👩🏽⚕️ Dr. Iman Abuzeid's Incredible Health Reaches Unicorn Status
FemWealth #74
Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
In the Spotlight 👩🏽⚕️
“What I always tell people who look like me is you really need to compartmentalize the bias in the system and focus on winning the day. You just have to be crazy, assertive, and just keep driving towards your vision and your mission. And to those who are unfortunately driving some of that bias in the system, at the end of the day, it's probably not a good idea to overlook female CEOs or Black CEOs. Because they're driving an enormous amount of value in business. And you overlook it at your own expense.”
“Nurses are the backbone of the US healthcare system, and they deserve the well-staffed teams and tools to not only succeed but also feel fulfilled in their careers. Our model has met the moment and changed the paradigm for both nurses and healthcare providers in the most challenging time in U.S. healthcare. We’re excited to accelerate our growth to affect even more change.” - Iman Abuzeid M.D., CEO and co-founder of Incredible Health
Dr. Iman Abuzeid and her co-founder Rome Portlock (CTO), started Incredible Health five years ago with the vision of helping healthcare professionals live better lives and a mission of helping healthcare workers find and do their best work. The company’s primary focus: help nurses get connected to better jobs and career growth opportunities.
Fast forward to 2022, amidst the largest labor crisis in the history of US healthcare, the company has hit impressive milestones and raised an $80 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $1.65B. This makes it the highest valued tech-enabled career marketplace in healthcare and one of a handful of companies led by a Black female founder to reach unicorn status.
Its customers include 60% of the “top-ranked” hospitals in the US, with around 600 hospitals - including Cedars-Sinai, Kaiser Permanente, and Baylor Scott & White - using its platform for permanent staffing.
The funding round was led by Base10 Partners, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Obvious Ventures, customer Kaiser Permanente, and an impressive roster of angels and funds, including Workday CEO Chano Fernando, NBA Champion Andre Iguodala, Rethink Impact, Stardust Equity, and the D’Amelio family - including TikTok personalities Charli and Dixie D’Amelio - who joined the round via their 444 Capital Fund.
The company plans to use the fresh funding to continue improving the lives of nurses and other healthcare workers and drive innovation in healthcare hiring.
Learn more: Dr. Iman Abuzeid Leads Incredible Health To Unicorn Status With $80 Million Series B (Forbes)
Incredible Health passes unicorn valuation as it bags $80M Series B (TechCrunch)
🎧 Incredible Health CEO talks maintaining company culture through incredible growth (TechCrunch Found podcast)
FemWealth Favourites ❤️
Startups: 💸 Mobot secures capital to grow its fleet of robots that bug-test mobile apps - Founded and led by Eden Full Goh, the startup is building the first “infrastructure-as-a-service” platform that enables developers to use physical robots to automate app testing on devices. It has recently secured a $12.5 million Series A round.
💸 Kenyan agtech iProcure raises $10.2M to grow its input supply network - The B2B agtech startup, co-founded by Nicole Galletta (head of innovation), connects agricultural manufacturers and distributors to local retailers (agro-dealers).
💸 ‘Chamberlain Coffee Feels Like An Extension Of Myself’: YouTube Influencer Emma Chamberlain Founded Coffee Company Closes $7 Million Series A Funding - The Los Angeles-based coffee company, founded by YouTube influencer Emma Chamberlain, plans to develop new products and expand its retail footprint. Its target group is sustainability-conscious Gen Z consumers. Also read Meet Emma Chamberlain, the Californian Gen Zer whose relatablility has made her one of the internet’s most beloved.
💸 Trial Library Emerges Out of Stealth with $5 Million in Seed Funding, Led by Lux Capital - Founded and led by Dr. Hala Borno, a University of California, San Francisco oncologist and health equity researcher, the oncology clinical trials company aims to address the need for equity in patient recruitment to oncology clinical trials. The funding round was led by Deena Shakir, Partner at Lux Capital.
