 / The experience comes attached
Perkins founded the group with Jennifer Fonstad and Magdalena Yesil. Their résumés explain the kind of company they wanted to keep. Perkins became Menlo Ventures’ youngest general partner at 29. Fonstad spent 17 years as a managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson and later co-founded Aspect Ventures. Yesil was Salesforce’s first investor and a founding board member.
Those are personal career histories, accumulated across different firms. They explain the expertise available within Broadway Angels. They are not a scorecard of investments made by the network.
The member directory broadens the picture. Kim Polese led the launch of Java at Sun Microsystems in 1995, then co-founded Marimba. Wayee Chu brings experience investing in education technology. Aileen Lee founded Cowboy Ventures after working as both an investor and an operator. A founder facing a hiring decision or an awkward product question can see why the identity of an investor might matter as much as the amount invested.
Keeping such a circle useful also takes ordinary operational work. The website identifies Leslie Santarina as chief operating officer, responsible for daily operations, leadership support and investor events. It lists Tamara Thompson as chief counsel. Independence in investment decisions still needs people arranging the meetings and attending to the machinery around them.
03 / A small slice of the round
Broadway Angels occupies a particular place in startup financing. Members invest their own money, generally supplying a fraction of a company’s round alongside other angels or venture firms. Its stated focus is information technology, with room for other opportunities. It typically advises management without taking board seats.
For entrepreneurs, the useful offer is capital accompanied by people who understand fundraising, recruiting, strategy and governance. The relationship can continue when the pitch is over and the less photogenic work begins. Someone has to hire the next executive. Someone has to think through the next financing.
The economic bargain puts personal capital at risk in pursuit of investment returns. Entrepreneurs are raising money from investors who retain separate judgments. An introduction to the network therefore creates a set of possible relationships, rather than one promise that the group will fill an entire round.
A concrete portfolio connection appears in water intelligence. In June 2024, KETOS announced $10 million in additional equity financing and named Broadway Angels among its existing investors. The announcement places the network beside other capital providers. The $10 million belongs to the company’s financing announcement; it is not the size of a Broadway Angels check.
04 / Changing who is visible
An all-women investor network can invite a mistaken assumption about its customers. Broadway Angels explicitly says it does not invest exclusively in women founders. Its two constituencies are experienced women seeking investment peers and entrepreneurs seeking money and advice. The composition of the first does not determine the gender of the second.
Perkins’ other 2010 project, the separate nonprofit Project Glimmer, helps explain her interest in visibility. In her account, women and girls need role models and meaningful networks. Broadway Angels brings accomplished investors into view; Project Glimmer works with underserved girls. These are different organizations addressing different points in a much longer journey toward opportunity.
05 / Borrow the rules
The transferable lesson is organizational. Find people with relevant experience. Ask someone to take responsibility for examining an opportunity before it consumes everyone’s time. Share what the investigation produces. Let the people risking capital decide for themselves.
For someone building a professional group, the interesting choice is what membership actually makes possible. A directory can introduce people. A recurring investment discussion gives them a reason to work together. Broadway Angels attaches its relationships to a concrete task: evaluating businesses. That task supplies both a reason to return and a way for members to discover whose judgment they trust. The social connection has work to do.
That arrangement depends on substance behind the introductions. Without experienced members, trusted relationships and time to investigate, a short pitch remains a short pitch. A founder seeking one institution to finance an entire round or take a board seat may need a different partner. The fit matters.
There is also a question beyond the meeting. Harvard Business School’s 2022 case describes Perkins as pleased with the network’s progress but frustrated by the slow pace of gender equity in venture capital. Building a useful circle and changing an industry operate at different scales. Broadway Angels makes the first tangible. The second remains the larger ambition.