💸 Esther Wojcicki's Tract Raises $7M to Power Up Peer-to-Peer Education Through Multimedia
FemWealth Issue #78
Happy Sunday, FemWealth Friends!
In the Spotlight ✨
Esther Wojcicki, a lifelong educator and mother to Anne Wojcicki (CEO of 23&Me) and Susan Wojcicki (CEO of YouTube) is the founder of Tract, a San Francisco-based startup builing an online community where kids teach kids through video in a “safe, moderated” fashion.
“Teachers are overworked and understaffed. Parents are busy. Kids are not getting prepared for future jobs. My goal with Tract is to help make it easy for anyone, anywhere to prepare their kids for success.” - Esther Wojcicki, co-founder of Tract
Tract’s mission is to unlock every child’s potential to become an impactful creator.
This week, the company has announced a $7 million seed funding round led by NEA, with participation from Bill Tai (Sangha Capital), Anne Wojcicki (23&Me), Susan Wojcicki (YouTube), Marc Pincus (Zynga), Dan Rosensweig (Chegg) a.o.
FemWealth Favourites ❤️
💸 Gameto Announces New Funding and Preclinical Development Partnerships with Leading Global Fertility Clinics - Co-founded and led by Dr. Dina Radenkovic, the Madrid and New York-based biotech startup using cell engineering to develop therapeutics for diseases of the female reproductive system has raised $17 million in fresh funding from Insight Partners, Future Ventures, Arcadia Investment Partners, Bold Capital Partners, Plum Alley, Myelin VC, TA Ventures, Gaingels, Korify Capital, and other existing investors. Also watch: Gameto Looks to Take On Menopause
“Infertility is one of the first manifestations of accelerated ovarian decline. I'm incredibly excited that Gameto's technology could enable much cheaper, safer, faster, and more effective egg freezing and IVF. Our program Fertilo could help give women the power to have families at our own pace, when and how we want to do so.” - Dr. Dina Radenkovic
💸 UK-based CBD Lifestyle Brand TRIP Adds $12M in Funding to Support the Company’s International Expansion - The startups is co-founded by Olivia Ferdi and her husband. Maria Raga, the former CEO of Depop, is among TRIP’s investors.
“Over the last few years the world’s attitude towards the importance of mental health has changed dramatically. Since discovering the power of CBD through an incredible personal experience, our mission has always been to share calm in the everyday chaos, with next-generation wellbeing products to power your lifestyle and help care for your mental health. Helping to open up conversations around stress and anxiety, we’re excited to create a community across the globe, harnessing the power of plants to find their calm.” - Olivia Ferdi
💸 Paris-based Nutropy bites into €2 million to make animal-free dairy a tastier reality - Founded by Nathalie Rolland and Maya Bendifallah, Nutropya is developing a new, more sustainable way to produce dairy products by leveraging innovative precision fermentation technology and traditional savoir-faire to create animal-free dairy products.
“As cheese lovers, we know the importance of cheese in our gastronomic culture and want to offer consumers a wide range of cheeses free of lactose and dietary cholesterol that are produced in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner.” - Nathalie Rolland, CEO of Nutropy
💸 Bloom Community Raises $2.5M in Seed Funding - The Oakland, CA-based a safe digital space for sex-positive, queer, and edge-of-culture communities is founded and led by Luna Ray. The company currently operates in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The funding round was led by Tuesday Capital, with participation from YCombinator, Precursor Ventures, Behind Genius Ventures and angel investors, including Claire Hughes Johnson.
💸 Transdermal Diagnostics Picks Up £1.1M for Its Needle-free Continuous Glucose Monitor - Dr. Adelina Ilie is one of Transdermal Diagnotics’ founders and a co-inventor of the wearable patch that allows people with diabetes to painlessly monitor their blood glucose levels.
💪 3 lessons from a serial founder - By Michelle You, co-founder and CEO of Supercritical, previously co-founder of Songkick
“Every founder will tell you they have found the recipe for success. Second time around, my biggest lesson is to not be afraid of doing things your own way.” - Michelle You
VC: 💸 EQT Growth launches biggest first-time European growth fund of €2.4bn - Features Carolina Brochado, Partner at EQT
👏 GGV Capital’s Jenny Lee Rises As One Of The World’s Best Venture Capital Investors - Features veteran venture capitalist Jenny Lee, Managing Partner at GGV Capital. Earlier this year, she raised $2.5 billion across four funds, the highest sum ever in the firm’s 22-year history. Lee has been named by Forbes as one of the world’s top 100 venture capitalists for 11 years in a row.
“If I can raise $10 million per call, I’ll do it every day.” - Jenny Lee
👩🏻💻 Why this consumer investor is switching VC firms after making partner last year - Features Maria Salamanca, one of the few Latina investors at a partner level in the US. She has announced that she’s leaving Unshackled Ventures, a pre-seed venture firm backing immigrant founders, to become a partner at Ulu Ventures, a seed-stage firm focused on data-driven decision-making and diversity, where she will focus on building the firm’s consumer strategy.