“The lack of equity in access is a huge barrier that needs to be solved. As a society, we’ve invested so much into exciting new biotech therapies and we’re optimistic that many of these personalized treatments will extend patients’ lives. However, there are still many obstacles that exist, and we aim to combat the barriers experienced by all participants in our research ecosystem - the patients, providers and researchers.” - Dr. Hala Borno, Trial Library’s CEO and founder
💸 Expanding live and social shopping experiences, German startup LiSA brings home €2.7 million - The Berlin-based startup, co-founded by Sophie Frères, helps e-commerce retailers leverage the untapped potential of social discovery.
💸 Paris-based Koolboks closes $2.5M seed round to scale solar refrigeration across Africa - Co-founded by Deborah Gael, the Paris- and Lagos-based company employs a pay-as-you-go model to enable individuals and small businesses in Africa to own one of its off-grid solar refrigerators. The funding round was led by growth equity fund Aruwa Capital Management, with participation from Acumen, Blue Earth Capital, All On, GSMA, and other investors.
“We have been impressed with Koolboks’s innovative solution, which goes far beyond food waste reduction — the team’s laser focus on ensuring clean, renewable energy in off-grid areas is crucial to the survival of many small businesses and sectors as well as fostering economic gender equality. Equitable access to clean and reliable energy is key to closing the gender economic gap across rural areas, and we are excited to see Koolboks’ expansion continue to make economic equity a reality for millions more women across Africa.” - Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes, founder at female-led growth equity fund Aruwa Capital Management.
💸 Serena Williams And Kevin Durant Invest In Happy Viking, Venus Williams' Plant-Based Superfood Nutrition Company - The New York-based startup, co-founded by Venus Williams, has raised $2 million from Williams herself, her sister Serena Williams, Kevin Durant, 35V, Michelle Wie West, Megan Rapinoe, and other high-caliber investors.
💸 Qeepsake, a journaling app that helps families capture and store memories, raises $2M - Stephanie McNeil is a co-founder of the New York-based family journaling app. The company has recently appointed Tracy Cho as CEO.
💸 Roleshare secures $1.2M seed funding - a job sharing platform to help retain diverse employees - Co-founded and co-led by Sophie Smallwood, the matching and management platform for job sharing helps enterprises keep and hire the growing pool of knowledge workers seeking flexible employment.
👩🏽💻 Xendit COO Tessa Wijaya Makes Success Leap From Investment Banking To Electronic Payments - Features Tessa Wijaya, COO of Indonesia’s fintech unicorn Xentit, an angel investor and champion of women in tech.
VC: 🎥 VC Sarah Guo: How To Identify Undervalued Skill Sets In Early Stage Companies
💸 Serena Williams’ next act in venture capital is essential in this moment (TechCrunch $) | Also read Serena Williams Serves Up A New Vision Of Life And Retirement
🎧 Overcoming barriers to get into a VC with Tzvete Doncheva, International Investor Relations Lead for VC firm PropTech1. Follow Tzvete on Twitter.
Women’s Health: 🩸Period poverty: Scotland first in the world to make period products free - In an effort to tackle the stigma around menstruation and period products, the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill, operational from August 15, puts a legal duty on local authorities to ensure anyone who needs period products can obtain them for free. The period hygiene products should be freely accessible from councils or educational institutions. Also read: It’s time we talked about menstruating at work. Period
👩🏽 3 CEOs Disrupting and Democratizing Women's Health - Features Kimberly Seals Allers, founder of Irth (an App for Birth Without Bias), Rebecca Parekh, CEO and co-founder of The Well (a membership-based wellness club), and Dr. Robin Berzin, founder and CEO of Parsley Health (a functional medicine company that takes a preventive approach to chronic disease management).
👩🏼🦳 Menopause shouldn’t be an invisible tax on women in the workplace - By Kate Ryder, Founder and CEO of women’s health company Maven
“When it comes to menopause, there are few employee populations so large and so underserved, which makes the return on investment for employers substantial. The workforce as a whole is aging, and offering age-appropriate benefits will increasingly be expected of modern, best-in-class workplaces.
