Aileen Lee is one of Silicon Valley’s top female venture capitalists known as the co-founder of Cowboy Ventures.
Early Years
Lee was born in Staten Island, New York City, New York, United States, in the year 1970. She’s the firstborn child of her parents who immigrated from China. Even before, when she was still young, Lee always grew up feeling a lot of appreciation for all the sacrifices and hard work her parents have gone through for her and her siblings.
She had a happy and typical childhood. She enjoyed playing with friends and having a good time. At a very young age, Lee developed an interest in travel and told her parents how fascinated she was about living abroad. She used to have a little business — tie-die T-shirts and sell them to their classmates — together with her friends for them to try to make money.
Education
Lee went to MIT (Massachusetts Insitute of Technology) Sloan School of Management in 1992 and earned her bachelor’s degree there. After graduating from MIT, she went to Morgan Stanley and worked as a financial analyst there for 2 years. She went back to live in China for 3 years and taught English to students while studying Chinese at the same time. She came back to the United States to pursue business school and earned her MBA from Harvard Business School in 1997.
Career
Lee did not plan on taking up an engineering course. She read some articles about how girls lack confidence in their capabilities when talking about quantitative skills. Lee thought it was absolutely not right. When Lee first went to MIT, she was not prepared in terms of academics. It was a bit rough, but it indeed created a big impact on her career. She soon realised she can blend in with these highly intelligent people, and later on become the president of her class for three good years.
Before Cowboy Ventures, Lee worked at Gap Inc. and became an analyst at Morgan Stanley after she graduated. Later on, she then joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1999. She worked hands-on with a wide array of consumers, media, enterprises, and companies. In the same year, Lee became the CEO of KPCB-backed RMG Networks, the leading digital out-of-home media network. Lee loves to write about tech insight articles such as “Welcome to the Unicorn Club” and “Why Women Rule the Internet”. She is also a founding member of All Raise, a one-on-one mentorship series for female investors and entrepreneurs. After Lee left Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2012, Cowboy Ventures’ epic story began.
Cowboy Ventures
Cowboy Ventures was founded by Lee and is the first VC (Venture Capital) firms led by a woman. The business firm aims to be exceptional founders who are creating products that will leverage life, work, and growing markets. Ted Wang was added by Lee in 2017 and is her general partner in Cowboy Ventures.
Investments
Over the past 6 years, Cowboy Ventures has obtained 3 large funds. The most recent one which was last 2018, reached a total of $95 million dedicated to backing seed-stage technology startups. Lee has made investments in several startup and early-stage companies. These include Dollar Shave Club, August, Tally Technologies, and Accompany. Lee is a public advocate that’s responsible for boosting the number of investors in Silicon Valley.
Lee co-founded a non-profit organization called, All Raise. This organization wants to improve and boost the amount of funding that female investors receive. All Raise was founded by more than 30 venture capitalists who all want to promote for increasing the presence of women in the world of venture capital.
“We believe that by improving the success of women in the venture-backed tech ecosystem, we can build a more accessible community that reflects the diversity of the world around us.”, says Lee.