💸 Greencode Ventures Debutes to Back European Digital Climate Tech Startups
FemWealth Issue #125
Hi FemWealth Friends,
In the Spotlight 💸
Co-founded by Dr. Terhi Vapola and Kaisa Hietala, Finnish VC firm Greencode Ventures launched with an initial €40 million first close, aiming to back Europe’s startups targeting solutions that can have an impact within the 10-year lifespan of its fund.
The firm is targeting a final close of €60-100 million. Its Limited Partners (LPs) include Business Finland Venture Capital, Nordea Life Assurance Finland, Pohjola Insurance, OP Life Assurance Company, a.o.
The fund will write cheques up to €2 million for seed and Series A rounds in Europe-based digital climate tech companies.
Female-led carbon removal marketplace Supercritical is part of the firm’s portfolio.
FemWealth Favourites ❤️
Lighter Capital raises $130M credit facility to ignite revenue-based financing for startups - Led by CEO Melissa Widner, Lighter Capital provides non-dilutive funding to technology startups. The company secured $130 million in capital commitments for a credit facility. It is backed by existing investors Apollo Global Management, i80 Group, Invest Victoria, and iPartners.
Mediafly Raises $80 Million to Extend Revenue Enablement to the Enterprise - Co-led by Mary Shea, Mediafly, a Chicago-based revenue enablement startup, secured $80 million in new funding. BIP Ventures led the round, joined by Boathouse Capital.
Moxie raises $15.7M to make opening medspas easier - Emma Gilsanz is a co-founder and Strategy Lead of the US-based startup that makes it easier to open medspas with its “business-in-a-box” model (includes coaching, access to discounted supplies, and an EHR/POS software suite). SignalFire and Boulton & Watt led the company’s new funding round.
Trellis Announces $15 Million Investment, With Plans to Launch Generative AI Offerings - Trellis, a Los Angeles startup founded and led by Nicole Clark, provides an AI-powered research assistant to help lawyers find relevant legal documents and information within state trial court data. It secured a $15 million Series B round led by Top Tier Capital Partners, with additional support from Headline, Okapi Venture Capital, Calibrate Ventures, Craft Ventures, Revel Partners, and Earthlink founder Sky Dayton.
Voxel uses computer vision to increase workplace safety - Co-founded by Harishma Dayanidhi, the San Francisco-based computer vision startup focused on workplace safety, raised $12 million in strategic funding led by manufacturer Rite-Hite, with participation from returning investors Eclipse Ventures and MTech.
Teale, your mental health companion at work, raises $11 million - Co-founded and led by Julia Néel Biz, the Paris-based startup provides a mental health platform for employees and enables HR managers to prevent burnout or quiet quitting. Teale secured a Series A funding round led by Alter Equity and Bpifrance’s Digital Venture fund and joined by existing investors Isai and Evolem.
“Our mission is really to ask ourselves what we can do to democratize mental health, destigmatize this topic and really put technology, data and science at the service of mental health, obviously to help employees, but also to build healthier organizations.” - Julia Néel Biz, Teale’ co-founder and CEO (via TechCrunch)
Web3 marketing firm DeForm raises $4.6 million in seed funding - Co-founded by Catherine Chang, DeForm, a San Francisco-based crypto-native CRM for marketing, secured $4.6 million in seed funding. Kindred Ventures led the round, with participation from Elad Gil, Scalar Capital, A.Capital, Alchemy Ventures, and others.
TeamSense helps manufacturers keep in touch with deskless workers - Founded by Sheila Stafford (CEO) and Alison (Roy-Ting) Teegarden (COO), TeamSense is an app-free platform designed for hourly employees in the manufacturing sector. It enables them to manage attendance, talk to managers, and access company resources through SMS. The Seattle-based company raised $4 million led by Bonfire Ventures with support from Operator Collective.