Millions of women are suffering in silence. Menopause has always existed in the workplace, a silent tax on women’s work and well-being. It’s encouraging that employers are now taking notice.”
👩🏾🦳 The Evolutionary Mystery of Menopause - New studies reinforce the grandmother hypothesis, which claims that grandmothers fostered our evolutionary success.
“In general, menopause begins at about the time when a woman’s children, born roughly two decades earlier, are themselves likely to become parents. That is, she may well be—or is about to become—a grandmother. The eponymous hypothesis is that by foregoing reproduction at a time when the cost of reproductive imprudence is rising, a middle-aged woman might also be freeing herself to contribute to the eventual success of her grandchildren, and thereby, of her own genes as well.”
Science: 🌊 Meet the marine geologist mapping the deepest point on Earth - Features Dr. Dawn Wright, a marine geologist and Chief Scientist of Esri (a mapping-software company), who is on a mission to map a slice of the mysterious Mariana Trench. She became the first Black woman to descend more than 35,000 feet down to Challenger Deep, a region of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean and the deepest known point on the planet.
“These are places that are extremely hostile, that are not where humans are made to inhabit. But we now have the technology to explore these spaces.” - Dawn Wright
Culture: 🎥 Inside Ms. Marvel’s Partition Storyline With Co-Creator Sana Amanat - A must-read interview with Sana Amanat, Ms. Marvel’s co-creator and executive producer.
Society: 👉 The Secret to Having “It All”? A Society That Actually Supports Women
“I’m sick of pretending that a working mother’s success is due to grit, determination, a lack of sleep, or luck. My ability to “keep all the balls in the air,” to continue to work, is based on access to safe and legal women’s healthcare and contraception, access to and the ability to afford childcare, and a husband who appreciates and supports women.
These shouldn’t be the secrets to our success, they should be in the playbook we teach future generations of boys and girls. Women need support. They need less expensive access to childcare. They need a healthcare system that supports their reproductive choices. We can succeed. We can have it all, but not if we keep lying to ourselves and to one another about how we get there.” - Jo Piazza, Author, Journalist and Podcaster
What I’m Reflecting On 💭
‘Madame Butterfly’: Japanese fashion pioneer Hanae Mori dies - RIP Japanese fashion designer Hanae Mori, nicknamed “Madame Butterfly” for her signature winged motifs. She was the first Asian person to become an haute couture designer (in 1977). Her designs mixed elements from the East and West. She dressed Hollywood celebrities such as Grace Kelly, famous personalities such as Nancy Reagan, Japan’s then-Crown Princess Masako - now empress, and career women. She continued working well into her advanced years.
“Fashion is something that pushes you, gives you courage to spread your wings and allows you to have adventures.” - Hanae Mori
Female Saudi activist gets record 34 years in prison for critical tweets - Salma al-Shehab, a women’s rights activist and mother of two, was sentenced to 34 years in prison Monday over her Twitter activity. It marks the country’s longest sentence against an activist.
The Pain That Is Unlike All Other Pain
“Why does society treat labor pain with such reverence—and its relief with such scrutiny?” - Stephanie H. Murray
The Work-From-Home Revolution Is Also a Trap for Women [US-focused]
“There’s one significant catch in this WFH utopia. That additional flexibility opens up a space, and that space is quickly filled with responsibilities that were once more equally distributed: between partners in a relationship, but also between citizens and the society of which they are a part.” - Anne Helen Petersen
How a16z’s investment into Adam Neumann further solidifies the ‘concrete ceiling’ (TechCrunch $)
“One cannot out-educate, out-network and out-assimilate the systemic barriers designed to discriminate against them.” - Dominic Madori, Senior Reporter at TechCrunch
Thank you for reading! 🥰 Have a wonderful Sunday & Enjoy the remaining days of summer! ☀️
Anamaria
Founder & Writer of FemWealth