Fellowship Spotlight: 100KM Ventures

Shalanda Armstrong, founder and managing partner at 100KM Ventures, ended up in her current work after a dynamic and varied life path. In addition to being a serious athlete who got an early start in business and investment, Armstrong was what she describes as a “young astronaut at heart,” attending space camp at a young age.

It’s this strand of her interests that inspired the name of her firm. 100KM Ventures is a reference to the Kármán line, which marks the beginning of outer space. For her, the name represents the firm’s commitment to creating change. “We’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” she says.

Investing in Untapped Areas

100KM Ventures invests in untapped customer segments within women’s health — or femtech — and future of work. Armstrong shares, “I decided to lean into women’s health because of the significant upside. Women are 51% of the population in the U.S., and still there’s been little innovation within women’s health. So there’s a lot of opportunity and possibility in that space around tech innovations.”

She expresses an urgent sense of concern around the limitations of current trends in terms of who solutions in this space are made for, which is most often affluent women. “There are whole segments of the population of women who are being left out and not having their particular needs met.”

When it comes to the future of work, Armstrong says, “We wanted to take a unique approach to considering what the future of work is truly going to look like as folks are stepping away from conventional corporate structures and looking for different opportunities to amass income.”

She elevates the creator economy as an overlooked phenomenon. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t limiting our work to workforce development, but also looking at things people don’t pay enough attention to, like the creator economy. They’re making tons of money, and they don’t need to sit in an office from 9 to 5.” 

In addition to the creator economy, 100KM is looking at remote work and HR tech, and at timely and impactful shifts in work like NIL. NIL gives college athletes the rights to their own name, image, and likeness in a way that allows for their personal financial gains — something that was entirely impossible until 2022 when NIL came to be. According to Armstrong, this shift created a “whole new workforce” among college athletes.

100KM’s Unique Approach and Draw

With their initial $25M fund, 100KM Ventures is looking to make early-stage investments — at the pre-seed, seed, and/or Series A stages — in diverse management teams generating promising solutions. “Within both of our verticals,” she explains, “we focus on solutions around maternal health and menstrual health, particularly through a cultural lens.” The firm also focuses on telehealth solutions and ways to make it a sticky business. A key question for the firm, Armstrong says, is, “Does the management team itself reflect the customer base they’re trying to serve?”

And the 100KM team does exactly this. “What attracts founders to us is our real-world experience. We actually have lived experience in the work we do.” Armstrong started her formal career in tech, working as a software engineer before pivoting to technology strategy consulting, where she rose to the executive ranks. She also helped scale a professional services company from fewer than 200 to over 1,000 employees before exiting to a large SaaS company. “I think it’s that experience,” she reflects, “that founders gravitate towards, because we’re able to not just give them access to a network but actually roll up our sleeves and help them with the tough stuff that scaling a business requires, the technical aspects of execution that they may be struggling with.”

This can include supporting founders with the actual development of their business; understanding their sales cycle; defining current and future metrics; and preparing and positioning firms to raise growth-stage capital. Armstrong’s own personal experience is fortified by the capabilities of a CFO; a senior associate who supports with sourcing and diligence; and a group of MBA fellows in a rotational program. 

Competitive Background, Competitive Edge

While enrolled in undergraduate studies at Hampton University, Armstrong majored in computer science while also managing her responsibilities as a Division I college basketball athlete. She credits her background in sports for instilling in her a serious sense of competition and desire to win. “And as I was going through that journey,” she shares, “I was getting exposure to the other side of tech — the venture side. And as I became more and more curious, I wanted to figure out how to move the needle with more capital instead of just building various new technologies.” It was this curiosity that led her to dig into learning about venture capital and how it worked.

“I wanted to get into venture, and I realized how hard it was to get into, so I decided to start out by angel investing,” she explains. Since over 10 years ago when she started, she’s invested in over 25 companies — including Arion Long’s Femly and Ashton Keys’ Athlytic — and has become an LP in a few VC funds.

“I wanted to hone in on how to be a good angel, how to source deals, how to evaluate where a company is and make sense of how they’re addressing their product-market fit.” In this time, she was intentionally waiting for a downturn in the market. “Even though it’s harder to raise capital in a down market,” she acknowledges, “you’re also going to have better returns in a down market. Yes, valuations come down, but there’s also more talent available that can move the needle for startups.”

Breaking Barriers from a Young Age

As a Black woman athlete in the venture capital space, Armstrong is quite used to being the first and charting new paths toward impact and prosperity. She began her journey in investing at the remarkably young age of 11, when she bought her first stock. And if this seems historic and noteworthy to you, you’re not alone! A popular money camp for youth in Detroit, Gail Perry-Mason’s Money Matters Camp, was actually inspired by Armstrong’s model of youth investing.

She expresses gratitude for growing up with parents who had their own portfolio and a big sister who worked for Ms. Perry-Mason and got Armstrong involved in stocks. “I remember going to her office as an 11-year-old kid, and she explained to me about not just buying a stock, but buying things that you’re interested in and you understand.” As a young ball player, Armstrong had interest in one product: gym shoes. So she bought 80 shares of Converse. 

Over two decades later, Armstrong is putting her learnings and her profits to good use. With 100KM Ventures, she’s intentionally making room for professional female athletes to come into the fund. “As we’ve seen more and more athletes get into venture, no one talks about women, who’ve historically been left out, in part because of the high minimums often required to get involved,” she points out. “We’ve made sure that we’re making room for them to participate in the asset class, and we already have a few former WNBA legends participating in the fund.”

Participating in the VC Include Fellowship 

As compared to other accelerators Armstrong’s participated in, the VC Include Fellowship offered a space, support, and resources to think differently about the work. “The focus of VC Include is not only about initially raising your fund,” she says, “but it’s also about how you’re building out the firm itself so that you can have a franchise of funds, and I think that’s a unique differentiator.”

Something else that stood out about Armstrong’s experience of our fellowship was the diversity of asset classes that fellows are working in, which also expanded her perspective and learning. “Folks from different asset classes within the alternative assets were all together, so you’re seeing how someone who’s looking to do credit lending is thinking about firm building, which can give you a unique perspective and lens on how you’re looking to scale as well.”

We’re happy to have been able to offer new insights, even for someone like Armstrong who’s been exposed to investing for nearly her entire life. We can’t wait to see how far her impact with 100KM Ventures reaches.