- Bootstrap 4F has made its first three investments from the £130 million Women Backing Women Fund of Funds, supporting Evertrue Capital, Seedcamp VII, and Seedcamp Nation II less than three months after closing.
- These three funds represent a wide range, from a brand-new manager to one of Europe’s most established seed funds. This shows that Bootstrap 4F is open to more than just familiar or low-risk options.
- Fully female-founded teams received only 1.75% of UK equity investment in 2025. Bootstrap 4F believes that changing who manages the capital, not just who receives it, can help improve that number.
Three months after closing £130 million, Bootstrap 4F has started making investments. Its first three commitments, made in under 90 days, show its approach: one investment went to one of Europe’s most established seed funds, and another to a new manager who launched her fund less than a year ago.
That range is intentional. Bootstrap 4F, the fund manager chosen to run the Women Backing Women Fund of Funds, which is supported by Barclays, the British Business Bank, M&G Investments, and Nationwide, is investing in Evertrue Capital I LP, Seedcamp VII LP, and Seedcamp Nation II LP.
These three funds represent different levels of risk. Including them together in the first round of investments shows that Bootstrap 4F is not just looking for the safest options.
“Three investments in less than three months tells you everything about the quality of the pipeline. Evertrue, Seedcamp VII and Seedcamp Nation II are each exceptional in their own right and show the depth and breadth of the opportunities we are seeing. From high potential new names to established managers, we are linking commercial rigour and our gender mandate. Our focus is on high performance and the strong potential to deliver returns,” says Stephanie Heller Galantine, managing partner, Bootstrap 4F.
A debut manager with a non-debut track record
Bootstrap 4F’s emerging manager investment is Evertrue Capital, founded in 2026 by Yvonne Bajela. Before starting Evertrue, Bajela was a partner at LocalGlobe, a top seed fund in EMEA. Earlier, at Mitsui, she became the youngest investment manager among 90,000 employees and led the investment in Wise when it was still called TransferWise.
At Impact X Capital, where she was a founding member, she co-led the seed round in Marshmallow, Britain’s second Black-founded billion-dollar tech startup. Bajela has also been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Evertrue is fully female-owned and led, focusing on pre-seed companies with its own Founder DNA investment framework. It has already invested in at least one company, Poindexter Labs, an AI training data startup, but does not yet have a public portfolio to evaluate at scale. Bootstrap 4F argues that Bajela’s personal track record is enough evidence for now. This is a fair point, but it will take years to confirm.
“Their belief in emerging managers and in expanding access to institutional capital resonates deeply with the ambition behind Evertrue Capital,” notes Bajela.
The established fund
Seedcamp represents the lower-risk end of the three investments, but Bootstrap 4F did not only invest in the main fund. It secured allocations in two funds: Seedcamp VII LP, the firm’s 2026 first-cheque seed fund led by co-founder Reshma Sohoni, and Seedcamp Nation II LP, which focuses on growth investments mainly at Series B in existing Seedcamp portfolio companies.
Seedcamp’s track record is strong, with investments in Revolut, Wise, and UiPath among more than 500 companies since 2007. Sohoni has been named to the Forbes Midas List four times and ranked number one on the FT’s most influential BAME tech leaders list.
The Nation II allocation is notable as its investment committee is entirely female: Sohoni and GP Hilary Howe. Bootstrap 4F’s analysis found that 80% of companies in the previous fund had female leadership at the founder, C-suite, or board level, which is well above its own mandate thresholds. Separately, 73-87% of companies in the same earlier portfolio were UK-headquartered, also far above Bootstrap 4F’s requirements.
“Seedcamp has always believed that the best founders are everywhere, not just in the places where capital traditionally flows. Bootstrap 4F’s decision to invest alongside us is a signal that the ecosystem is finally building the infrastructure to act on that belief at scale. I’m proud that Seedcamp’s track record, and our commitment to female leadership inside the firm, helped earn that conviction,” adds Sohoni.
Testing the model
The Women Backing Women Fund of Funds reached its £13 million first close on March 31, 2026, with support from Barclays, the British Business Bank, M&G Investments, and Nationwide. The fund aims for a final close of £25 million and plans to support 20 to 25 fund managers in total. More than 90 funds have shown interest, which suggests that the pool of women-led venture managers in the UK is larger than some critics claim.m.
The underlying problem remains unchanged. Fully female-founded teams received only 1.75% of the £18 billion invested in UK equity in 2025, according to Beauhurst. PitchBook’s 2025 European All In Report found that women raised €9.5 billion across Europe last year, marking the fourth year in a row of decline, even though the number of female GPs at venture funds has slowly increased.
Barclays and Female Founders Rise estimate that closing the gender gap in entrepreneurship could add £310 billion to the UK economy. The difficult truth is that simply having more women as GPs has not changed how capital is distributed to founders.
Bootstrap 4F’s solution is structural: channel institutional money through women-led fund managers and let this approach achieve what direct investment has not. This is a clear strategy. However, a fund-of-funds model adds extra fees, a longer wait between investor commitment and founder impact, and another set of return expectations that the underlying funds must meet before the model can be called a success.
Bootstrap 4F has made three investments and is aiming for a £250 million target. The results it needs to show are still about a decade away.
