💸 Carli Sapir's Amboy Street Ventures Launches First Fund to Invest in Women’s Health and Sexual Wellness
FemWealth Issue #103
Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
In the Spotlight 💸
Founded by Carli Sapir, US-based Amboy Street Ventures closed its first fund at $20 million. It aims to invest in women’s health and sexual wellness for all genders.
“I realized these are incredible economic opportunities because they’re solving major market gaps. And I realized you get outsized returns by investing in this space.” - Carli Sapir, Founding Partner of Amboy Street Ventures (via Fortune)
So far, the firm has backed eight companies, including telehealth abortion access startup Hey Jane, vaginal microbiome testing startup Evvy, menstrual products company Aunt Flow, sexual wellness brand Dame, and audio erotica app Dipsea.
Read more: Amboy Street Ventures closes a $20 million fund to invest in women’s health and sexual wellness
FemWealth Springboard 🎨
FemWealth Favourites ❤️
Switch Therapeutics Launches with $52 Million to Advance First-of-its-Kind RNAi Technology - Co-founded and led by Dee Datta, Ph.D., the preclinical stage biotechnology company pioneering a new way to use RNA science to treat diseases raised $52 million in Series A funding. Insight Partners and UCB Ventures co-led the round, with participation from existing investors, including Upfront Ventures and BOLD Capital Partners and new investors Eli Lilly and Company, Ono Venture Investment, Digitalis Ventures, Dolby Family Ventures, Free Flow Ventures, PhiFund Ventures.
DRESSX $15M Series A To Be Deployed Towards Interoperability Of Digital Assets - The fashion-driven tech startup DRESSX, co-founded by Daria Shapovalova (CEO) and Natalia Modenova (COO), secured a $15 million Series A round led by Greenfield and joined by Slow Ventures, Warner Music, The Artemis Fund, Red Dao.
Conscious Marketplace Powered By People Raises $13.6 Million (BoF $) - Co-founded by Ella Peinovich-Griffith (CEO), Hedvig Alexander, and Alison Phillips, the Canadian wholesale marketplace connects fashion, home goods, and jewellery buyers in North America and Europe with small-batch producers across 70 countries. The “blended financing” includes an $8 million series A funding round, led by Altos Ventures with participation from existing seed investors Golden Ventures and Susa Ventures, and $5.6 million in philanthropic grants earmarked for African producers.
Indian DTC Startup Gynoveda Raises $10M in Series A Funding for Its Ayurveda-based Women’s Health Treatments - Co-founded by Rachana Gupta, the company aims to make Ayurveda-based self-care solutions for gynaecological and lifestyle-related disorders affecting women from puberty to menopause accessible.
Droplet Biosciences Announces Lymph Diagnostic Platform to Help Prevent Cancer Recurrence - Co-founded and led by Theresa Tribble, the Cambridge, Ma.-based startup raised $8 million seed investment led by The Engine.
Scrumbles wins BGF backing to grow natural pet food brand - The London-based natural pet food brand, co-founded by husband-and-wife team Aneisha Soobroyen and Jack Walker, secured a £6m investment from the BGF to expand its omni-channel growth strategy.
Healium Closes $3.6M Seed Funding - Led by Sarah Hill, the California-based virtual and augmented reality biofeedback company aims to help users treat their anxiety. Impact Venture Capital, Ambition Fund II, Captain Partners & Astronaut Holdings, Citrine Angels, Coact Capital, Gaingels, KCRise Fund, Mayo Clinic, Missouri Technology Corporation, QRM Capital, Stadia Ventures, Tidewater Capital, and Underdog Ventures participated in the round.
The Climate Choice wants to make supply chain emissions more visible and more green - The Berlin-based startup, co-founded by Lara Obst, offers a climate data-driven B2B platform for decarbonizing companies and their supply chains. It closed a $2 million round.
Blockchain infrastructure developer Smooth raises $2 million in seed funding - Co-founded by Lucie Chen, Smooth is building blockchain infrastructure focused on the parallel execution of transactions.
