Melissa Withers

Written By Your Name

After 10+ years working as an investor, fund manager & biz builder, RevUp Capital Founder and Managing Partner Melissa Withers is a bullish advocate for innovating how new companies are funded and supported throughout their lifecycle.

With deep strategic and operational experience across a portfolio of 100+ investments, Melissa focuses much of her energy on supporting founders who build businesses without the perks of privilege. 70%+ of RevUp investments have been made into women-led companies, and 30% into those run by black and brown founders.

With a background in life sciences and a graduate degree in science communications, Melissa started her career at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, working at the intersection of research, communication, and commercialization…before taking the leap into entrepreneurship and professional investing.

Most importantly, she’s a proud mom, an amateur boxer (with a title belt!), and a lover of the great outdoors.

The Workhorse Bio
RevUp Capital Founder and Managing Partner Melissa Withers is one the most experienced female early stage investors in the U.S.. She is also a bullish advocate for innovating the ways in which new companies are funded and supported throughout their lifecycle.

In 2016, Melissa and her partners created RevUp—one the first revenue-based funds in the world to serve earlier stage companies. In freeing themselves from the “exit or bust” constraints of equity, the team pioneered a powerful new way for investors and founders to define success. In 2023, RevUp began deploying its 7th Fund. For Melissa, the progression of the RevUp portfolio— and the results these companies have produced for investors—is proof enough that the only barriers to innovation in investing are the ones that investors set for themselves.

Beyond building new economic models for investing, Melissa is also committed to efforts that direct more entrepreneurial funding to those underserved and overlooked by traditional VC.

With a background in life sciences and a graduate degree in science communications, Melissa started her career at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, working at the intersection of basic research, communication, and public policy. She’s also spent time in public service at the state and municipal level. Most importantly, she’s a proud mom, an amateur boxer (with a title belt!), and a lover of the great outdoors.

Everyone Has a Backstory

I’ve had the privilege of overseeing 100+ investments over the last decade. I guess that makes me old and experienced. On the spectrum of Child-like Innocence to Age-Speckled Oracle, I’m somewhere in the middle. Let’s call it Salt and Pepper Savvy.

I have learned a lot from the booms, busts, and many WTF moments of the last decade. Across the 100+ companies I’ve invested into, I have seen enough wacky patterns, kooky customers, founder fracas, and product wins / product fails to last a lifetime. Yet, every day I still learn something new.

Here’s what I do know: Building companies is super fun, until it’s not. Wildly inspiring, until your heart breaks. Pattern driven, until patterns change. Easy as pie. Well, never that. Yet, I can’t think of anything else I would rather do.

Hot take: investors should tell their story with the same clarity and gusto with which founders are expected to tell theirs. If I can’t get a strong read on your company, your vision, and your team, I am not going to write you a check. If you can’t get a strong read on my values, my strengths, and my deficits, DO NOT take my money.


What should you know about me?

As an investor, my job is to increase the odds of your success…without destroying your soul. In return, I ask founders to avoid the peril of self-deception. There may be good reason to lie to me, but there is NEVER good reason to lie to yourself.

Aside from enjoying the punishment of business-building—especially the messy human parts—I am committed to using my investor superpowers to support founders who build businesses without the perks of privilege. I was the first person in my family to graduate college. Providing for my family is my responsibility. I did not have wealthy friends and family to subsidize my entrepreneurial ambitions. Sure, sometimes these things held me back, but they also made me a resilient operator, a dogged problem solver, and hardworking AF. Poverty, race, geography, and gender should not be a barrier to entrepreneurship. Period.

I am also very interested in “capital innovation.” A fancy way of saying keen on expanding the tool kit that we use to fund new companies. For decades, investors have relentlessly pushed founders to innovate every aspect of their businesses. Meanwhile, the only innovation that the investors came up with was a SAFE note. #FAIL

Money lost, money wasted, and money never made are reason enough to demand new kinds of funding. Worse, the current toolkit is also lousy at empowering entrepreneurs to build many of the things that people want and need. Moreover, traditional VC is notoriously exclusive, reserved for those who match the narrow profile of what a “bankable” founder looks like (white, male, credentialed, connected, able to work without pay, etc). I am proud to be among a growing group of investors who are trying new things, many with tremendous success. The barriers to capital innovation are mostly imagined. That said, changing minds can be the hardest change of all.

I’m also bullish on helping companies choose their own adventure. This means working with founders to preserve as much optionality, for as long as they can. It’s also about broadening the definition of success to include things beyond outsized investor returns.

I have unattractive toenails thanks to the Boston, Chicago, and Philly Marathons. On the daily, I am a proud mom to a beautiful boy, an amateur boxer, and I LOVE being outdoors. Dogs are my spirit animal. Gin over whiskey, champagne over beer, but I’m not fussy if the company is good.

Good with a microphone, terrible on roller skates.

I can be reached at melissa at revupfund.com.

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This is a photo of me and my cousin Kim. I am not sure she knows it, but she was my first mentor. This picture reminds me how hard it is to be a good advisor, especially to first time founders. It takes effort to both push and protect, to know when to teach, when to help, and when to get out of the way. I hope one day my mentees will say that I got it (mostly) right.

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