Around four years ago, Maria Toler Velissaris started to wonder if she should turn her part-time angel investing into a full-fledged career. 

A senior marketing executive and angel investor at the time, Velissaris told 500 Global that she quickly found access to quality deals in the women’s healthcare space — an area largely overlooked by other investors, she said. 

“I was wondering why I was getting into deals that I probably shouldn’t have been getting into,” Velissaris said. “It was because other firms weren’t open to meeting with these founders. They didn’t understand what they were building.” 

Even with what Velissaris described as an “unfair competitive advantage” investing in women’s healthcare as someone who knew the pain points of female founders, she questioned whether she should take the leap and raise her own fund. 

Enter VC Unlocked: Silicon Valley by 500 Global. 

As part of the program’s 6th cohort, in 2019, Velissaris said she learned tactical skills like fund administration and how to structure a venture firm. Importantly, Velissaris said presenting her thesis to her entire VC Unlocked cohort and receiving positive feedback about her idea to focus on women’s healthcare was the nudge she needed to set out on her own. 

“With my peers and professors being inspired by what I was building, it gave me the confidence to go create something great,” she said.

Today, Velissaris’s SteelSky Ventures has a team of five and US$73 million in assets under management. The firm’s notable investments include companies like Zipline (which is helping reduce maternal mortality rates in countries like Rwanda), Twentyeight Health (which delivers birth control, STI medications, and other critical women’s health products), and Midi (a virtual healthcare clinic for women over the age of 40). 

“Being a women’s health venture capitalist is more than a job for me,” Velissaris said. “It’s my life’s calling. It’s my life’s work.” 

As for the network she gained from VC Unlocked: Silicon Valley, Velissaris said there’s a WhatsApp group with her fellow batchmates that’s still going strong. And, when someone visits the Bay Area, a happy hour meetup almost always happens. 

“We still collaborate and support each other,” Velissaris said. “It’s been such a great experience just being connected to all of these amazing people from around the world.”

Interested in VC Unlocked: Silicon Valley? Learn more here.