Capital F, one of the few all-female-led VC firms, announced Wednesday the $17 million close of its debut fund. The firm backs companies building in the “female economy” — or the markets where women drive demand. That mainly falls into three buckets for the firm, Margaret Coblentz, the firm’s co-founder, told Tech Crunch — women’s health, digital commerce, and AI tools. The latter is increasingly important since “women are disproportionately the victims of trust and safety violations,” Dawn Dobras, the co-founder of Capital F, added.

Coblentz and Dobras spent the last 30 years running companies together. Dobras was notably the CEO of the clean beauty retailer Credo Beauty and spent a decade at Gap before moving on to the clothing retailer Charlotte Russe. Coblentz also worked at Charlotte Russe before launching her own luxury knitwear brand, which eventually exited. Coblentz said she and Dobras decided to come together and launch a firm after spending years at the executive top ranks and realizing that “there weren’t a lot of women there.”

During the fundraising process, they hosted salon events across the country for the “VC curious” to bring more women into investing, and as a result, almost 80% of the fund’s LPs are women, including Jenny Ming, the CEO of Rothys and former head of Old Navy, Marta Benson, former CEO of Pottery Barn, and Linnesa Roberts and her firm Gingerbread Capital. Dobras said Capital F doesn’t back a founder until they’ve spoken to at least two of their 10 LPs.

The firm has cut checks to 13 companies. It backs early-stage companies, writing checks between $250,000 and $1 million. Portfolio companies include the telemedicine startup Hey Jane, the hormone-tracking platform Stardust, and Steller Sleep, which Google acquired last year. They expect to finish deploying the fund by the end of 2027.