Female Founder Fridays
Welcome to the first edition of Female Founder Fridays.
I’m pretty sure that absolutely NO ONE, I mean NO ONE, will even read this and if you do, hang in there with me til the end, I’d love your feedback on my ranting!
We all know and have heard the staggering stats around the lack of funding going to female founders. Of the roughly $350 Billion in venture capital deployed last year, less than 2% went to female founders and even worse was the fraction of a percentage went to female founders of color and minority groups. The more and more I research, the more female funders I speak to, the more I have felt compelled to utilize my skills, experience and network to help move the needle on that 2%.
We need more young girls who see a viable career path in both STEM and entrepreneurship.
We need more female founders securing funding to scale their businesses.
We need more women building sizable wealth to be invested back into the ecosystem of women.
I believe this is what’s needed to move the needle, to help drive out more gender equality not only within funding founders, but also in seeing more women thrive in the venture capital space.
This newsletter is my small part, helping to highlight the amazing women who are actively moving the needle across the entire tech startup ecosystem. Each week I’ll highlight an amazing Female Founder whom I’ve personally found inspiring as well as the amazing women who have chipped away at that 2% by raising capital for their businesses and more.
I’m always on the look out for brilliant and inspiring women, so if you know a Female Founder or Female VC whom you feel I should highlight, please drop me a note and share.
#Unstoppable Female Founder Spotlight:
It’s a double whammy - Jeannette zu Furstenberg & Judith Dada of La Famiglia
I have been following La Famiglia and these ladies for a few years now and have to say they are nothing short of impressive. Both have been prominent figures within the European tech startup scene heavily advocating for the need for more diversity in tech, supporting founders looking to build long lasting legacy and companies with monster ambitions to revolutionize and change the world.
La Famiglia is a European seed and growth stage venture capital fund investing in technology companies that enable or disrupt large industries. Their portfolio is full of the who’s who of the B2B Tech world including Deel, Personio, Forto, Stripe, Mistral, Coinbases, Maven Clinic and many more. Earlier this year (on International Women’s Day to be precise) La Famiglia raised €250 million for its combined third seed fund with a focus on ML, AI, data, logistics and supply chains within tech.
At a time when Europe is seeing a mass exodus of women in venture capital, Jeanette and Judith have built a powerhouse firm with La Famigila. This week they announced a new partnership with US based firm General Catalyst, combining forces to help fuel growth for early stage startups across Europe. Furthermore, by combining forces this means that both firms can evaluate backing European based companies that would require long-term capital such as climate tech, industrial or defense tech sectors. This is a huge opportunity for the European tech sector being able to combine the local knowledge and experience of La Famiglia with the capital and global reach of General Catalyst, incredibly exciting times!
Needless to say, I have a deep and profound admiration for both women and their drive, what they’ve built with La Famiglia and am looking forward to seeing their continued impact to drive the European market forward. This is why Jeannette & Judith are my #Unstoppable Female Founders for the first edition of Female Founder Friday!
For more on the La Famiglia x General Catalyst merger -> https://www.ft.com/content/6bc919bc-096b-4ab4-a0fe-b9d6af9199d0
Hype Corner:
Female founders who have raised capital in the last week.
Katja Grothe-Eberhardt - Co-founder & CEO of Klimate.co
Klimate.co helps companies achieve Net Zero by combining the world's best carbon removal methods into portfolios that match our clients' budgets and ambitions.
Chandini Jain - Founder & CEO of Auquan
Auquan helps companies transform their due diligence, KYC, ESG research, and risk monitoring and focus on what you do best: high-level analysis and making strategic decisions.
Charlotte Bax - Founder & CEO of Captur
Captur is the first AI platform that enables product and growth teams to embed real-time image verification into their mobile apps, without building custom models.
Tatyana Eliseeva - Co-founder of HealthCaters
HealthCaters is a new era of hybrid corporate health that combines 360° health screenings for employees and personalized data-based prevention programs.
Michelle Dervan - Founder of SkillsTrust
SkillsTrust is an innovative employment assessment company leveraging AI along with communities of industry practitioners to build an ever-expanding library of authentic job-task simulations, tailored to the real-time needs of employers.
Anniek Schouten - Co-founder & COO of Overstory
Overstory is on a mission to become the standard in predictive planet intelligence. By applying machine learning to satellite imagery Overstory creates insights about the quantity and quality of forests and other natural resources.
Joanne Filbin - Co-founder of Globacap
Globacap’s digital workflows enable financial institutions including securities exchanges, securities firms, private banks, and asset managers to accelerate their private market commercial activity while also driving down operating costs.
Massive congrats and kudos to each of these women and their teams!
Show Me the Money:
Investment Opportunities for female founders who are looking for capital.
Grow F / Female Founders Cohort Applications
Grow F is the accelerator program from Female Founders based in Austria. I’m a HUGE fan of Female Founders and what they have been building - shout out to Carina Klaffl and Amelia Suda-Gosch. They are currently taking applications for their next co-hort of female founders within the B2B space: https://female-founders.org/startup-program/
re:cap / Debt Financing
A lot of founders think that venture funding is the only way to raise capital, however this is inaccurate. Re:cap offers non-dilutive debt financing customized to the needs of your business as an alternative way to raise the capital you need. They are an incredible team, reach out to Lilli Pukall for more info.
UK Innovation Hub / Grant Funding
For those who are in the UK there are a few grant options available via the government. You can find a list of those here across multiple sectors:
https://ukinnovationhub.ukri.org/categories/types-of-funding?scope=offering
Tide Bank / Business Loans
For those who are looking for a more traditional source of funding, or a smaller more nominal figure, I just discovered that Tide the neo-bank focused on SMBs also offers business loans:
https://www.tide.co/features/business-loans
Helpful Content & Info:
(150sec) Tackling the fundraising bias for female founders
This piece is premised off of the data from Pink Salt Ventures, a firm founded by two female founders whom I’ve admired for a number of years, Saloni Bhojwani and Samira Ann Qassim. It dives into the biggest barriers holding female founders back,including the bias experienced during pitches and the lack of female decision makers within VC firms.
(Sifted) Even in Femtech is still pays to be male
This piece by the team at Sifted actually boiled my blood a bit, however it's simply indicative of the wider issue. To recap: Last year 57 all-male teams raised $731M in funding compared to that of 105 all-female founding teams who raised just $408M across the Femtech sector.
(Business Leader) Believe in Angels
This is a fantastic piece exploring how and why angel investors may be a more suitable option for your business. Angel investors not only bring capital, but they also bring experience, guidance, mentorship, extensive networks and provide less aggressive deal terms than traditional lenders and VCs.
(The Times) Women in Iceland go on strike against gender inequality - including the Prime Minister herself. Major kudos to Katrín Jakobsdóttir for standing up and advocating on a global stage for gender inequality. I believe we need more women in government positions if there is any hope for a better world.
If you’ve made it this far through the newsletter, all I can say is a HUGE thank you! I would love to get your feedback on what you liked, what you didn't like and any suggestions you might have for how I can improve this newsletter going forward.
Have a wonderful weekend and stay #Unstoppable
JH