🔎 Magnify Ventures Raises $52M Debut Fund Focused on the $648B Care Economy

FemWealth Issue #59

Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!

Also, Happy Mother’s Day if you are in/from the US or Canada and celebrating today!

On this occasion, I am delighted to spotlight Magnify Ventures, an all-women partnership focused on the care economy, estimated to be a whopping $648B opportunity only in the US!

Founded by Joanna Drake and Julie Wroblewski, the firm has raised $52 million for its debut fund to invest primarily in early-stage startups building solutions in one of the four main sectors:

• The Future of Parenting & Family Life;

• Future of Work;

• Household Optimization;

• Aging Innovation.

“A lot of people hear ‘care economy,’ and they think of consumer baby tech. We really think about the care economy as a very large market that really covers all the time and money we put into caring for people, from the moment they are born until the end of their lives.” - Julie Wroblewski via Forbes

“For decades, the venture industry has been pouring capital into optimizing enterprises while largely ignoring the caregiving burden at home. But that is changing as the pandemic shines a spotlight on the difficulties individuals encounter as they juggle caregiving duties, work and family life. We founded Magnify Ventures to unleash solutions that will help families not just survive, but thrive.” - Joanna Drake

Joanna Drake and Julie Wroblewski, Founding Partners of Magnify Ventures ©

The firm, anchored by Pivotal Ventures (a Melinda French Gates company), already includes seven portfolio companies: Cocoon, Element3 Health, Milo, MiSalud, Papa, Seven Starling, and Till Financial.

Magnify Ventures is headquartered in Los Angeles and co-located in San Francisco.

Read more: Magnify Ventures Looks To Tap “Massive” Care Economy With Debut $52 Million Fund

The ‘care economy’ is a $648 billion opportunity, Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures found

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FemWealth Favorites ❤️

Startups: 💸 Anthropic’s quest for better, more explainable AI attracts $580M - Co-led by Daniela Amodei, Anthropic is an AI safety and research company.

💸 Hello Heart pulls in $70M Series D - Hello Heart, a digital therapeutics startup co-founded by Maayan Cohen, tracks blood pressure to derive recommendations to reduce the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

💸 Womp Raises $4.7M in Seed Funding - Founded and led by CEO Gabriela Trueba, Womp is a collaborative cloud-based 3D creation platform that integrates social features with design tools. The funding round was led by Female Founders Fund and Haystack.

💸 Ruth Health Raises $2.4M in Seed Funding to Reimagine Prenatal and Postpartum Care - The Los Angeles-based maternal health startup is led by founders Alison Greenberg and Audrey Wu.

“Our mission is to make women’s healthcare an accessible, superior quality, and even joyful experience for everyone. It’s an honor to provide these long-overdue services with the women’s anatomy and experience at the center of a simple, welcoming, evidence-based telehealth platform that does not shy away from cultural taboos while elevating the female voice.” - Alison Greenberg

Audrey Wu and Alison Greenberg, Co-founders of Ruth Health ©

💸 Allocate Announces $15.3M in Series A Funding to Continue Expanding Access to Venture Capital Investing - The digital investment platform, co-founded by Hana Yang, provides investors a streamlined way to access top-tier venture funds and co-investments.

💸 Tactic wants to reinvent accounting software for the web3 age - Founded and led by Ann Jaskiw, Tactic helps businesses manage and simplify cryptocurrency finances. It has emerged from stealth with $2.6 million in seed funding, co-led by Founders Fund and finance automation startup Ramp.

🤩 Brunch with Sifted: Cindy Gallop on building the next sextech unicorn - Features Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO of social sex site Make Love Not Porn

“All female entrepreneurs have started their businesses because they solve big problems. We all are unicorns in waiting, and VCs and investors are doing themselves a disservice by not calling us.” - Cindy Gallop

VC: 💸 Aiming for the stars, Seaya unveils €300-million Andromeda fund to focus on sustainability - Founded by Beatriz González, Seaya is looking to raise $315.5M (€300M) for its new fund dubbed Seaya Andromeda. The fund will invest in technology-driven solutions, focusing on green tech, circular economy, agritech, and sustainable food value chain across Europe.

💸 Chingona Ventures Lands $52M to Fund Overlooked Founders in Massive Markets - Chigona Ventures, founded and led by solo General Partner Samara Hernandez, invests in pre-seed startups, primarily founded by overlooked individuals who are focused on massive markets.

