Melinda French Gates Refuses To Fund Daughter’s Startup

Billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates has revealed that she declined to invest in her daughter’s startup, saying she is determined not to raise a “nepo baby” and wants her child to earn success on her own merits.

Speaking during a recent conversation with tennis icon Billie Jean King at the Power of Women’s Sports Summit, the 60-year-old former co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said she is intentionally staying out of her daughter’s business ventures.

“I have a daughter who just started a business this year,” French Gates said. “She got capitalized, not because of my contacts, not because of me. I wouldn’t put money into it.”

While she didn’t name the daughter, her youngest child Phoebe Gates, 22, recently co-launched an AI-powered fashion platform called Phia, alongside her Stanford roommate Sophia Kianni. The app helps users compare clothing prices across over 40,000 sites in real-time to find the best deals.

French Gates, who has long championed gender equity and women’s empowerment through philanthropy, said it’s crucial that her daughter learns how to face rejection and navigate the funding landscape on her own terms.

“If this is a real business, others need to be willing to back it. And if not, she’ll learn how to handle rejection. That’s what I told her,” she said. “She’s growing from this.”

Phoebe, who has acknowledged the privilege of being born into a wealthy family, told The New York Post earlier this year that it was a deliberate choice not to take money from her parents.

“We don’t want this to be something that’s funded by my family – we want this to be a real company,” she said. “While I have a ton of privilege coming from my family, it’s about having a product that stands on its own.”

In keeping with this philosophy, Bill Gates previously announced that he and French Gates plan to leave each of their three children — Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe — less than 1% of their fortunes in inheritance. The tech mogul has long maintained that vast generational wealth can limit ambition and drive.

Interestingly, while the Gates family has withheld financial support from Phia, the startup has attracted interest elsewhere. Kris Jenner, matriarch of the Kardashian-Jenner empire, has publicly announced she is backing the platform.