Brittney Gavini - Pivotal Ventures
"Is it still considered unconventional to believe women can build billion-dollar businesses?"
Connect with Brittney
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittneyrileygavini/
VC Uncovered's View
While many VCs chase the same narrow slice of the economy, Brittney Gavini maintains focus on the massive opportunities hiding in plain sight. In her work at Pivotal Ventures (a Melinda French Gates organziation), Gavini operates with a mandate that transcends traditional fund structures. Her work is a masterclass in how to allocate capital to overlooked problems that will define the next economic frontier like the care economy, women’s health, and the infrastructure that supports modern families.
Gavini’s approach is built on a competitive advantage that can’t be modeled in a spreadsheet: empathy, born from experience. Her background—coming from a family of entrepreneurs, working as an operator in a startup, and being married to a founder—gives her a deep, firsthand knowledge of the immense challenges of building something from nothing. This allows her to identify and underwrite founders and markets that traditional, pattern-matching VCs might dismiss or undervalue. Where others see risk, she sees resilience. This perspective allows her to capitalize on an inefficiency in the market where a genuine understanding of a founder’s journey and a customer’s pain point leads to superior investment selection.
Pivotal Ventures’ focus on the caregiving crisis is an investment into a $648 billion U.S. market. Their investments in women’s health tap into the explosive FemTech market, projected to exceed $130 billion by 2034. And their work is validated by a simple, powerful statistic Brittney often cites: companies with female founders perform 63% better than their all-male peers. This proves that Pivotal's strategy doesn’t mean concessionary returns; it targets a historically underestimated segment of the market that consistently outperforms.
Pivotal Ventures itself represents a new model for venture, one that aligns perfectly with the agile, forward-thinking approach we champion at VC Uncovered. By blending venture capital with philanthropy and advocacy, the organization acts as a market-making catalyst. Its philanthropic grants can fund the foundational research that de-risks a sector, while its advocacy work pushes for policy changes that create new markets for its portfolio companies to enter. Gavini's work goes beyond finding deals in a pre-existing market; she actively injects capital into an ecosystem that her parent organization is actively building. This is the kind of bold, systemic thinking reshaping venture for the better.Meet Brittney
Q: You can be anywhere. Eating, drinking, and reading your favorite thing. What is it?
A: I’m still holding tight onto summer, so I’ll say - Sitting outside, either by water or in a place with great people watching, while I enjoy aperitivo!
Key Quotes
"Is it still considered unconventional to believe women can build billion-dollar businesses? Based on the data alone, it appears so. We’re trying to dispel that misconception."
“When more people of all backgrounds can access and benefit from investment capital, a wider swath of unmet market needs will be addressed. That innovation benefits everyone.”
"My job is to figure out how to motivate, support, and lift founders up."
"Spend more time focused on upside opportunity versus downside risk. That’s a mentality I am always pushing women and people investing in mission-oriented spaces to adopt."
“You will be good at what you’re interested in.”
Original Responses (Lightly Edited for Clarity and Flow)
Background and Personal Journey
Experiences Shaping My Investment Approach
I come from a family of entrepreneurs; I’ve been at seed stage startups and an emerging small fund; I’m married to a founder. These experiences have shown me how hard it is to start and grow a company or fund. Because of this, I try to always lead with respect for the founder/GP and let everything else fall into place. This level of respect guides my decision-making process, feedback, founder support, reporting requirements, as well as Pivotal Ventures’ investment strategy. While most people say they respect founders, I do think you tend to prioritize it a bit more if you’ve been through that experience firsthand.
When younger VCs ask me if they should have operating experience or not, I tell them the skills they learn from a couple of years at a startup (unless they are a founder themselves) may be irrelevant as a VC, but the empathy and perspective they gain will be invaluable.
