Pathways x Alma Family Circle: How the LP cheque gets written

How LPs actually decide. One afternoon, under the Chatham House Rule. By invitation. Co-hosted by FOV Ventures and Alma Angels. ​Most of what LPs do stays invisible. How they chose their first fund, what they ask in due diligence, what convinced them to write the cheque. It rarely gets said out loud, and almost never on a stage. ​Pathways and Alma Family Circle are coming together to bring more than 100+ LPs, family offices and emerging allocators into 1 room for an open conversation about how people actually start investing in venture funds, assess managers and make allocation decisions. ​The event brings together 2 complementary platforms. ​Pathways, created by FOV Ventures, explores how more women can become active LPs in venture capital and the barriers that still exist. ​Alma Family Circle, created by Alma Angels, brings together family offices, fund of funds, UHNW investors and emerging LPs for trusted conversations around venture investing, allocation and building long-term relationships. On Wednesday 18 November, we are bringing both communities and perspectives together. ​The room will be made up of approximately 50% experienced LPs and 50% prospective or emerging LPs, creating an environment where people can learn directly from those already allocating capital. ​There will be no pitching. ​Instead, the programme will focus on how LP decisions are actually made. ​What to expect ​15:00 Doors open and curated reception A chance to meet other LPs and allocators before the main programme begins. ​16:30 How I became an LP 3 LPs, representing a family office, fund of funds and private capital, will share how they started investing, what they have learnt and how they assess funds today. ​On stage: ​Colette Ballou (linkedin.com ↗), Ballou Capital (balloucapital.com ↗) ​Safiyyah Rafe (linkedin.com ↗), Mountside Ventures (mountsideventures.com ↗) ​More speakers to be announced ​17:20 Live LP due diligence An LP will diligence a fund manager live on stage, opening up the questions, judgement and discussion that sit behind an investment decision. ​The fund in the hot seat: Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund (auxxo.de ↗), with Gesa Miczaika (linkedin.com ↗), Co-founder and General Partner ​Asking the questions: Enni Rautio (linkedin.com ↗), Tesi (tesi.fi ↗). ​18:15 Networking ​Time to continue the conversations and connect with others in the room before heading into Slush dinners. ​The full event will operate under the Chatham House Rule, allowing people to speak openly about their experiences, decisions and mistakes. ​Attendance is by invitation and every guest is individually approved. ​Join us in Helsinki for an afternoon of candid conversations about how capital gets allocated. ​The Chatham House Rule holds for the whole afternoon, so what is said in the room stays in the room. Guests are confirmed by name and the list is curated with our partners. ​Request an invite and we will confirm. ​In partnership with Carta, HSBC Global Private Banking and Haynes Boone ​Carta (carta.com ↗) powers private markets. Companies use it to manage equity and ownership; funds use it for fund administration, valuations and LP reporting. ​More than 50,000 companies across 160 countries run on Carta, and its fund administration business covers over 8,500 funds and SPVs holding close to $185 billion. It sits underneath the cap tables, allocations and reporting lines that this room deals in every day. ​HSBC Global Private Banking (privatebanking.hsbc.com ↗) works with entrepreneurs, families and family offices on how wealth is invested, structured and passed on, from investment management and alternatives through to succession and philanthropy. ​It operates across the UK, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Channel Islands, the US, the Middle East and Asia, inside HSBC's global network. ​Haynes Boone (haynesboone.com ↗) is an international – UK + US – law firm with a cross-disciplinary team of 800+ lawyers providing a full spectrum of legal services across the UK/European, US and other international markets. Within our cross-border London and US Investment Management practice, our commitment to supporting the private equity and venture ecosystem runs deep, representing clients across the life cycle of an investment, from LP investments/co-investments, fund formation, downstream equity/growth financings, through to exit (including secondaries), we provide strategic legal counsel that fuels growth and success across Europe, the US and around the world. ​About FOV Ventures (fov.ventures ↗) ​Computing is leaving the screen. The next decade of it gets built into machines, robots and the physical spaces we already live in. ​FOV Ventures is a European pre-seed fund backing the founders building that shift. Robotics, physical AI and spatial computing, from day zero, with first cheques of €100k to €1m. As first investors in breakout companies like Distance (distance.tech ↗) and Makiina (makiina.com ↗), we offer LPs early access to top-tier technical founders across Europe. ​Who funds that shift matters as much as who builds it. FOV created Pathways (pathways.fov.ventures ↗) because the LP side of venture is the least examined part of the gap. Women control a growing share of private wealth in Europe, yet remain a small minority of the people committing capital to venture funds. ​The Female LP Pathways report, built on responses from women across 21 European countries, set out what actually stands in the way: minimum ticket sizes, opaque access, and networks that are hard to enter from the outside. ​Pathways turns those findings into rooms like this one. ​About Alma (alma-angels.com ↗) ​Innovation shapes the world we live in, but it isn't neutral. It shows up in products and services that don't serve, or even harm, half the population. ​Alma (alma-angels.com ↗) is the venture community reshaping who builds, who funds and who benefits from innovation. ​With the target to generate $1 trillion in women-led wealth by 2050, where wealth is created on the cap table. Since December 2019, Alma has trained over 1,000 individuals and family offices to become angels. They have collectively backed 250+ ventures, now worth over $2 billion and scaling the breakthroughs the world urgently needs. With no fees or carry, Alma takes a unique position in the ecosystem: not competing with syndicates and funds, but bringing everyone together to collaborate. ​Alma is committed to training 10,000 angels and backing 10,000 women-led ventures by 2035.