The Curve co-founder Victoria Harris has taken the financial education platform a step further, launching an investment fund designed with women investors in mind.

Speaking to Good Returns TV, Harris says The Curve Fund is the next stage in a business which started as a podcast five years ago and has since expanded into online courses, corporate education, events and talks.

The fund follows The Curve’s acquisition of Elevation Funds Management. The manager has been renamed The Curve Investments and the Elevation Global Shares Fund has become The Curve Fund.

Harris says the move solves a problem The Curve encountered after educating women about investing.

“We were educating women, but for the ‘doing’ part they were being sent elsewhere and getting confused all over again,” she says.

The global equities fund will favour female-led, founder-led and “future-focused” businesses – an approach Harris calls its “FFF”.

Future-focused investments could include areas such as AI, healthcare and sustainability, along with companies Harris believes will have a positive impact on the future.

“Investing is how you get rich; it’s not what you do when you’re rich.”

While the fund has been developed primarily with a female audience in mind, Harris stresses it is open to everyone.

She says women tend to approach investing differently to men, taking longer to make decisions and wanting more information before committing.

Rather than describing women as risk-averse, Harris prefers “risk-aware”.

“I think we do [take risks] when we have enough knowledge to make the decision.”

One of the biggest barriers The Curve hears from women is the belief they do not have enough money to begin investing.

“I like to call them risk-aware. I don’t like ‘risk-averse’ because it makes us sound like we don’t take risks at all.”

The new fund has a $500 minimum investment, which Harris says reflects feedback from The Curve’s audience.

“There’s still a mentality of, ‘When I get rich, I’ll invest.’ But investing is how you get rich; it’s not what you do when you’re rich.”

Harris says the former Elevation portfolio is being transitioned towards The Curve’s investment approach, although its underlying global equities strategy remains similar.

READ a full transcript of the interview here.

Watch the full Good Returns TV interview with Victoria Harris to hear why The Curve moved from financial education into fund management, how women approach investment risk and what she looks for when selecting companies.