New Female Entrepreneur Competition Series from Emma Grede and Ashley Graham to air on Roku Channel on March 1st, 2024
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 28, 2024 — Powerhouse investor and entrepreneur Jesse Draper has joined the new Roku Channel competition series Side Hustlers, and will appear as a guest star in the series that premieres on March 1st, 2024. As the founding partner of Halogen Ventures, the first solo female General Partner in Los Angeles, and a 4th generation venture capitalist and gender advocate, Draper brings her killer track record for investing in women entrepreneurs who are building billion dollar businesses to the show.
Draper has been a leading voice in technology and entertainment for well over a decade and started her non-traditional career as a Nickelodeon star on ‘The Naked Brothers Band’. In 2008, she created and hosted the first technology talk show of today, the Emmy nominated television series, The Valley Girl Show where she interviewed some of the most prolific technology entrepreneurs of our time including Elon Musk, Eric Schmidt, Jessica Alba, Marc Cuban, Ted Turner, Sheryl Sandberg and Bryan Armstrong from Coinbase. Draper saw the huge gender disparity happening in venture capital and technology during this time through the show and set out to interview 50 percent female founders. She quickly proved there was no lack of women starting companies and today sees 10,000 deals a year come through her inbox, there’s only a lack of Venture Capital funding going to female founders.
Draper saw the massive potential to invest in female founders and in 2015, she followed in her father Tim Draper’s footsteps with a female twist and founded Halogen Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund investing in consumer technology companies led by women. Among Draper’s 75+ portfolio companies, are Babylist, ThirdLove, Ellevest, The Skimm, HopSkipDrive, The Flex Company, Squad (acquired by Twitter), Eloquii (sold to Walmart) and This is L (sold to P&G).
Roku Channel’s Side Hustlers is a docu-follow series where savvy investors mentor aspiring entrepreneurs in a first-of-its-kind format. The investors guide the side hustlers through a high-stakes boot camp aimed at transforming their side hustles into sustainable main hustles that could potentially make millions. The investor decides if they want to put a large amount of cash into the business. And the side hustlers decide if they are going to walk into their boss’s office and finally quit their day job. The series is produced by Hello Sunshine in association with Ally. Reese Witherspoon and Sara Rea executive produce for Hello Sunshine. Emma Grede, Co-Founder and CEO of Good American and Founding Partner of Skims as well as model and entrepreneur Ashley Graham co-host the series.
About Jesse Draper
Jesse Draper is a mother of 3 boys and founding partner of Halogen Ventures focused on early stage investing in consumer technology companies led by female and co-ed teams. Draper, the first solo female GP in Los Angeles is also a 4th generation venture capitalist, the creator and host of Emmy nominated television series, The Valley Girl Show, and host of the MOMumental Podcast. She is a fierce advocate for investing in women and the opportunity for using technology and innovation to solve some of the biggest issues facing women and families today. Among her 75+ portfolio companies, are the Skimm, Babylist, ThirdLove, HopSkipDrive, The Flex Company, Squad (acquired by Twitter), Eloquii (sold to Walmart) and This is L (sold to P&G).
Selected as one of the top 10 early stage female investors by Business Insider, Draper was also listed by Marie Claire magazine as one of the ’50 Most Connected Women in America’, nominated by the NRF as a DealMakeHers, Variety’s Holly’s New Leaders, and Refinery29 30 Rising Stars.” Draper has been a contributor to Marie Claire, Forbes, and is a regular investor and tech personality showcased on Cheddar, CNBC, CNN.
Following Jesse’s viral Medium piece, Investing in Women Isn’t a Fucking Charity, she’s become a leading voice of women in technology. Draper is also a Kauffman Fellow.
She proudly sits on the board of directors of Trust & Will, Flex and the non-profit board Project Glimmer. Draper supports the Parkinson’s Institute and is very involved with growing UCLA’s female entrepreneurship community. She and her team also created the ‘Halogen Fellowship in Venture Capital’ to increase diversity and inclusion in the industry.
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SOURCE Halogen Ventures