Building a transparent fashion ecosystem: Jolanda Kooi on tex.tracer, circular fashion, and changed investor landscape - The Dutch SaaS transparency platform, co-founded and led by Jolanda Kooi, enables retailers, fashion, and textile brands to take action based on data to meet the EU Net Zero goals by 2050. It raised €1.5M in growth capital from ROM InWest, HearstLab Europe, Joanna Invests, and other angel investors.
123 Baby Box delivers for parents seeking children’s products without the hassle - Founded and led by Zarina Bahadur, the company offering monthly subscription boxes for babies raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding.
Swehl Launches Its Breastfeeding Platform and Brand with $1.1M in Pre-Seed Funding - Founded by Elizabeth Myer and Betsy Riley, the US-based startup offers both physical and digital products that help parents throughout their postpartum experience. The pre-seed funding round included Cleo Capital, Katia Beauchamp (Ex-Birchbox), Betsy Fore (XFactor Ventures), a.o.
Biotech startup theblood raises close to €1M in pre-seed funding for its menstrual blood testing solution and biomarker research - Isabelle Guenou (CEO) and Miriam Santer (COO) are two of the Berlin-based startup’s co-founders. RoX Health led the round with participation from Leanox VC and business angels, including healthtech investor Dr. Fiona Pathiraja.
Berlin-based menstrual health startup HERMONE launches with €1M in pre-seed funding - Lucia Vilsecker and Philippa Zorn’s HERMONE offers a cycle tracking app that provides easily accessible knowledge about the four phases of the cycle, as well as the hormones that are primarily involved.
“We help our users gain much needed body and emotional literacy. Understanding how the female body functions empowers women to make conscious decisions and to stand up for their needs.” - Lucia Vilsecker
Mars-backed Bundle x Joy bags $1M to double its pet care footprint in retailers - Jessica Berger is the founder and CEO of the pet care startup. The seed funding round was led by Leap Venture Studio with participation from Mars Petcare Companion Fund, R/GA Ventures, Michelson Found Animals Foundation, and Cloyes Ventures.
Mavn launches its app to connect influencers with brands and provide paid experiences - Founded by Olivia Ormos, the Miami, Florida-based startup connects content creators with brands and other businesses.
Female founders seek remedies to lack of backers
“Pushing for gender equality in funding shouldn’t be a momentous thing to do, it’s just the first step towards building better companies and a better industry for us all.” - Michelle You, co-founder of Supercritical
Female founders take bigger slice of European VC - As of end of February, female-founded companies account for a larger share of overall European venture capital invested this year despite their share of deals remaining flat. Having raised just under €1 billion (about $1.1 billion) across 269 deals, companies founded or co-founded by women represent 24.4% of overall deal count and 19.4% of total capital invested in European startups. Female-only-founded startups account for 1.6% of overall capital invested.
Women’s & Family Health: Sumitovant Biopharma acquires women’s health pharma company Myovant Sciences for $1.7B - Myrtle Potter is the CEO of Sumitovant. Following the acquisition, the companies plan to combine their expertise, platforms, and resources to address unmet needs in women’s health and prostate cancer.
The tech helping women manage the menopause
“There’s so little understanding and education about the menopause. A lot of this is down to stigma and ageism, when actually it's just very natural.” - Debbie Dickinson, co-founder and CEO of Thermaband
Biomilq and the New Science of Artificial Breast Milk - Features Leila Strickland and Michelle Egger, co-founders of Biomilq, and Laura Katz, founder of Helaina, two of the multiple US-based startups working to produce lab-cultured breast milk.
“If you can breast-feed—do it. Great. But the reality is, a majority of parents cannot exclusively breast-feed. . . . And that’s not for lack of trying.” - Michelle Egger
Fashion: Khaite receives investment from Stripes as it plots store expansion - The New York luxury brand Khaite, founded by creative director Catherine Holstein, received an investment from US growth equity firm Stripes. The brand plans to open 10 stores in the next five years.
What I’m Reflecting On 💭
After the terrifying earthquakes, it’s women and girls in Turkey feeling the aftershocks
The women forced out of Iran: ‘Every act of resistance is a spark of hope’
Thank you for reading FemWealth! 🥰 If you enjoyed reading this issue, please share it with a friend. Have a lovely Sunday and an exciting week ahead!
Anamaria
Founder & Writer of FemWealth