Toni is a successful entrepreneur with 30 years of operational, fundraising, and investment banking experience. She is the founder of three art companies. Sikes is also general partner in Calumet Venture Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies in the Midwest, a position she has held since 2010. Prior to that she was a senior advisor at Gruppo, Levey & Co., a New York investment bank, where she led their technology practice focused on helping technology companies in their financing and M&A strategies. As the founder of The Guild, a pioneer e-commerce company that brought the work of artists directly to consumers, Sikes raised over $52 million from leading venture capital firms, including Benchmark Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures in Silicon Valley, Dolphin Equity Partners in New York, and ePartners (Rupert Murdoch’s venture firm) based in London. Today, The Guild markets artist-created home furnishings under the consumer brand of Artful Home, which is the largest retailer of artist-made work in the U.S. Sikes has authored several books, and is a recognized expert in the area of online marketing of luxury products to consumers.