👩🏻💻 VC Ann Miura-Ko is looking to help more students answer the question: Is this idea big enough? - Floodgates’s co-founding partner Ann Miura-Ko has co-developed a new program, Reactor, to help student teams develop an understanding of what big ideas look like. | Also listen to 🎧 Floodgate’s Ann Miura-Ko Asks, “Is This Idea Big Enough?”
🎧 La Famiglia VC Judith Dada on Providing Excellent Service As An Investor and How La Famiglia Curated Their Personal Brand - Listen to Judith Dada in conversation with Paige Finn Doherty on the Seed To Harvest podcast.
🐦 Tweets of the week in VC:
Women’s Health: 👶 I took an international trip with my frozen eggs to learn about the fertility industry - Anna Louie Sussman, a New York-based journalist covering gender, economics, and reproduction, shares her experience of moving her frozen eggs across borders.
👩🏽🦳 The $15 Billion Menopause Industry’s Next Target Is TikTok - Female creators over 40 are trying to educate their peers about menopause.
Career & Leadership: 👩🏻🚀 ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti becomes first European female ISS commander - The Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will officially become commander of the International Space Station later this month. The Station’s commander is responsible for the performance and well-being of the crew on orbit, maintaining effective communication with the teams on Earth, and coordinating the crew response in case of emergencies. Cristoforetti is the third woman to serve in this role, following American astronauts Sunita Williams and Shannon Walker.
“I am humbled by my appointment to the position of commander and look forward to drawing on the experience I’ve gained in space and on Earth to lead a very capable team in orbit.” - Samantha Cristoforetti
🎯 Women workers hit post-COVID jobs milestone - In the US, the proportion of employed women between the ages of 25-54 is above the level seen before the pandemic.
👉🏼 Stop Using ‘Executive Presence’ as a Reason to Not Promote Women - Features Minda Harts, author, professor, and CEO of The Memo, a career development platform for women of color; and Tracy Fuller, an executive coach and the Managing Director of COMPIO.
“Historically, dominant culture has had the privilege of defining ‘executive presence’ for the masses.”
“Having more representation around the decision-making table will help to eliminate these biases and old ideologies of how the workplace works.” - Minda Harts
World: 🌍 African leaders are questioning “microcredit” and other norms excluding women from trade - Women run most small and medium scale businesses in Africa. However, they have a $42 billion gap in funding versus men. Female leaders on the continent are pushing for change.
“Why are we pegged to microcredit, small amounts that don’t really make a difference? How does a woman grow and develop her business.” - Jewel Taylor, Liberia’s vice president
🇵🇰 Pakistan’s First Female Architect Delivers Bamboo-Built Relief Shelters to Flooded Countryside - Features Yasmeen Lari, 81, the cofounder of the nonprofit Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which is making bamboo huts for Pakistanis affected by the recent by floods.
Music & Culture: 🎶 Björk has a new, podcast series: Sonic Symbolism
Fashion: 👀 Why these Gen Z fashion critics are ripping up the rulebook
👗 Can a Rwandan manufacturing facility boost the ‘Made in Africa’ movement? - Features Maryse Mbonyumutwa, co-founder and CEO of Pink Mango, who wants to build a new destination for African and international luxury brands looking to manufacture fashion on the continent.
“There are roughly 1.4 billion people in Africa and for the moment we are still dressed by other continents. Even if we are not producing for the export market, just producing for [brands in Africa] is needed.” - Maryse Mbonyumutwa
👱🏽♀️ The Inventor Of The Scrunchie Left A Lasting Mark On Fashion - RIP Rommy Hunt Revson, creator of the scrunchie, ‘one of fashion’s most memorable accessories.’
What I’m Reflecting On 💭
The queen could have redressed Britain’s colonial sins. She didn’t.
“There was no apology, no regret, no shame, no reparation, no moral responsibility or reckoning by Queen Elizabeth II over the crimes that were committed in the crown’s name. Instead, the late queen applied a more cynical, if effective, approach that refashioned her as the symbol of a modern, friendly Britain, even as the institution she presided over remained — and still remains — as conservative as ever.”
Why the lack of diversity in drug industry leadership is hurting women and people of color
“A lack of diversity in healthcare leadership is directly related to the lack of progress on women’s health challenges.”
Failure to launch - Rebecca Jennings of Vox investigates the misconduct-and-harassment-allegations against Launch House, a Web3 cohort-based company that promised young tech founders community.
“What the women didn’t know was that the community that Launch House had established was one that could be hostile to them — one that seemed to prioritize money, status, and clout over anything a community might actually need or want, and that could ostracize them if they spoke out against it. Rather than simply an example of yet another mismanaged business full of Los Angeles dreamers, Launch House is a case study in how “community” operates when profit and attention appear to be its main motives.”
Also read Launch House’s community reacts to misconduct and harassment allegations - Natasha Mascarenhas and Rebecca Szkutak of TechCrunch shed light on the reactions of Launch House’s investors/LPs, staff and the larger community.
Thank you for reading FemWealth! 🥰 Wish you a relaxing Sunday and an exciting week ahead!
Anamaria
Founder & Writer of FemWealth