💌 One Year of FemWealth
FemWealth Issue #52
Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
Tomorrow is the first anniversary of FemWealth! On this occasion, I thank you wholeheartedly for being part of the community and joining me in celebrating women’s successes!
FemWealth will continue to amplify women’s voices, champion gender equity and equality, and create opportunities for women.
Would love to learn more about you! I would be grateful if you would take this quick survey and tell me how FemWealth could bring you more value both personally and professionally!
Thank you! 🙏
FemWealth Favorites ❤️
Business & Leadership: 🙌 EU gives initial agreement to board quotas for women, more talks needed - The European Union has given initial approval to push public companies and businesses with a minimum of 250 employees to appoint women to at least 40% of non-executive director roles or 33% of all board jobs by 2027.
Startups: 💸 Bobbie drinks up $50M to expand infant formula product line - The company co-founded by Laura Modi and Sarah Hardy, achieved a revenue of $18 million in 2021.
💸 Vira Health gets $12M to dial up personalized menopause support - Vira Health was co-founded by Andrea Berchowitz (CEO) and Dr. Rebecca Love.
“We know it’s hard for women to raise money… every data points shows that. Let’s not pretend it’s not. And then when you’re raising for a product that no one in the room has experience with — because they’re either young or male — the fact is we need someone to basically be over 45, probably over 50 — there’s not a tonne of that and then to be female so yes we have to do a lot more education.” - Andrea Berchowitz
💸 Dorian’s no-code, interactive storytelling app turns fiction writers into game developers - The startup co-founded and led by Julia Palatovska has raised a $14 million Series A.
💸 Meaningful Gigs raises $6M seed to link designers in Africa with remote jobs from US companies - Meaningful Gigs was co-founded by Stephanie Nachemja-Bunton (COO).
💬 Sayso is launching an API to dial down people’s accents a wee bit
“When we started, the goal was to help people understand each other with ease. But then this vision extended communicating clearly with technology. That’s the bigger, broader vision, with speech recognition and speaker smart technologies that are speaker-specific.” - Ganna Tymco, founder and CEO of Sayso
🇺🇦 How Fleeing Ukraine in 1990 Shaped This Entrepreneur Into the Leader She Is Today - Featuring Marco Polo co-founder and CEO Vlada Bortnik
👩🏽💻 TOP 100: Europe’s most influential women in the startup and venture capital space
🤓 Job titles matter in a startup, so take the time to get them right - By Laura Warnier, Chief Growth Officer at GoStudent
✊🏾 Think your startup’s ready for a head of diversity and inclusion? Think again - By Laura Smith, an organizational researcher and inclusion coach
💸 UX focuses on men’s experience: We need financial products built for women - By Margot De Broglie, Co-founder of Your Juno
💸 Coalition of start-up founders and investors aims to end the gender pay gap for pre-IPO companies by 2027 [US focus] - Organizations for Pay Equity Now, or OPEN Imperative, seeks to eliminate the gender pay gap among pre-IPO start-ups by 2027. More than 200 founders, CEOs, and investors have joined the Coalition, including Prezzee, Landed, Hearken, and Nextdoor.
“What’s so exciting about working with pre-IPO companies is these are the fastest-growing companies in the world.”
“These are the future CEOs and founders of larger enterprises and if they can start baking in these practices from the ground up at these early stages, it will continue to grow with the company and continue to make impact.” - Emily Sweet, lead of OPEN Imperative
💸 6 African women CEOs discuss how they raised more than $1M in 2021 - In 2021, 11 women-led startups secured over $1M in a single round of funding, a record in Africa.
VC: 💸 Bootstrap Europe's debt strategy targets high-growth tech companies - Bootstrap Europe, a London-based private lender founded by Fatou Diagne and Stephanie Heller, announced the initial close of its third fund on $127 million in commitments. It aims to raise more than $200 million at the final close of Fund III.
“With our own DNA, we'd like to finance businesses that are truly helpful for the world. Our portfolio has about two-thirds of companies with an ESG background.” - Stephanie Heller
👀 Kirsten Green on selling to consumers in the metaverse: brands should ‘get in there’
“The whole metaverse, web3, crypto [universe] opportunity or conversation is really interesting and really promising. […] ‘Get in there and start experimenting. Get comfortable. Start building muscle in it. Think about what’s right for your business and brand and identify where there are opportunities, [be it for] customer acquisition or customer retention or even to sell new things, because quite frankly, all of those things are probably in play in that universe.’” - Kirsten Green, Founding Partner of Forerunner Ventures
👏 Coatue Taps Ex-Index VC Sarah Cannon To Lead European Startup Investing Push
“I realized that I could do something quite entrepreneurial and help [Coatue] expand into Europe. So it’s the best of all worlds.” - Sarah Cannon
🙌🏾 All Raise, a nonprofit to increase diversity in tech, has a new CEO - Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon aims to bring a new level of inclusivity to the organization’s mission. [More here and here]
“I think really leaning into being more inclusive for historically underrepresented women, non-binary leaders and making it a safe space of belonging, of community, for a broad group of women and non binary leaders is going to be of paramount importance.”
