Shelley Kuipers’ call to action: Invest in the power of women entrepreneurs

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Shelley Kuipers is co-founder and co-CEO of The51, an Alberta-based venture capital firm that she refers to as a Financial Feminist platform. Her goal is to create a new critical mass of women investors that will make Canada a centre for women-powered capital.

Kuipers is also co-founder of the family office Adventure Capital, which invests in people who have “the ambition and vision to change the world.”

Among her entrepreneurial accomplishments are the founding of crowdsourcing company Chaordix and the creator-economy consultancy IOVIA, and the co-founding of House Kuipers, a direct-to-consumer 100-per-cent sustainable clothing line.

Kuipers began investing in 1998 into a junior energy company called Peyto Exploration and Development Corp. and then transitioned to software and technology investing in 2001 with an investment in Solium Capital.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was born in a small town called Hinton, Alberta. My younger brother and I come from very humble beginnings. Our father was a forest ranger, while my mother worked various jobs in the towns and cities that we lived in. We initially lived on a succession of ranger stations until purchasing our own home, moving every few years to different towns across Northern Alberta.

It was hard moving every three years or so to a new community and trying to be cool and fit in with yet another new set of friends. Because of those experiences, I tend not to be nostalgic about the past.

Did your parents talk with you about money or success when you were a kid? What did you absorb, either implicitly or explicitly?

We were kind of an interesting family for a few reasons. For example, all four members of our family had flyer delivery routes – our parents instilled a strong work ethic and earning money in us at a young age. Mom was in charge of the household finances, and she made sure we all knew what she was doing with it. She was quite transparent in that we observe her “doing the books.”

I definitely grew up with an appreciation for how much money my parents made and how efficient we were with it. From an early age I was cognizant of concepts such as income and spending. I understood that if we were extra-efficient with our money, we could find ways to do fun things as a family, like our road trips across North America.

We brought together a room of women investors and showcased a woman entrepreneur. She shared her story and successfully raised half a million Canadian dollars that evening.

Sometimes kids don’t want to follow in their parents’ footsteps, and I admit I was a bit more extravagant with my spending than they were. I wanted the gratification of being able to buy something, and I had a fascination with fashion from a young age.

My first real job was working up north on a pipeline crew in the summer of 1987. It was very tough work: ten days on and four days off. In two months, I made a lot of money for my age and for that time — in fact, my paycheques at that point were more than my Dad’s, or so he told me. I took my parents’ advice and put all of it in my RRSP.

This really paid off. I used some of it for a downpayment on my first house, and when my second husband, Brian, and I started our early-stage investing journey the majority of my investing capital came from what I had accumulated in the first 10 years of my RRSP.

How did you get started as an investor?

Brian and I started early-stage investing in the late 1990s and got our start in technology investing in 2001.

With our first investment, we saw a distressed company with intellectual property and no working capital, which turned out to be a great investment opportunity. We pooled our capital with another like-minded investor, recapitalized the company and put in place a new board and management team. In May of 2019, this same company – Solium Capital – was sold to Morgan Stanley for over C$1 billion. This wasn’t an overnight success, but rather almost two decades of commitment by investors, the board and the management team.

Today Adventure Capital is our family office. I run it along with my husband and our two adult sons who are partners alongside us. We’ve come full circle as successful investors and entrepreneurs, re-investing back into the ecosystem that gave us so much opportunity. You can learn more about our investments on our website.

What motivated you to build a women-led capital platform?

Since the start of my career in 1987, I have worked in sectors and industries that were and still are largely male-dominated. As I mentioned, my first real investment beyond my RRSP was in 1998. Then in 1999, my husband and brother and I co-founded a company – my first foray into entrepreneurship. Since then, I have either been a founder or co-founder, building companies from an idea, both software and service firms.

On that journey I had the opportunity to meet Alice Reimer, a kindred spirit, and we championed each other by investing in each other’s companies. Alice and I were always keenly aware that women weren’t being invested in or being taken seriously as investment opportunities.

Along the way as a woman entrepreneur, I’ve had the opportunity to tell a story and raise money, and I have also been in a situation where I was not able to raise money. For years I’ve thought, “Wouldn’t it be an extraordinary opportunity to have a fund just for women?” Finally, my two co-founders (Alice Reimer and Judy Fairburn) and I made it happen. The51 is a venture investment platform for women and gender-diverse individuals (and men if they want to champion our cause in both financial and social returns).

We receive many new signups every day. We launched one evening in March 2019, where we brought together a room of women investors and showcased a woman entrepreneur looking to raise capital for her business. She shared her story with the women in the room and successfully raised half a million Canadian dollars that evening. All because we started a conversation that turned into a movement. We are building a future-fit, women-powered economy that we are proud of.

What is the biggest thing you have learned since starting The51?

Sadly, women-led innovation as a fundable asset class is still largely dismissed. The overall capital pool has appreciated, but in terms of the statistics we are actually going backward. The system is still the same, but this is truly a financial opportunity for everyone!

The feminist wealth transfer is an inevitable reality in Canada. In 2019, women directly controlled $2.2-trillion of personal finance assets globally, and this number is expected to grow by 70 per cent by 2030. That means that in less than 10 years, women will control at least 1/3 of financial assets worldwide.

We will have the power to make investment decisions based on what we want to see in the world and ask ourselves how our capital can shape that. Our call to action is to embrace this enormous opportunity and give women a seat at the table, and then see what they do with that seat.

In very positive news, businesses majority-owned by women accounted for 17.5 per cent of all private-sector businesses in Canada in the second quarter of 2022.

What advice would you like to pass along to the next generation of investors?

Sometimes I speak with family offices, and the front of the office says the women in the family don’t want to be involved in the discussion. I am not sure that women don’t want to be involved in the conversation, but rather they aren’t being invited to participate and contribute.

What I love is that the next generation of family offices is being formulated and they have new perspectives on what they want to do with their wealth. As investors they are asking questions such as, “How are we looking across all generations (and genders) for our investing objectives and decisions?”

At The51, we are often told how “nice” it is, what we are doing with our community and platform. But I can assure you we aren’t trying to be nice … we are trying to drive change, create value and create impact! Our rally cry is to stay focused, do our work, and double down on our vision – getting women to activate their capital.

My advice to all the women and gender-diverse individuals out there, including the next-gen investors, is to invite yourself to participate with your capital and your decision making.

What do you do for fun?

I am a nature person … give me my family, a forest, a mountain, a river, forest bathing – and then maybe, if I desire, a cheeky tipple!

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Barbara Stewart is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 30 years of investment industry experience. She spent five years as a foreign currency trader, more than two decades as a portfolio manager for high-net-worth entrepreneurs, and for the past six years she has been performing interview-driven research for financial institutions around the world.  Barbara is a keynote speaker for CFA Societies, banks, stock exchanges and industry conferences globally, and she is a columnist for CFA Institute and Canadian Money Saver magazine. She is on the advisory board of Kensington Capital Partners and also is the Ambassador for the Kensington Women’s Forum. In addition, 13 years ago Barbara saw a need to challenge outdated financial industry stereotypes and share positive messages about women and money. Today, Barbara is recognized worldwide as one of the leading researchers in women and finance. Her Rich Thinking® global research papers quote smart women and men of all ages, professions and countries and are released annually on International Women’s Day, March 8. To find out more about Barbara’s research, visit www.barbarastewart.ca.

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