Meet Venture Capital’s First Woman Billionaire

Forbes

The Indonesian immigrant, former figure skater and early Facebook investor is America’s first and only billionaire female venture capitalist.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/06/08/meet-venture-capitals-first-woman-billionaire/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, meet venture capital's first woman billionaire.

00:06Venture capitalist Teresa Gao is, quote, smart, opinionated, and the only woman in the room.

00:13This quote is from Heather Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of health tech startup Solve,

00:19and former executive at real estate tech firm Trulia, which Gao backed in 2005.

00:25Gao has also become a woman of many firsts.

00:28Born in Indonesia to parents of Chinese descent, Gao immigrated to the U.S. when she was three.

00:34She later became the first person in her high school to attend Brown University,

00:39the first female partner at venture capital powerhouse Excel,

00:42and co-founder of one of the first female VC firms in Silicon Valley.

00:47In 2023, she told Forbes, quote,

00:50The American dream is so central to my personal story.

00:54She now has another first to add to her list.

00:57Gao is America's first female billionaire venture capitalist, worth an estimated $1.2 billion.

01:04Much of her fortune stems from her 15-year tenure at Excel,

01:08where she was part of the team that led the firm's lucrative early bet on Facebook, now called Meta.

01:14She now runs Acru Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm that she co-founded in 2019.

01:20Acru raised $700 million in October to invest in data and security, health, and fintech startups,

01:28bringing the firm's assets under management to $1.7 billion,

01:32with an emphasis on diversity, especially through its Diversify Capital Fund.

01:37Women made up just 17% of VC decision-makers, that's the partners, managing directors, and principals,

01:44in 2024, per a PitchBook report.

01:47The private market data firm also reported that firms with at least one female co-founder

01:52captured around 22% of VC funding in 2024, down from 25% in 2023.

01:59Things likely won't move toward parity anytime soon.

02:03On President Trump's first day in office, he issued an executive order mandating the termination

02:08of all federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or DEI, programs.

02:14In addition, some of the world's biggest companies with powerful corporate venture capital arms,

02:18including Google, Meta, and Goldman Sachs, have rolled back their DEI initiatives.

02:23How Gao will respond to the new environment isn't clear, but for many years, she has been a strong

02:30advocate for DEI, doubling down on the practice in several ways.

02:34Starting a crew, with a founding investment team that's 83% women or people of color,

02:40spearheading an initiative to bring historically black colleges and universities into the VC world,

02:46co-founding DEI-focused fund-to-funds first-closed partners, now with some $35 million in assets,

02:52and co-founding AllRays, a non-profit that helps female founders and investors in Silicon Valley

02:58network and find mentors.

03:01A crew launched in 2019 with a core value of diversity of perspective and two main funds.

03:07It invests anywhere from $1 million to $20 million in startups,

03:11with smaller amounts for earlier-stage companies.

03:14The vast majority of its Diversify Capital Funds investors come from, quote,

03:19diverse backgrounds and communities, meaning women, people of color, and immigrants, per

03:24a crew's website.

03:27In 1971, Gao's family moved from Indonesia to a town near Buffalo, New York, where she

03:32learned math by watching Buffalo Bills football games with her father, who'd explain the statistics

03:37to her.

03:38In December, Gao bought a reported 2% stake in the team, worth some $100 million.

03:43In 1999, she began working at Silicon Valley-based venture firm Excel, where she spent the next

03:5015 years.

03:51There, she rose to become a managing partner of the fund that in 2005 bet on Facebook when

03:57it was just a scrappy, year-old startup fresh out of Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room.

04:02Gao has never appeared in Facebook, now Meta's, regulatory filings, but Forbes estimates she held

04:08around 8 million shares at its 2012 public offering, worth more than $5 billion today had she not

04:15sold any, and slowly diversified her stake over time.

04:19Had she not gotten divorced in 2013 in California, where assets are most often split evenly between

04:24ex-spouses, she'd likely be worth even more.

04:29For full coverage, check out Phoebe Lou's piece on Forbes.com.

04:34This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes, thanks for tuning in.

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