New York-based angel investors
Golden Seeds believes in the empowerment of women entrepreneurs.
It also believes Pittsburgh has what it takes to grow successful, female-inspired companies. So much so the firm has opened an office at the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse campus.
"We’ve always found Pittsburgh to be a source of great deals," says Stephanie Hanbury-Brown, founder of Golden Seeds. "We realized that Pittsburgh had something special when we looked at our portfolio and found that we had more investments in Pittsburgh that we had in New York (at the time). It's really intriguing."
Companies with a woman on the founding team tend to have a very different culture, says Hanbury-Brown. "It's different enough that in the big, wide world of evolution, it's going to make change happen and get better and better."
Golden Seeds first invested in Redpath Pathologies in 2006, a molecular diagnostics company co-founded by Mary Del Brady. Three more investments followed: Carnegie Speech (Angela Kennedy), developers of artificial intelligence for learning; Towercare Technologies (Donna Meyers), creating fundraising software for nonprofits; and Cognition Therapeutics (Susan Catalano), therapeutics to target Alzheimer's and other degenerative diseases.
The firm closed on its first fund of $3.8 million in 2008, and plans to close on another $25 million by December of 2011. Investments focus on IT, consumer goods and life sciences.
“We are thrilled to have Golden Seeds join the list of venture firms and strategic partners joining PLSG and our portfolio companies in our new life sciences center for excellence facility,” said John Manzetti, PLSG’s President and CEO. “We look forward to a long and growing relationship between our organizations.”
Source: Stephanie Hanbury-Brown, Golden Seeds; PLSG