Building a community of women investors to support the development of early stage companies.
OUR NETWORK
In 2020, seasoned entrepreneurs and investors Annie Lamont and Alison Malloy founded the community of Tidal River with the hope of adding more women to early-stage companies’ cap tables. Over the course of three years, the community has grown to more than 200 women, who have attended events, expressed interest in investing and/or invested in companies. With that interest, investors Galia Gichon and Chris Gelnaw created a member-driven fund to focus its efforts.
Founding Team
Alison Malloy
Alison Malloy is director of investments at CI, where she is responsible for evaluating investment opportunities, structuring investments and accelerating portfolio companies through active board participation. Alison was the CEO and co-founder of Design2Launch (D2L), a leading Connecticut-based tech startup in workflow collaboration for the pharmaceuticals industry that she helped sell twice. After D2L was initially acquired by Eastman Kodak Company in 2008, Alison worked on the spinout and merger with BLUE Software in 2016, where she served on the board of directors and supported the successful exit for the second time to Danaher in 2018. Alison previously worked at the Slovak American Enterprise Fund and Trimodia LLC. She worked for General Electric around the world, graduating from GE Capital’s prestigious financial management program.
Annie Lamont
Annie Lamont is a venture capitalist investing in transformative companies and entrepreneurs. In 2014, Annie co-founded Oak HC/FT, a venture capital firm that invests in companies shaping the future of healthcare information and financial services; she is also a managing partner at Oak Investment Partners. Annie has appeared on the Forbes Midas List, Institutional Investor’s FinTech Finance 40 list, and the Top 100 Venture Capitalist rankings published by CB Insights and the New York Times. Annie serves as a core participant of the Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary’s Innovation and Investment Summit (DSIIS).
Chris Gelnaw
Managing Partner
Chris Gelnaw is an angel investor and independent consulting professional. She focuses on growing early-stage and mid-market companies with a focus on product/market fit, market sizing and creating frameworks/systems around product launches. Chris leverages her prior experiences as accelerator program manager, market research consultant, entrepreneur and management consultant at KPMG Consulting, and as banker at JPMorgan Chase, to deliver actionable insights and strategies to companies at various stages of growth and across multiple sectors.
Galia Gichon
Managing Partner
Galia Gichon is an independent personal financial expert with more than 20 years in financial services, including nearly 10 years on Wall Street and an MBA in Finance and BS in Finance. Her career has spanned corporate bond research analyst (Bear Stearns, Nomura Securities), personal finance expert, angel investor and author. As an angel investor, she actively supports women led and impact start ups. She is the Founder of Down to Earth Finance, independent personal finance education. She has been teaching at Barnard College’s Athena Center for Leadership and Freelancers Union for 10+ years. She has been widely quoted in The New York Times, NBC, CNN, and more. Previously, she worked at Bear Stearns and Nomura Securities. Galia is also the author of “My Money Matters” which was featured on TODAY SHOW, the author of a fiction novel “The Accidental Suffragist,” and co-host of the popular podcast “Fiscal Firecrackers” with leading actress Susan Yeagley - Funny Finally Meets Money.
Jenifer Gorin
Jenifer Gorin is the founder and CEO of Impact Growth Partners, a consulting firm that works to expand social and environmental responsibility within the business community through B Corp Certification. Prior to founding IGP, Jen directed media and telecommunication company mergers, acquisitions and financings at Credit Suisse, and political and corporate market research projects at Penn, Schoen and Berland. Jen is a frequent speaker and panelist on B Corps and the certification process. She has also consulted for HBS Community Partners, advising greater New York–based nonprofits, and is committed to expanding access to capital, supporting initiatives that promote women and minority entrepreneurs and investment decision makers.
Lisa Hersch
Lisa Hersch manages a family office investing across asset classes including direct investments in early-stage ventures in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific region. She previously held executive roles with Bain Capital Private Equity and McKinsey & Co. She particularly enjoys working with entrepreneurs to build businesses and has experience across technology and consumer sectors. She holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, an MA in education from Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and a Bachelor of Commerce (1st Class Honors) from the University of New South Wales.
Spring Hollis
Spring Hollis is the CEO and founder of Star Strong Capital, an investment firm focused on debt opportunities for early-stage companies. Prior to founding Star Strong Capital, Spring was a portfolio manager at a specialty finance credit fund investing in small business and consumer finance debt opportunities. Spring previously worked as a managing director at Deutsche Bank in the Global Principal Finance and the Structured Transactions groups, focused on complex debt financings from the proprietary trading desk. Spring serves on the board of directors for the BOMA Project, an international nonprofit focused on economic empowerment of women in sub-Saharan Africa.