❓Why aren’t VCs funding more startups focused on menopause?
“It’s an underserved market that’s fast-growing and target-rich. Add in the chance to get behind category-defining brands, and it’s fair to wonder: Why aren’t VCs — and founders, for that matter — more focused on menopause?”
Gender Equality: 💸 Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott Among Backers of $1 Billion Gender Fund - The Gender Fund, managed by Co-Impact, aims to advance equality and women’s leadership in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
“To make progress on gender equality, we need systemic change in the structures, laws, and policies and processes of government, in how markets function, and how social norms are shaped and enforced.” - Olivia Leland, founder and chief executive officer of Co-Impact.
Women’s Health: 🏃🏽♀️Lunette and Peak Performance present outdoor menstrual cup for female adventurers - Featuring Heli Kurjanen, founder of Lunette
Journalism: 🎥 In Ukraine, female war reporters build on legacy of pioneers - Featuring Clarissa Ward, Lynsey Addario, Christiane Amanpour, Holly Williams, a.o.
“Often women do have a different perspective on war, and for a long time that was not really at the forefront of a lot of coverage (…) the humanity behind the story, the experience of ordinary people who are living in war zones. To me, that is equally as important as the military component.” - Clarissa Ward
🎥 Marina Ovsyannikova: TV protest 'was my own decision' [More here]
Storytelling: 👧🏻 'Turning Red' director Domee Shi on what message she hopes people get from the film | [Review] Turning Red Doesn’t Follow Pixar’s Rules. Good - The movie, directed by Domee Shi, tells the story of Meilin Lee, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl growing up in Toronto in the early 2000s.
“That is the movie, it’s just this girl struggling with trying to survive puberty and change, but also trying to juggle these two worlds that she was born into.” - Domee Shi
👀 TikToking From a Bomb Shelter - Valeria Shashenok shows the war in Ukraine from her eyes.
“I want to show what’s happening in my country, because I don’t see women like me doing that. I’m that person who always ragged on everything with humor. It’s the best way to show people the problem. I’m that person who always sees light in the dark, and it’s a nice way to do something for my country.”
🎨 A comic artist’s account of life in western Ukraine after Russia invaded
🎧 Dua Lipa: At Your Service with writer Hanya Yanagihara (Apple Podcasts and Spotify)
🌍 Climate grief got you down? Here’s how I approach it as a journalist. - By Alexandria Herr
Politics: 📚 Why We Should Read Hannah Arendt Now - By Anne Applebaum
Things to Ponder
Activist Reshma Saujani: ‘Women are in the worst state that we’ve ever been’ [US focus]
“Covid blew the doors off recognizing that workplaces have never been built for [working mothers] — and 86 percent of women in the workforce will, at some time, be a mother. And we’ve always been operating on this proverbial seesaw — balancing our home life, balancing our career life. Always trying to shrink ourselves to fit in.” - Reshma Saujani, Founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms.
The War in Ukraine Is a Reproductive Health Crisis for Millions - Russia’s invasion makes it harder to deliver babies and provide birth control, abortion services, and other essential care.
“They are there even when the bombs are falling. Doctors and nurses working in incredibly tough situations to deliver babies and care for people, no matter what.”
Pregnancy loss: 'I just don't think we're being listened to' - In the US, Black women miscarry at rates 40% higher than white women. After her own experience with loss, Erica McAfee founded Sisters in Loss to provide support after miscarriage and advocate for black maternal Health.
A year after the Atlanta shootings, Asian women live in fear: ‘How are we all going to stay safe?’ [US focus]
“We’re being targeted because of the stereotypes about us, that we won’t stand up for ourselves, that we’re submissive. We are typically seen as easier targets, less likely to fight back. These stereotypes and the realities of how gender bias and racism work have created an environment where AAPI women are not only disproportionately being targeted ... but also, we’re seeing incidents that are happening in public places.” - Sung Yeon Choimorrow, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
Support Ukraine 🇺🇦
Thank you for reading FemWealth! Wish you a peaceful and relaxing Sunday!
Anamaria
Founder and Writer of FemWealth