Female Founders Fund’s Anu Duggal Is Betting Big on Women

The pioneer is showing that trusting your gut and building real community can actually reshape venture capital—just as women are about to control $30 trillion in wealth.

This piece is part of an ongoing series, “Redefining Power: How Indian American Women Are Rewriting the Rules of Leadership, Identity and Care.” The series explores what it means to modernize without losing our roots—through candid conversations with Indian American women reshaping culture, power and possibility.

When Anu Duggal invested in one of her earliest portfolio companies, many in her network hesitated—there were concerns about the founder’s past that few wanted to investigate or understand. But Duggal went the other way, going beyond standard due diligence; she took the time to truly understand what happened and recognized that, under different circumstances, she could have been in the same position herself. 

“If you do that to everyone,” she says, “you’re never going to give anyone a second chance.” She trusted her instincts and leaned into context over spreadsheets.

That leap of faith paid off: The company went on to achieve a successful exit, and that founder is already on her way to her second venture.

That instinct-driven move—rooted in empathy and resilience—comes from an uncommon origin story. Born in Madras and raised across Manila, Hong Kong, Tokyo and the U.S., Anu Duggal grew up in a family that valued education and tradition but embraced a global perspective. She was the first to leave the prescribed path: launching lemonade stands, backpacking solo through Southeast Asia at 23 and eventually co-founding a food business in India that had a seven-fold return—a moment that not only earned her family’s trust but also proved the power of her operating experience.

In 2014, she launched Female Founders Fund (FFF) with a bold premise: invest exclusively in women. At the time, less than 2 percent of venture capital flowed to female founders. She didn’t come from a legacy VC firm or have a blockbuster exit—but she had conviction and a vision of filling a critical gap.

Since then, FFF has backed more than 70 women-led startups, including Billie, Co–Star, Maven Clinic, Winky Lux, Rent the Runway and even ventures in space-tech and hydrogen-powered private aviation.

In parallel with investing, Duggal has focused on building the kind of founder ecosystem she wished existed when she started out.

During COVID, she launched Camp FFF as a way to bring together FFF’s broader community at a time when in-person connection was nearly impossible. Her strategy has always centered on ecosystem building, and the lack of real-life touchpoints was deeply felt. What began as a small test quickly became a hit with founders, and it has since evolved into an annual gathering that continues to grow year over year—pairing intimate panels and discussions with ongoing connections that extend well beyond the event.

Georgina Gooley, co-founder of Billie—a body care brand that went on to a $310 million acquisition by Edgewell—calls that community “a lifeline.”

“Founding can be lonely, even if you have a co-founder,” she says. “Anu connects you to other women who truly understand what you’re going through. She’ll say, ‘You should talk to this founder—she’s been in your shoes,’ and suddenly you have someone a few steps ahead offering guidance. It’s not just the camp—it’s the dinners, the panels, and the unstructured check-ins that create real camaraderie.”

Shivani Siroya, founder of Tala—a fintech company providing access to credit for people in emerging markets—speaks to how Duggal’s belief reshaped her own vision. “Anu’s belief really helped me be bolder about where we were going as a company and trust my instincts—not just as a founder, but as someone building for a problem I deeply understood,” she says. “Investors often pattern match. Anu sees the potential and conviction a founder has, and she gives us the support and empathy to go bigger.”

And I’ve seen firsthand how there’s something uniquely powerful about another woman pushing you to dream bigger. It feels more supportive, more encouraging—different from others. Being a founder can feel so weighted, and that’s where Anu’s value as a boundary-pusher comes in. She’s willing to take risks, and in doing so, she reminds founders that it’s not only okay to go big—it’s essential.

Gooley also recalls one of the toughest periods of her company’s journey: a yearlong Federal Trade Commission review that ultimately blocked an acquisition offer. “It was brutal,” she says. “But I never doubted Anu was in our corner. She wasn’t just a cheerleader—she was solution-oriented. She’d say, ‘We’re in it together; here’s what’s next.’ In good times and bad, she’s mindful, present and actively invested in outcomes.”

