Cake Ventures Launches $17M Fund Focused on Demographic Change

Cake Ventures has announced a $17 million seed and pre-seed fund focused on demographic change.

The venture capital firm aims to invest in founders building companies and products catering to Americans over the age of 65, women, and Asian, Black and Latino people, Cake Ventures Founding Partner Monique Woodard wrote in a Thursday (Jan. 12) blog post.

Among the companies which backed the fund are Bank of America and Pivotal Ventures — a Melinda French Gates company, Woodard wrote in the post.

“Demographic transition is one of the most important changes to technology because it represents a sea change in the technology users,” Woodard wrote. “And when users change, technology must follow suit.”

For example, aging Americans will use technology and innovation as they face the challenges of late life, women influence the products and services used by both them and their families, and Asian, Black and Latino people look to technology and software to solve their unmet needs, according to the post.

“At Cake, we want to live just slightly ahead of where everyone else is looking and continually translate these demographic changes and how they impact your business for entrepreneurs,” Woodard wrote.

Citing examples of companies that have already succeeded by touching on demographic change, the post mentioned Weee!, which offers grocery delivery service for Asian and Latino foods.

Weee! Founder and CEO Larry Liu told PYMNTS in an interview posted in March 2022 that the eGrocer keeps prices low while offering a broad assortment of products by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and automation.

With so many eGrocers entering the space, there’s an opportunity to pull ahead by setting one’s offerings apart from others in the category, Liu said.

“The ethnic grocery and food market is currently $360+ billion, and within this market, Asian and Hispanic populations in the U.S. are the fastest growing,” Liu said. “So that is where we have focused and will continue to explore additional opportunities.”

The $17 million Cake Ventures Fund I will invest in about 20 companies in the United States and Canada and provide each with between $250,000 and $300,000, the post said.

The firm has already invested in 12 companies — two-thirds of which are outside Silicon Valley, per the post.

“The companies I look for are ones that tap into a deep-seated user need or behavior and rarely ones that are ‘artificially gated’ to a surface-level user type,” Woodard wrote in the post.