Capital F closes $17M debut fund for the 'female economy'

Capital F, one of the few all-female-led venture capital firms, closed its debut fund this week at $17 million. The firm invests in what its founders call the “female economy” — markets where women drive demand — split mainly across three areas: women’s health, digital commerce, and AI tools. Co-founder Dawn Dobras said AI is an increasingly important focus because women are disproportionately the victims of trust and safety violations.

Co-founders Margaret Coblentz and Dobras spent the last 30 years running companies together before starting Capital F. Dobras was CEO of clean-beauty retailer Credo Beauty and spent a decade at Gap before moving to Charlotte Russe; Coblentz also worked at Charlotte Russe before launching her own luxury knitwear brand, which eventually exited. The two first worked together almost 17 years ago at Charlotte Russe, and after years running companies at the executive level and noticing there weren’t many women in those top ranks, they decided to launch a firm together.

During fundraising, Coblentz and Dobras hosted salon events across the country to bring more “VC curious” women into investing. The approach paid off: almost 80% of the fund’s limited partners are women, including Jenny Ming, CEO of Rothy’s and former head of Old Navy; Marta Benson, former CEO of Pottery Barn; and Linnea Roberts of Gingerbread Capital. Dobras said the firm wanted to counter a pattern in which women are often not invited into the rooms where fund investment decisions get made.

Capital F writes checks between $250,000 and $1 million to early-stage companies, and it doesn’t back a founder until they’ve spoken with at least two of its LPs — a practice Dobras said has turned into advisory relationships, board seats, additional investments, and sales introductions.

The firm has backed 13 companies so far, including telemedicine startup Hey Jane, period-and-cycle-tracking platform Stardust, and Big Sur AI, which Google acquired last year. Dobras said the Big Sur AI exit came before the fund had even finished closing.

Coblentz pointed to portfolio company Malama, which offers doula support for people on Medicaid, as the kind of women’s-health innovation the firm wants to fund — an area she said has long been underfunded despite growing conversation about its importance.

Capital F expects to finish deploying the fund by the end of 2027.

Why it matters

Capital F’s founder-LP matching model doubles as a distribution channel: getting women executives directly involved as investors has already produced advisory relationships, board seats, and sales leads for portfolio companies. That could make the model a template for other funds trying to convert underrepresented investor bases into more than just capital.