Gillian Muessig’s journey isn’t just a personal success story; it’s a beacon of hope, a roadmap, and a call to action for women across the globe. With relentless determination and passion, she has dedicated her life to breaking barriers and creating opportunities for women in technology and finance. She’s on a mission to make the future serve all people.
Opening Doors to Opportunities
“Women work today as they always have; there’s work and entrepreneurship of necessity, and there’s work and entrepreneurship of opportunity,” says Gillian. As Managing Director of Mastersfund VC fund, Gillian has dedicated herself to bridging this gap. The focus? “Masterfund’s goal is to provide the funding that makes it possible for more women to engage in entrepreneurship of opportunity.”
Gillian’s commitment goes beyond gender equity. She’s building an ecosystem that seeks solutions from all genders, ages, and experiences. She passionately shares: “We CAN move the needle and change the stars for women at the helm of companies solving the world’s most pressing problems. Let’s get on with it.” She acknowledged that “it will require all people to solve” the world’s broad variety of problems – and “Mastersfund gets them funded!”
The Innovation of Investment
The inception of Mastersfund wasn’t just about creating another VC fund. Gillian and her team designed innovative funding models and instruments like the Redeemable Preferred Warrant to capitalize on the growth of companies historically ignored by conventional venture capital. “Investing in women is not a philanthropic or social-cause activity,” she emphasizes. Instead, it’s an underexploited opportunity that yields “venture-scale outsized returns.” Mastersfund is at the leading edge of opening the doors to diverse founding teams with a focus on gender equity, worldwide.
She works to democratize and commoditize ML and AI to enable venture capital funds to illuminate the assets and attributes of successful companies, points of inflection, and much more for thousands of early-stage companies in ways that were impossible before. In Gillian’s view, Mastersfund leverages those technologies to obtain, track, and act on this new information to invest, manage, and support leadership teams. The mission? “To optimize outcomes for all stakeholders, investors, entrepreneurs, and the communities in which they grow and thrive,” she shares.
“Lack of capital. Money is power. We don’t like that equation, but we better deal with it. Women do not need more classes, degrees, mentors, advisors, or pats on the back. They need capital.” Gillian isn’t blind to the challenges she and other women face, but she’s a force determined to make change. “The path forward is not to ignore the inequities, but to work ceaselessly to improve them.”
Leveraging Emerging Tech for Impact
Gillian’s work with emerging technology like AI and ML isn’t just an extension of venture capital funding. It’s a strategy to “illuminate the assets and attributes of successful companies” and guide investments. “The democratization and commoditization of ML and AI enables venture capital funds to emphasize early-stage companies in ways that were impossible before,” Gillian shares. Mastersfund is also “building an open-sourced ML platform to gather data on emerging startup companies.” This approach isn’t just about improving investment decisions; it’s about expanding access and opening doors for historically ignored individuals and communities. “Like water and fire, technology is a double-edged sword; it is incumbent on all humans to make the ethical and moral decisions on how to use emerging technologies,” Gillian believes. Yet, she sees technology as an enabler, amplifying human capacity and leveling playing fields across different spheres of life.
Inspiring Future Generations
“I see movement in the logjam of gender inequity. We have a very long way to go to achieve parity. But every step toward that parity improves the balance of the world,” Gillian remarks. Her excitement lies in the movement she sees and her commitment to working towards a balanced world. Her challenge in improving this disparity gained even more momentum when she began to invest in early-stage companies and realized that only 2% of VC capital was funneled to women-led companies.
“It was supposed to be better for the women of the next generation; clearly, it was not,” recalls Gillian. In response, she and Anne Kennedy formed a gender lens investment fund in 2018. “We took two years to develop an investment instrument and model that would mutually benefit investors and entrepreneurs,” she explains. With more than 25 years of research indicating that women-led companies in both the public and private sectors return an average of 35% higher ROI to investors, Mastersfund invests exclusively in technology and innovation companies with women at the helm.
In her words: “Women are an underinvested, undervalued, and underpriced investment opportunity. Investing in women-led companies is a massive market opportunity that yields outsized returns. We CAN do well by doing good.”
A Woman of the Future
Gillian isn’t just a woman of the future; she’s a creator of a future that includes, supports, and empowers women. Her work is more than an investment; it’s a visionary commitment to reshaping the landscape of technology, venture capital, and global problem-solving. Gillian’s story, insights, and unyielding pursuit of equity and innovation serve as a testament to what is possible.
In her words: “It takes all people to rebalance the world and make things right. And when all people are supported in their work and have rights to the benefits of their ideas and labors, all people benefit.” Her journey and leadership are not just about the future of women but the future of humanity, technology, and our world. And that future is bright.
