First Cheque with Cheryl Mack & Maxine Minter 
About Monique Woodard
Monique Woodard is the founding partner and managing director of Cake Ventures, a pre-seed and seed venture firm that backs founders building for demographic change: ageing and longevity, the growing spending power of women, and the United States' shift to a majority-minority population. Cake announced a US$17 million debut fund in January 2023.
Before Cake, she was a venture partner at 500 Startups (now 500 Global), investing in companies in the US and Africa, then a venture scout at Lightspeed Venture Partners and an adviser on SoftBank's Emerge program. She co-founded Black Founders in 2011, was one of San Francisco's first Mayor's Innovation Fellows and is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 26).
On First Cheque with Cheryl Mack & Maxine Minter, she explained how she runs Cake as a solo GP and the move from Fund I to Fund II.
- Talks about
- Fundraising, Venture Capital
- Website
- monique.vc
In conversation.
1 episode
First Cheque with Cheryl Mack & Maxine Minter Go straight to the good bits.
Key moments from Inside Monique Woodard’s Solo GP Playbook.
- 3:07Monique’s first investment: picking stocks at age 20
- 6:12Her journey from rural entrepreneurship to 500 Startups and VC
- 12:43The "Three Layers of Cake": investing in demographic shifts (aging, female economy, new majority)
- 22:56Why geographic focus matters (and why Cake invests only in North America
- 24:32Real talk on Solo GP life: choosing partners, hiring venture partners, and building a legacy firm
- 30:07Raising Fund II: bigger checks, deeper domain expertise, and firm evolution
- 39:12How founders should position their companies in the AI hype cycle
- 45:24Advice for operators: Understanding the difference between investing and running a venture firm
In their own words.
“Your job is not to deploy money, it's to deliver returns. Deploying the money is not the job.”
The path so far.
- Now
Founding Partner & Managing Director · Cake Ventures
- Earlier
Advisor · SoftBank Vision Fund (Emerge)
- Earlier
Venture Scout · Lightspeed Venture Partners
- 2016–2018
Venture Partner · 500 Startups (500 Global)
- From 2011
Co-founder · Black Founders
- Earlier
Mayor's Innovation Fellow · Mayor's Office of Civic Innovation, San Francisco
Sources: monique.vc, forbes.com
Cake Ventures on Day One
Cake Ventures is a San Francisco venture capital firm that invests at pre-seed and seed in North American companies shaped by demographic change: ageing and longevity…
1 person · 1 episode
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