Meet The Top Women Investors On Midas In 2018

Nine female investors have claimed spots on this year’s Midas List, a record for the annual ranking and an increase from six women a year ago. The list also has two female newcomers, Aileen Lee, founder and partner at Cowboy Ventures, and Sonali De Rycker, partner at Accel.

The Midas List, coproduced by Forbes with TrueBridge Capital Partners, ranks VCs on the number and size of exits over the past five years, with a premium on bolder early-stage deals. The ranking counts only exits over $200 million or private rounds valuing companies at $400 million or more.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker was once again Midas’ top-ranked woman VC, claiming the #6 spot, thanks to her shrewd bets on companies like Airbnb, Chinese commerce site JD.com, Slack, Spotify and Facebook. Since top Kleiner partner John Doerr stepped away from the firm’s new funds, Meeker has taken on more responsibility and helps lead the team’s digital growth equity team, which focuses on surging Internet companies. Meeker first took the spot of the top female on Midas in 2016 from GGV Capital’s Jenny Lee, who ranked #10 in 2015.

Two Newcomers

The top woman Midas newcomer, Accel partner Sonali De Rycker, took the #95 rank thanks in part to her early investment in Avito, the Russian version of Craigslist, which was purchased by South African newspaper conglomerate Naspers in 2015 for $2.7 billion. De Rycker, who coleads Accel’s London office with Harry Nelis, also invested in Stockholm, Sweden-based Spotify. The streaming service is expected to go public in April and was valued in February at an estimated $22.6 billion. De Rycker also led Accel’s investment in e-commerce startup Wallapop, which merged with competitor Letgo in 2016, and serves as an independent director on the board of Match.

Originally from Bombay, India, De Rycker attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and then worked for Goldman Sachs and Atlas Venture before joining Accel in 2008. What De Rycker always tries to remember: "The next big thing could look very different from the last big thing."