Women's Health: 👩🏽‍💻 Digital health startups brace for a post-Roe world [US focus]

“Reproductive rights are human rights, and women’s health is population health. They are inextricable. While a tough road ahead, I’m heartened by the women founders, investors and legislators committed to addressing this.” - Deena Shakir, Partner at Lux Capital

♀️ New 3D female anatomy model used to treat women better - The new tool will provide a better understanding of the female anatomy and help prevent incorrect diagnoses. It is currently being used to teach first-year medical students at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK.

❓ Could 'menstrual leave' change the workplace?

Women's Wealth: 🌱 Odo, a wealth growth platform helping the underinvested begin to grow their wealth safely with loss-protected starter investment accounts, just launched their waitlist for US-based investors. Odo is co-founded and led by Shauna Armitage, a friend and reader of FemWealth. Sign up here.

Career: ✊🏽 How Women Can Identify Male Allies in the Workplace

“Having a true ally in the workplace is not only knowing that you have an accomplice, collaborator, and advocate, but that others will too. An ally is bound by the profound commitment to challenge and dismantle existing systems of inequality to ensure that everyone is treated equally, has access to professional growth, development, and advancement, and has a safe and equitable place to work.” - Tsedale M. Melaku & Christoph Winkler

📚 Reshma Saujani’s “Pay Up” Is A Playbook For Moms To Demand The Recognition, Respect And Money They Deserve - Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms, has published a new book “Pay Up” in which she shares her personal story, where the #GirlBoss and Lean In movements went wrong and her plan to get all mothers the support they need, regardless of employment status.

“You can’t color code your calendar to equality. You can’t just find a mentor or a sponsor, you can’t just be ‘brave, not perfect.’ We have to stop trying to fix the women and fix the system. And that’s really hard. Fixing women is so deeply rooted in our DNA.” - Reshma Saujani

Fashion Industry: ♻️ Early Majority: Fashion's first degrowth brand - Joy Howard, founder and CEO of Early Majority and a former vice president of global marketing at Patagonia, has launched a new brand of modular, multi-functional outerwear with a community-driven membership model that aims to provide a successful case study for degrowth, i.e., producing and consuming less to save the planet.

Journalism: 👏 At The Kyiv Independent, Reporting On Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine Hits Close To Home - Features Kyiv Independent’s co-founder and investigative journalist Anna Myroniuk, co-founder and deputy editor Toma Istomina, and co-founder and national reporter Anastasiia Lapatina

“I’m only here to pay witness. I’m only here to pass this history to the next generation.” - Anastasiia Lapatina

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What I’m Reflecting On

Ukraine: New Report Highlights Devastating Impact Of War In Ukraine On Women - UN Women and CARE International have published a new Gender Analysis of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

“At the formal decision-making level, the centralization of power and increased role of the military has made it more difficult for women to exert influence in formal political and administrative decision-making processes, thus decreasing women's overall participation.”

Pregnant Ukrainian Refugees Struggle to Get Abortion Care - Ukrainian women fleeing war, including victims of sexual violence, are facing difficulties in accessing abortion care in Poland, a country that has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

US Roe v. Wade: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows | As Roe v. Wade reversal looms, should you delete your period-tracking app? | Online Privacy Becomes Critical If Roe v. Wade Is Overturned

When moms out-earn their husbands, they gain more housework - In a recently published research article, Joanna Syrda, a professor at the U.K.-based University of Bath School of Management, shows that new mothers take on more housework than their husbands, even more so when the woman is the “outearner” in the couple.

“We see these top female earners as compensating in doing more housework, not when women out-earn their husbands but when mothers out-earn fathers. So parenthood seems to have that traditionalizing effect.” - Joanna Syrda

7 reasons why fertility care is utterly broken - By Halle Tecco, Founder of Natalist, a board member at Resolve: The National Infertility Association, and an investor/advisor in fertility companies KindBody, Conceive, Alife, and Poppyseed Health.

“Fertility care fails on each point of the “Iron Triangle” of healthcare–access, cost, and quality. It’s not accessible, it costs too much, and the outcomes are dismal.” - Halle Tecco

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Thank you for reading FemWealth! 🥰 Wish you a creative and exciting week ahead!

Anamaria

Founder & Writer of FemWealth