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Emily Kramer She is known for her professionalism and voice in the marketing world. The entrepreneur was the former vice president of marketing for Carta and made headlines in 2020 when she sued the company for gender discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination and violations of California’s Equal Pay Act.
Now, three years after the lawsuit was first filed, Kramer says, “The case is settled.” Documents show that the settlement was reached a month before the end of the trial. She declined to comment further.
“It definitely influenced where I’m at now that this was a tipping point,” said Kramer, one of several former Map employees involved in the legal battle with the company. “I want to do something with my own passion, and I want to do something that I think is important and I want to make an impact. And I want to invest in companies that I think care about DEI.”
Enter MKT1 Capital, which Kramer is co-developing Kathleen EstreichHe previously led marketing and operations teams at Box, Facebook and Scalyr. MKT1, a play on their initials and “marketing,” closed $5 million in investment capital from more than 85 individuals last year. The organization announced today that it is converting to a 506(c), which means it can solicit public fundraising in hopes of raising another $5 million.
It was always their plan to start EStretch with private fundraising and – after the early crowdfunding – turn it into a raise that allowed accredited investors outside their community to invest. The strategy is similar to that of Sofia Amoruso, who has set aside $1 million for crowdfunding, and Turner Novak; For the second scrap is growing in public Fund after officially building the company’s brand over the years. Both entrepreneurs have strong online followings — and both have a popular marketing-focused newsletter with more than 20,000 subscribers, so do Estreich and Kramer.
The two founders, who finished each other’s sentences in an interview with TechCrush, want to redefine tech’s messaging around marketing — both by investing in companies that need support and bringing a network of marketing professionals into the angel investing world.
“You have to be as good at distribution as you are at building a product,” Kramer said. “We really think of marketing as a strategic lever and in some ways it’s underutilized and undersupported.” One reason behind this, she added, is that unlike sales, marketing results are harder to measure and can drive long-term revenue goals rather than short-term results.
The investors think there is an eagerness among the market experts to not only make history but also write checks. “Marketers aren’t investing because they’re not getting the opportunity to invest,” Cramer said, citing statistics in Investment Database that show less than 1% of angel investors are marketers.
“They don’t know where to go. They’re not with the product people or the sales people in these circles — there’s just no momentum there, Kramer added. So far, more than half of the LPs in MKT1’s initial close have come from the trading world, and there has been a low check-in rate for any trading professionals looking to invest in the new part of the fund.
While the firm is focused on marketing, MKT1 doesn’t just invest in marketing companies, rather it applies a marketing lens to investments and pursues companies it believes can help on a market-to-market basis. To date, it has invested in 14 startups, including Anrock, Pocus, Meda and Vori.
“Founders are hungry for this,” Cramer said. We’ll tell them something very basic – we’ll tell them complex things – but we’ll tell them something basic, and they’ll be like, ‘Oh my God, this has changed the game for us.’
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