Launch Angels raising money for new VentureOut fund focused on LGBT entrepreneurs

Launch Angels raising money for new VentureOut fund focused on LGBT entrepreneurs

Boston-based Launch Angels announced a completely different type of affinity venture fund today. VentureOut will back early stage companies that have lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender founders and management team members. With a stated goal of creating “the next generation of LGBT entrepreneurs,” the new (expected $2 million) fund is a joint effort between Greg Wiles, who serve as the managing director of the VentureOut Fund from the West Coast, and Launch Angels’ chief executive Shereen Shermak. The idea of “affinity funds,” where people come together around a specific purpose, is something Shermak has developed as the focus for Launch Angels. The focus on LGBT founded and led businesses seemed like a perfect fit, and after talking with members of the community who agreed, Shermak connected with Wiles, who’d had the same idea on the West Coast. “It’s not until recently that a lot of LGBT entrepreneurs have been coming out of the closet, and are out,” Wiles said, “so it seemed to make sense to try to focus a venture capital fund on LGBT entrepreneurs, and to help leverage the LGBT community.”