B u l l e t i n - Noble and Greenough School

Jennifer Scott Fonstad ’84 says she didn’t know what ‘venture capital’ meant
when she was a Nobles student. Now she is considered one of the world’s most
influential women in venture capital.
TRANSFORMI
eNTRePReNeURSHIP
Jennifer scott Fonstad ’84 is managing
director and a partner with Draper
Fisher Jurvetson in California. Her investments
in clean energy, healthcare
innovation and tech have landed her on
the covers of financial-industry publications,
including Venture Capitalist
Journal. Her investments also help generate
jobs and influence the technology
many of us use every day.
how it starteD
Fonstad taught math in Africa and also
worked at Bain Capital in Massachusetts
after college. Her first big deal was
as an early investor in Boston-based
Athenahealth. With Jonathan Bush,
her Harvard Business School classmate,
she worked on the company’s
business plan.
Athenahealth had been a midwifery
business. Frustrated by insurance companies’
poor payment performance, the
business developed a Web-based system
for doctors and medical facilities,
which they later began to sell directly.
“I led the investment in that for my
firm,” Fonstad says. Today, Athenahealth
is used by 31,000 medical providers
and is a $2 billion company
based in Watertown, Mass.
24 the Nobles bulletiN spring 2012
With Athenahealth, Fonstad transformed
someone else’s entrepreneurial
idea—one that improved efficiency in
the healthcare sector—into reality,
through investment and expertise.
And she was good at it.
veNture caPital...aND kiDs
“I actually learned about venture capital
when I did some work for a political
campaign when Mitt Romney was running
against Ted kennedy back in
1994,” Fonstad says. “Romney was a
venture capitalist, and he spoke romantically
about building companies and
helping people and that’s really what
intrigued me.
“We provide early money to companies
where typically two, three, four or
five individuals have an idea. Those
companies typically grow, so it’s very
much a job-creation engine in the
country and particularly in California.”
Fonstad has four children, and the
older two are beginning to understand
the impact of their mother’s work.
“I have a 13-year-old and a 10-yearold.
The 13-year-old is an eighth-grader
in an all-girls middle and high school,
and I’ve been very active in bringing innovation
and technology to the school.
“My 10-year-old is quite interested
in programming and likes to go on
YouTube and watch videos on learning
new programming languages. I have
taken him to visit a couple of portfolio
companies and learn what they do, and
try to do some programming based on
what he learned.”
Fonstad serves on the board of one
of her children’s schools and is interested
in how schools can support creativity
and risk taking.
“Certainly, I would encourage students
to be willing to take risks and not
be afraid to fail. And even if their interests
are unusual, they should pursue
their passions, and the rest will follow.”
womeN iN veNture caPital
“I don’t think of myself in terms of gender,”
Fonstad says. “I don’t think of myself
as a woman venture capitalist but certainly
as a venture capitalist who happens to
be a woman. I do wish that there were
more women, and more senior women, in
venture capital and am disappointed that
there are fewer senior women now than
there were when I started in venture capital
15 years ago. I hope to encourage
women to take risks, join the business
and support entrepreneurship.”