– Family first. Halogen Ventures has closed a $30 million fund to invest in a new thesis: the future of family.
Founding partner Jesse Draper identified this area as ripe for investment in the immediate aftermath of the COVID pandemic. The U.S. childcare system was broken, and families were struggling. Draper wanted to tackle it—but as an investor who already backed female-founded businesses, she could anticipate the response she’d get. “People would say, ‘that’s not a big enough opportunity,’” she recalls.
Draper repositioned from defining her thesis as childcare to the future of family, which includes the physical health and financial health of families, among other applications. She ran a study of the “future of family” as a category, and determined it’s a market valued at $7.5 trillion, including childcare, ed tech, tech for families, digital workplace solutions, and child and youth services. “[Families] want more scheduling tools, they want more financial management tools, they want more time overall,” Draper says.
The firm has already invested in companies aligned with this thesis, including the baby registry platform Babylist, the childcare marketplace Upwards, and the transportation company HopSkipDrive.
This is Halogen’s third fund. The fund’s LPs include Gingerbread Capital, Lanyon Advisors, Fenwick’s Funds of Funds, and the state of Alabama through its program Innovate Alabama. Halogen is the first out-of-state partner for the program and has pledged to back Alabama-based female founders. After a very tough few years for emerging managers, Draper advises others to try nontraditional sources.
“It’s a numbers game—don’t get discouraged if eight people say no to you. You haven’t talked to enough,” she says. “We talked to hundreds almost every fundraise, and you really have to get out there. You have to travel. You can’t only raise from your city. You can’t be afraid to get on a plane and go to new places and meet new people.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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