💸 Co-led by Amy Duffuor and Johanna Wolfson, Azolla Ventures Launches $239M Blended Fund
FemWealth Issue #118
Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
In the Spotlight 💸
Co-founded by General Partners Johanna Wolfson and Amy Duffuor, Azolla Ventures - an impact-first, early-stage climate tech investor (launched by the nonprofit Prime Coalition in 2021) - announced a $239 million blended fund ($80 million in philanthropic capital with $159 million in impact-aligned investment capital) that pairs investors with philanthropic partners.
The fund will focus on investing in early-stage hardware startups with outsized impact if their tech scales, mostly at pre-seed and seed stages.
“We have a lot of solutions out there that are supported by finance-first investors, but what are we leaving on the table by not bringing that impact-first mindset?
That’s what we’re here to identify, nurture and support.” - General Partner Johanna Wolfson via Axios
Azolla Ventures’ investment criteria are (1) Impact, (2) Additionality, and (3) Commercial potential.
Its portfolio includes Heaten, Funga, Sitration, Carbon Reform, Calcarea, and Scalvy.
Read more: An ambitious climate fund aims to break the mold (Axios)
Investor Spotlight
FemWealth Favourites ❤️
Startups: Defacto gets new credit facility to provide instant financing to small companies - Co-founded by Morgan O’hana, French startup Defacto closed a securitization fund of up to €167 million ($183m) to provide short-term loans to small and medium enterprises via an embedded, API-first approach. Citi and Viola Credit act as lenders.
Crossbow raises Series A funds to develop cancer antibodies - Geraldine Paulus is a co-founder and VP of Corp Dev and Ops at Crossbow Therapeutics. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based developer of cancer antibody therapies raised $80 million in Series A funding, co-led by MPM BioImpact and Pfizer Ventures, with participation from Polaris Partners, BVF Partners, Eli Lilly, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, and Mirae Asset Capital.
Infant formula company Bobbie takes in $70M to acquire Nature’s One - Co-founded by Laura Modi (CEO) and Sarah Hardy (COO), the US-based organic infant formula company closed on a $70 million Series C round (led by PowerPlant Partners) to acquire Nature’s One.
Gates Foundation and others, Belgian agtech firm Aphea.bio raises €70 million - Co-founded and led by Isabel Vercauteren, the agtech company focused on food security and ensuring a safe and healthy food chain, secured €70 million in a Series C funding round. Innovation Industries and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation led the round, joined by Korys Investments, SFPIM, BNP Paribas Fortis, and existing investors ECBF, Astanor, and AIF.
Bootstrapped since 2009, IT management company InvGate raises $35M - Co-founded by Liliana Gary (President), InvGate is a SaaS platform offering information technology service management and IT asset management products. It raised $35 million in a growth round led by Riverwood Capital with participation from Endeavor Catalyst.
Allonnia raises $30M in Series A to accelerate biotech - Co-founded and led by Nicole Richards, the Boston-based bioremediation company focused on waste management secured $30 million in Series A extension funding.
Wildfire detection startup Pano AI extends its $20M Series A with another $17M - Founded and led by Sonia Kastner, the US-based company uses deep learning AI and computer vision to automatically detect, verify and classify wildfire events in real-time. It raised a Series A extension round led by Valor Equity Partners, including strategic investors T-Mobile Ventures and Salesforce.
Affect Therapeutics Secures $16M for Digital Addiction Recovery Platform - Co-founded and led by Kristin Muhlner, the US-based addiction treatment startup raised $16 million in Series A funding. Artis Ventures led the round, with participation from AlleyCorp, CityLight, LifeArc Ventures, Samsung Next, and What If Ventures.
French-based femtech Sonio raises $14 million to kick off commercial development of its AI prenatal screening solution in the US - Co-founded and led by Cécile Brosset, Sonio provides an AI-powered prenatal screening solution that automates ultrasound reporting. It raised a $14 million funding round led by Cross Border Impact Ventures and Elaia, with participation from French Tech Seed, OneRagtime, and returning angel investors.
Topanga banishes single-use plastics from your Grubhub order - Co-founded and led by Page Soulé Schul, Topanga partnered with Grubhub to offer a reusable container program across US college campuses. The company raised a $3.6 million funding round led by Amasia, with participation from Struck Capital and Wonder Ventures.
Insurtech hepster raises €10 million to focus on profitability and sustainable growth - Hanna (Schäfer) Bachmann is a co-founder and CRO of the German embedded insurtech startup. The company raised €10 million in a Series B funding round (equity and debt financing) from Element Ventures, Seventure Partners, and Claret Capital Partners.