Her support extends beyond moral backing. “Anu sees it as personal responsibility to help seed- or pre-seed-backed companies land their Series A,” Gooley explains. “She hustles—making introductions, pushing conversations—even if she’s not leading the round. For some companies, she’s been the one to directly introduce them to their Series A lead. That level of commitment is rare.”

Siroya sees that same drive in how Duggal chooses investments. “She’s willing to take risks on problem areas and potential that others may overlook. That creates space for founders to be thoughtful but also bold—to get to those higher trajectories,” she says.

Anu Duggal’s leadership rests on a simple but radical premise: Good investors don’t just search for familiar archetypes—they see people. And that ability to see comes from operating experience: hiring, firing, scaling, scraping by.

“I always tell people: Run a company first,” she says. “There’s no better training for being a good investor.” That lived experience builds empathy and discernment that no formal credential can replicate.

What she represents isn’t just a woman with a fund—it’s a different operating system for venture. The industry still privileges spin-outs, paper perfection and familiar faces. Duggal’s career shows why that lens is too narrow. Traits often coded as “soft”—intuition, nuance, second chances—can lead to transformative returns—and ripple through the entire ecosystem for women, creating role models, opportunities and capital for the next generation.

Duggal is clear-eyed about the state of venture capital: “I think the VC industry is going to be cut in half, and it should be,” she says. “There’s way too much capital chasing too few deals. A correction is required.”

But if the economic correction is inevitable, the rollback of diversity efforts shouldn’t be. While the past four to five years brought real momentum for women and women of color in founding and funding roles, Duggal warns that DEI rollbacks are already threatening that progress—especially for emerging founders and funders still early in their capital cycles, who may lack the institutional backing to reach their potential.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Over the next five years, women in the U.S. are expected to control nearly $30 trillion in assets—up from $7 trillion in 2020—driven by inheritance, career gains and shifting demographics. Globally, the numbers are even more staggering. As this capital changes hands, so too does power: what gets built, who gets funded, and why. Duggal’s approach offers a blueprint for channeling this unprecedented wealth transfer toward building—not sidelining—the next generation of women-led companies and funds.

She’s already seeing the seeds of that shift: Women hitting liquidity aren’t cashing out for yachts—they’re reinvesting in other women.

“They want ownership. They want to invest in women,” she said on Bloomberg TV in July 2025. “That flywheel—turning outcomes into opportunity—is the most underreported story in venture.”

And the ecosystem they’re fueling is gaining traction. When Duggal launched FFF, platforms like BBG Ventures, Astia and Halogen Ventures existed but were rare. Nearly a decade later, new vehicles like Brown Girl Angels, Neythri Futures Fund and Gold House Ventures are expanding access—redefining who gets funded, and who gets to fund.

Traits often coded as ‘soft’—intuition, nuance, second chances—can lead to transformative returns.

In many ways, Duggal is an anomaly within the Indian American community. Most South Asian women are raised to follow predictable paths—structured, stable, risk-averse. Venture capital demands the opposite: intuition, risk and relentless belief in potential. Duggal didn’t just carve out a path for herself—she created a model for how Indian women can lead by trusting their instincts, take up space and fund possibility.

Anu Duggal’s story shows you don’t wait for permission. You make the table bigger—or build a new one. When women take her cue—to start companies, invest, build communities—venture capital can become what it claims to be: a place where undervalued ideas—often serving women—and overlooked talent shape the future. And when those ideas succeed, they feed the flywheel: role models, opportunities and capital flowing back into the ecosystem for the next generation.

So here’s her message to the next generation: Start something—a company, a syndicate, a new fund. Get operating experience. Learn the grind. Understand the stakes. Then, you must open doors for others. 

Duggal’s betting on a truth the industry is still waking up to: When women control the capital, they control the narrative. And when they control the narrative, they will rewrite the rules entirely.