It’s a significant moment for Flybridge, a seed-stage investment company with offices in Boston and New York, as they announce the addition of Anna Palmer as a general partner.

This appointment marks a milestone, as Palmer becomes the first woman to achieve this title within the firm’s 19-year history.

While this is a noteworthy accomplishment, Palmer emphasizes that her long-standing relationship with Flybridge should facilitate a smooth transition into her new, full-time role.

Palmer, a graduate of Harvard Law School, initially connected with Flybridge co-founder Jeff Bussgang ten years prior while he was teaching entrepreneurship at the university. Flybridge subsequently provided funding for Dough Collective, one of the two companies she helped establish – a membership platform focused on discovering, purchasing, and saving on products created by women. (Previously, Palmer co-founded Fashion Project, a company that gathered online donations of designer clothing and distributed the sales revenue to numerous charities before being acquired in 2016.)

In 2017, Palmer became a co-founder of XFactor Ventures alongside another Flybridge co-founder, Chip Hazard. The organization began with a team of nine partners and has since expanded to 22 partners operating across six cities, collectively responsible for 57 investments across two funds. With the exception of Hazard, all partners are women who lead their own businesses. They currently oversee a total of $12 million in assets, with Flybridge serving as one of their limited partners.

The primary objective of XFactor Ventures is to offer seed funding to startups with women founders or significant female leadership. However, it was also created on the premise that “if we, as women entrepreneurs, aim to effect change, we require a greater number of women in venture capital, and as women gain experience [on both sides of the investment process], they will progress to become general partners at other firms,” Palmer explains.

This concept appears to be proving successful. Earlier this year, Aubrie Pagano, an XFactor investor whose customizable shirt business Bow & Drape was acquired by a holding company, joined the New York venture firm Alpaca as a general partner. Palmer represents the second instance validating this approach.

Regarding her investment focus, Palmer shared in an interview this week that she will be investing in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer ventures, with a current emphasis on “startups that incorporate a community-focused strategy, including the evolution of commerce, marketplaces, and the future of the creator economy.”

She is particularly interested in exploring “extensive marketplaces for local businesses,” recognizing a current opportunity. As she notes, “It’s surprisingly simpler to purchase a Christmas decoration from Amazon than from a store in Boston that’s only five miles away.”

When asked about the intensity of deal-making in Boston, Palmer confirms that it is “absolutely” comparable to other regions, due to startups no longer being constrained by geographical limitations in their fundraising efforts. The prevalence of virtual meetings means that a partner from any investment firm globally is readily accessible, and Flybridge is consistently observing this trend within its portfolio. She cites a Flybridge-funded mobile gaming company that attracted interest from gaming-focused funds in various locations within just a few days, a scenario that would have been improbable last year.

Despite the accelerated pace of transactions, Palmer isn’t discouraged about joining as a full-time VC. “You rely on established expertise, which is more readily applied in markets you understand thoroughly and patterns you’ve observed previously. Through founding two companies and my work with XFactor, I’ve developed strong perspectives on future trends.”

Flybridge is presently investing from a fund of less than $100 million, which was closed in early 2019. Palmer indicates that the firm – which typically leads seed rounds with initial investments ranging from $500,000 to $2.5 million, and whose most successful investment to date is the database software company MongoDB (currently valued at $16.8 billion on Nasdaq) – is likely to begin fundraising again next summer.