We spoke to Tamara Obradov, experienced VC fund manager and co-founder of Lunam Labs about how she and her team are working to address the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs. She revealed how the Lunam Lab collective has developed a strategy rooted in Web 3.0 and the Metaverse to level the playing field.
What is Lunam Labs and how did it start?
Lunam Labs was developed out of a crazy idea. We wanted to see what would happen if we brought together people from completely different disciplines to work on social issues through technology. It’s not a registered organization, more of a think tank.
We want to address these issues through various missions — that’s what we call the initiatives we are developing. And, our first mission, The Gamechangers, is to create a more equal funding environment for more diverse founders. We’ve started this by focusing on women, and that’s how The Gamechangers was born.
Let’s discuss The Gamechangers in more depth. How are you addressing the inequalities in VC funding opportunities for women?
The overall mission is to create a new way of funding; a new ecosystem for women entrepreneurs. However, we chose the name The Gamechangers because it was neutral. Eventually, we want to expand the mission to focus on minority groups too, but for now it’s directed at opportunities for women.
Our vision was to create a women-first venture system that levels the playing field for all founders. So, it’s not a system that only supports women, but it’s building up from a women-first approach. Ultimately, this is because women tend to fundraise differently. They tend to pitch differently. And they can sometimes be overconsiderate with their approach. So, coming from a women-first perspective was very important for us
The mission is to build a network that accelerates growth and supports access to funding and networks for women entrepreneurs. To get more people to invest in women, we needed to diversify the investor pool, create more visibility for women entrepreneurs, and enable access to critical networks. It was here that we realized the power of communities.
If we have a community that is willing to support these women, we can use NFTs to create a co-ownership model. We can create a collaborative environment where we can fund women.
There are two NFTs. The first is the Investment Club NFT. With these, participants can actively fund and support women entrepreneurs and join them on their educational journey. The other option is a Membership NFT. With these, participants can support the cause, access events, and receive other benefits too.
So, beyond the decentralized funding model, where does the Metaverse come into your strategy?
We want to create an educational platform for new groups of investors. In the future, we plan to have an educational office in the Metaverse where users can go through a journey of learning. We call it a venture catalyst — a virtual platform where you can find which ventures, often underrepresented, need funding — for what and why.
Over the last seven years, I’ve been trying to educate the VC establishment, but there’s so much affinity bias they will not change the status quo. Instead, we need to change it by adding groups there that are different than the establishment. However, to add more groups, we need to educate people.
Currently, to become a General Partner of a VC fund you need to contribute a percentage of your personal wealth. This means you have to be rich to apply for the position. Which other sector is there where you have to be rich to do a job?
We would be a platform that supported people in investing, regardless of initial capital. People could support projects they care about and entrepreneurs that might slip under the radar of the typical demographic of VC investors.
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