Passes Raises USD9M in Seed Funding - Founded and led by Lucy Guo, Passes, an invite-only paywall platform for creators, raised $9 million in seed funding. Multicoin Capital led the round which included Florida Funders, Anti Fund, Gradient Ventures, Craft Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and 11:11 Media.
Smartlens receives $6.1M for contact lens for glaucoma detection - Sevda Agaoglu is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Smartlens, a Mountain View, California-based ophthalmic tech provider. The company raised $6.1 million in a Series A funding round led by Ambit Health Ventures, with participation from Stanford University, Graphene Ventures, Sophia Innovation Capital, Plaisance Capital Management, 3E Bioventures, Boutique Venture Partners, and Wilson Sonsini Investments.
Wealth tech startup OneAdvisory raises $4.3M (Axios Pro $) - The Miami-based wealth tech startup, co-founded by Madalyn Armijo, raised $4.3m in seed funding. Investors include Fika, Twelve Below, Expa, CoFound, and Valor Equity.
Hello Pediatrics Closes $3 Million Series B Led by Sequoia Health, Dialectic Capital - Led by Lucy Janoyan, the US-based virtual pediatric practice raised $3 million in Series B funding co-led by Sequoia Health Strategies and Dialectic Capital.
Adult incontinence brand Attn: Grace raises $2M (Axios Pro $) - Co-founded and co-led by Alexandra Fennell and Mia Abbruzzese, Attn: Grace, a Boston-based maker of female incontinence products, raised a $2 million seed extension led by For Later. Flybridge, Kapor Capital, Portfolia, Ingeborg Investments, and Commonwealth also participated.
Wavely Diagnostics raises $1.35M for its tech to detect ear infections with a smartphone - Co-founded and led by Arna Ionescu Stoll, Wavely Diagnostics, a Seattle-based startup offering an app for diagnosing pediatric ear infections, raised $1.35 million in seed funding. Robin Hood Ventures led the round, joined by WRF Capital, Ambit Health Fund, WXR Fund, Wealthing, Healthtech Capital, and Princeton Alumni Angels.
Tapping into the time honoured tradition of carpooling, Spain’s Hoop Carpool raises €1.2 million and sets its sights on new market entries - The corporate carpooling platform, co-founded by Paloma Martín Benito (CEO) and Andrea García Torrijos (CSO), raised €1.2 million in an investment round led by Ship2B Ventures.
Berlin-based textile upcycling startup Re-Fresh Global raises €1.1 million in pre-seed round - Co-founded by Victoria Kanar (CEO) and Revital Nadiv Zivan, Re-Fresh Global transforms discarded clothing/textiles into new raw materials, including nanocellulose, bioethanol, and multifunctional fibers. The startup raised €1.1 million in a pre-seed round from Earlybird, Serpentine.vc, and angel investors.
AI: Clibrain joins the generative AI race with Lince, an LLM optimized for Spanish - Co-founded and led by Elena González-Blanco, Madrid-based AI startup Clibrain, released Lince Zero, a Spanish-instruction tuned LLM.
Women’s Health: UK femtech Daye launches virtual clinic for period pain - Valentina Milanova’s Daye launched the world’s first virtual period pain clinic aiming to support women to get a faster diagnosis of what’s causing their period pain.
AI may be key to solving the most neglected women's health issues - Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and computational medicine to extract findings provides new insights into pregnancy complications, endometriosis, maternal mortality, breast and cervical cancers, and other women’s health issues.
History: Men are hunters, women are gatherers. That was the assumption. A new study upends it.
“I think that next to the myth that God made a woman from man’s rib to be his helper, the myth that man is the hunter and woman is the gatherer is probably the second most enduring myth that naturalizes the inferiority of women.” - Kimberly Hamlin, a professor of history at Miami University in Oxford
What I’m Reflecting On
What if We Could Get Rid of Menopause? (WSJ $)
“We are so ingrained in thinking that menopause is inevitable. That it’s just sort of something that has to happen.” - Dr. Zev Williams, an associate professor of women’s health and fertility expert at Columbia University
How the VC CV formula is holding back diversity
“For an industry where women only represent 15% of GPs, a preference for male-dominated degrees does not bode well for a gender-equal talent pipeline. It’s baking today’s biases into tomorrow’s leadership.” - Eleanor Kaye, Executive Director at Newton Venture Program
Allyship: the missing link between female funders and female founders
“Many female investors advocate and support female founders, but in a strictly paternalist and conformist way, just like their male counterparts, which ends up just perpetuating the same flawed system.” - Emma Rees, co-founder and CEO of Deployed.
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Until next Sunday,
Anamaria
Founder & Writer of FemWealth