“I’ve heard, ‘I really love you, Chanel, I think you have an amazing company, but I think I might want to date you,’” said Chanel Melton, 31, the founder of a hair-extension company called RoseGold Pro. More groans. “He followed up later, like, ‘Hey, I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.’”

In February, the mayor’s office announced that it will invest $30 million in women-led start-ups through a program called WE Venture, in coordination with private venture capital firms that have a track record in the area. Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor in charge of the initiative, said that she would be asking Able to provide tips about deals and female entrepreneurs worth watching.

“You don’t want to let any smart woman or any good idea fall through the cracks simply because it doesn’t work for a particular fund manager,” Ms. Glen said. “Lisa probably gets pitched a lot of stuff that’s not ready for her but great for us. If we get pitched some wellness hemp thing that you put on your body and it makes you tall and skinny, well, they should go work with Lisa. I’m a middle-aged bureaucrat; I have no idea about that stuff.”

‘Money is my spirit animal’

At the Wing in January, the crowd cracked up at Ms. McLay’s line about wine and Kleenex and cheered at Ms. Arthur’s ability to dance her way past a PowerPoint glitch. After the presentations, the women stood at tables around the perimeter of the room to meet with audience members and investors.

“She, her, they all have very strong handshakes,” Ms. Arthur said, nodding at two blazer-clad women who had given her their business cards. “You can tell they’re real investors.”

At her table, Ms. McLay wore a T-shirt that read “Money is my spirit animal.” “It’s fun, it’s good for branding awareness, but we’ll see if the checks come in,” she said. “That’s the next step — what checks get written. Talk to me next week.”

I called her the following week. She was in touch with five new potential investors. “We got money from Able, which is wonderful,” she said. “T.B.D. on other money. But I will say that the ones who are talking to me, I know they’re having the conversation because Able gave us money. Investors want to invest in whoever other people are investing in.” Even in the “anti-‘Shark Tank,’” some funder-founder dynamics transcend gender.