Moment Inspiring Venture Capital Career
In my mid-twenties, I was working at a well-funded consumer tech startup, while earnestly dreaming about changing the world (as one does). It was there that I first met VCs, and I remember sitting across the table from them wondering why they were funding our consumer app and not technology that was solving some bigger/harder problems. I wondered what it would take for me to sit on that side of the table, and if so, could I find and fund companies that were solving problems in healthcare or education. That spark of curiosity has driven me for the last 12 years to figure out how to allocate capital to overlooked problems and people, and it will probably carry me the rest of my career.
Unconventional Belief
Is it still considered unconventional to believe women can build billion-dollar businesses? Based on the data alone, it appears so, but at Pivotal Ventures we are hoping to dispel that misconception and prove that investing in women drives market-based returns. A study by one of the funds in our portfolio, Female Founders Fund, recently found that companies with female founders perform 63% better than those of their male peers. Imagine what could be possible if everyone believed that women could build billion-dollar businesses.
Best Advice Received
My dad always told me, “Ask more questions than you answer.” This is a simple reminder to enter every conversation with a curious mind because you have something to learn from everyone. Throughout my career, I’ve been guided by curiosity and interest and let all the other things take care of themselves. This has led me to build a career that I find deeply interesting and because of that, have had some success too. You will be good at what you’re interested in.
Philosophy and Insights
Values When Working with Founders
Empathy, honesty, and teamwork. As I mentioned, I try to lead with full respect for what founders are doing, which leads to those three values. If I lead with respect, I am collaborating with the founder, giving them clear and direct feedback, and always checking in on them as a person. My grandfather, mom, and father were all coaches, and I think this drives my love of being “the person behind the person.” My job is to figure out how to motivate, support, and lift founders up.
The Perfect Founder Pitch
A perfect pitch is a walk and talk and is generally generative. My hot take? I love small talk at the beginning of a meeting. I understand why founders do it, and find just jumping into a pitch energy draining. I’ve never backed anyone without getting to know them as a person, so it’s nice to acknowledge our humanness before digging in. As for the pitch itself, a perfect one is in a space I already have a solid understanding of but the founder has a new insight or approach, and we get to talk about what that approach will work and what their vision for the future is.
Approach to Risk
I started my investing career in pre-seed and have moved up to Series A/B, so my assessment of risk has definitely evolved. By Series A/B, execution and market should be more derisked, so you need to be honest about that assessment. One thing that hasn’t changed, perhaps because I have spent my entire career in tech and Silicon Valley, is that I have been trained to spend more time on upside opportunity versus downside risk. That is a mentality I am always pushing women and people investing in mission-oriented spaces to adopt.
Trends and Future Vision
Exciting Trends and Technologies
I am very interested in women’s health and data– we have had such a lack of data and infrastructure to support women’s health for so long. If we can move some of those levers, we can unlock massive innovation.
Among our core investment areas at Pivotal Ventures, I’m personally very focused on the challenge of our aging population and the caregiving crisis that continues to be exasperated. Our partners at National Alliance for Caregiving just came out with a new report naming that there are 20 million more family caregivers in America than 10 years ago – this includes Americans who care for aging parents, ill family members, or people with disabilities. When you include childcare, there are 130 million Americans that are caregivers.This presents both financial and health issues that need solving.
Health insurance, retirement, benefits, and childcare infrastructure are only getting more fragmented and complicated, and I am very interested in how AI can help reduce the load for everyday families and small businesses.
Misconception About VCs
While some investors can incubate companies while they invest, I have always thought of my role as finding the innovation, not deciding what it should be. While we have a thematic approach and target specific problems that we try to understand deeply, my job is to be open to new ideas and insights that expand or even break my original thinking.
Improving the VC Ecosystem
We need to expand what gets funded. 40% of VC dollars this year went to just 10 companies – that is bad for innovation. I’ve seen firsthand how easy or hard it can be to raise money, and it rarely has to do with the business fundamentals. The high risk low control nature of venture capital is an incredible innovation, and a broader set of people and problems need to see those funding flows. When more people of all backgrounds can access and benefit from investment capital, a wider swath of unmet market needs will be addressed, and that innovation benefits everyone.