Refiberd sews up $3.4M seed round to use its AI to tackle textile waste (TechCrunch+ $) - Co-founded by Sarika Bajaj (CEO) and Tushita Gupta (CTO), the California-based textile waste sorting company, raised $3.4 million in seed funding. True Wealth Ventures led the round, with additional support from Better Ventures, the Schmidt Family Foundation, Fashion for Good, and others.
Nevia Bio Secures $3M in Seed Funding to Advance Machine Learning in Women’s Health Diagnostics - Co-founded and led by Dr. Inbal Zafir-Lavie, Israel-based Nevia Bio (previously Gina Life) specializes in developing machine learning algorithms capable of identifying early indicators of women’s health issues, such as ovarian cancer. It raised $3.1 million in seed funding to accelerate its mission to revolutionize the early detection of diseases affecting women. Backers include MindUP Digital Health Incubator, Pitango HealthTech, Alive Israel HealthTech Fund, and Technion investment arms.
AI-powered BeFake is a real app, not a BeReal parody…and it has $3M in funding - Co-founded by Kristen Garcia Dumont and Tracy Lane, BeFake is an AI-augmented social network. The company announced a $3 million seed funding round led by Khosla Ventures and including Next Coast Ventures, Maveron Ventures, Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, and WS Investments.
Accel-backed Agave lets construction software talk to one another - Co-founded by Samantha Zhang, Agave is an API for construction industry software. It raised $2.9 million in seed funding led by Accel.
SNERPA Power raises €2.2M for energy decarbonisation - Founded by industry veterans Íris Baldursdóttir (CEO) and Eyrún Linnet (CTO), the Reykjavík, Iceland-based energy services provider offers SaaS solutions to help power-intensive industries reduce CO2 emissions and costs. It raised €2.2 million ($2.4 million) in a funding round co-led by Crowberry Capital and BackingMinds.
OneID secures £1M for bank-verified digital identification in UK - Led by CEO Paula Sussex, the UK-based bank-verified digital identification service nabbed £1 million from ACF Investors.
This Scientist-Entrepreneur Is Brewing Prescription Drug Ingredients Like They Were Beer - Features Stanford professor Christina Smolke, founder of Antheia, a synthetic biology company that recently completed its first scaled production of thebaine, a key ingredient for several essential drugs
Finance: Why PE firm Alitheia is banking on women in Africa - Features Tokunboh Ishmael, co-founder of Alitheia IDF and an early investor in the African tech space
“We are not just addressing the imbalance of funding to female founders, but also the imbalance of products and services to ensure that women can access them. We want them to scale, and help inject gender consciousness into the founding teams, the management teams, the boards and the companies.” - Tokunboh Ishmael, co-founder of Alitheia IDF
A $43 Billion Value Investor’s Winning Formula For Buying Unloved Foreign Stocks - Features Sarah Ketterer, CEO of Causeway Capital Management, a Los Angeles-based firm managing $43 billion
Politics: Democracy Is Feminist - An excellent essay celebrating the 50th anniversary of Women’s Equality Day
“Women’s Equality Day was initially a way to express the belief that (…) a democracy in which "half the population is subordinated—politically, socially, economically—is not a true democracy at all." 50 years later, we must be clear that women’s autonomy, well-being, and rights are inextricably tied to the integrity and durability of our democratic systems. […]
As we trace the 50-year arc of Women’s Equality Day, among the lessons we might glean today: women’s voices and votes surely matter, transformative change is possible—and the fight for robust democracy is, at its core, a central and urgent feminist goal.” - Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of NYU Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center
Medicine: Female surgeons have lower rates of long-term adverse outcomes than their male peers, study finds - A recent study published by JAMA Surgery shows that patients treated by female surgeons have lower rates of adverse postoperative long-term outcomes compared to similar patients treated by male surgeons.
“It’s not because females are technically better surgeons. It’s because somehow women are (…) preparing patients for surgery better (…).” - Cassandra Kelleher, an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and pediatric surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital
Sports: The True, Vaulting Courage Of Simone - Simone Biles made sports history by establishing a record 8th all-around US Gymnastics Championship title.
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Until next Sunday,
Anamaria
Founder & Writer of FemWealth