When Soraya Darabi, Virginie Raphael, and Heather Hartnett first met each other in 2018, they connected over their shared experiences of raising first-time fund founders. All three women are emerging managers at their own respective firms: Soraya is a co-founder and general partner of TMV, an early stage venture fund; Virginie is founder and managing partner of FullCircle, a pre-seed stage fund; and Heather is CEO and general partner of Human Ventures, a venture studio and fund.
Together with Alexia Bonatsos, founder of venture fund Dream Machine, and Marina Hadjipateras, Soraya’s partner at TMV, the women began conducting weekly calls together that they jokingly referred to as “transact” because of how transactional these meetings felt. They suspected that other women who were trying to raise their first funds would benefit from calls like these, and they soon formalized the conversations to include others who were interested.
Transact Global was born. Today, Transact Global is over 200 members strong and growing, with emerging managers from over 15 countries meeting on a bi-weekly basis to share best practices, discover which LPs are allocating capital, and help each other move further and faster together. The women of Transact Global stay connected through a weekly newsletter, a Slack channel, a Whatsapp group chat, and fundraising pods.
In this episode of The First Close, we cover:
- What Soraya, Virginie, and Heather are working on at their own respective firms
- How Transact Global keeps the collaborative nature of venture capital alive
- The founders’ abilities to maintain a growth mindset
- How the Transact Global community stays connected from all around the globe
- Transact Global’s most important piece of advice for emerging managers
Listen to our interview with Transact Global’s founders by streaming The First Close on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
