Femstreet Issue #52 - Weekly Newsletter on Women in Tech & VC
Issue #52
Your weekly newsletter on women in tech, venture and entrepreneurship
🔥This is issue No. 52. The last issue had a 53% open rate and the top two articles were:
Unsolicited Career Advice from Caye Hurtado, Investor at Balderton Capital
Fundraising While Pregnant: How to Raise $20 Million for Your Startup
Femstreet
Partnership Opportunities
Femstreet is maturing as a central hub for news on women in venture and female founders and got some got some big things in the works such as first regular meetups, and finding ways (online and off) to connect investors and female founders -- intelligently and often. Email for partnership and sponsorship inquiries and I will send you more reader stats (just hit send, it's already filled out).
Femstreet 2.0
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Insights
From the Investor
They run the show: Arlan Hamilton, Melinda Gates, and more
Could 2018 be a watershed for women entrepreneurs?Pioneering investors, women architects, and the first-ever female founders survey anchor Fast Company’s October issue.
Hamilton is now the first Black woman who is not an entertainer or athlete to be on the cover of Fast Company. In the business magazine's October issue, Hamilton talks about why she created a $36m dollar venture fund for Black women founders. Fast Company
AND ...the Backstage Capital jobs site is now live.
Suddenly, Black VCs Gaining Profile
A small but growing group of minority investors have seized on more favorable conditions to raise their own funds. WSJ
The Summer of Venture Capital Promotions Isn’t Over Yet
Early-stage venture firm Canaan Partners has added two principals — Laura Chau and Byron Ling — to its consumer tech team. Fortune
Mary Meeker, the ‘Queen of the Internet,’ Is Leaving Kleiner Perkins to Start Her Own Fund
The “Queen of the Internet” will soon have her own investment firm. Three other investors at Kleiner — Mood Rowghani, Noah Knauf and Juliet de Baubigny — will join the new firm, which has not yet settled on a name. The New York Times
Is Pattern Recognition Killing Innovation?
VCs can lean on pattern recognition at the cost of innovation. Wonder Ventures founder Darya Henig Shaked and Diversity@Work founder Keshet Bachan have a solution, sharing 3 tips for tech investors to change that today. Forbes
Melinda Gates: Why I’m betting on diversity
With Pivotal Ventures, Melinda Gates is applying lessons learned from two decades of philanthropy to venture funding. Fast Company
Chloe Capital is seeking out underrepresented voices in the tech industry
Chloe Capital is launching a national tour focused on raising capital for women-led innovation companies. Startups can apply here for pitching / funding opportunities.
Clara Lindh Bergendorff, Investor at Firstminute Capital replies to Justin Kan's piece and shares musings on B2B vs. B2C vs. B2B2C Medium
Angela Tran Kingyens, GP at Version One Venture is reflecting on 5 years in VC: How to survive the marathon Version One
The Beauty of Food - Emilie Spire, Investor at Felix Capital, on what we can learn about Beauty trends by observing Food trends. Medium
From the Operator
Kegel trainer startup Elvie is launching a smaller, smarter, hands-free breast pump
Elvie, a London-based startup known best for its connected Kegel trainer, is jumping into the breast pump business with a new $480 hands-free system you can slip into your bra. The Elvie Pump is a cordless, hands-free, closed-system, rechargeable electric pump designed by former Dyson engineers. It can hold up to 5 oz. from each breast in a single use. TechCrunch
5 Ways To Hack Your Product Career
Hopefully, these five hacks from senior product leaders who landed leadership roles as VPs or C-level executives help you break through and thrive as a product builder. Forbes
Ready, Set, Raise is a new accelerator built for women by women
Female Founders Alliance (FFA), a relatively new network of female startup founders, has built a free, non-dilutive five-week accelerator for women by women. Called Ready, Set, Raise, its goal is to help more female-founded startups raise VC through workshops, 1-on-1 coaching, legal clinics, communications and speech coaching and more. TechCrunch
Success in 60 Seconds: Katrina Lake On How To Find Your Career Path Forbes
Victoria's Secret model hits back at trolls for questioning her ability to code
'Programmers can come in all shapes, sizes, genders and races' The Independent
Karlie Kloss Gets Candid About Politics, Her Relationship, and Women in Tech Vogue
Listen to Jessica Alba on How She’s Teaching Her Daughters About Confidence and Self-Acceptance from The Thrive Global Podcast with Arianna Huffington in Podcasts.
Meet the Harvard MBA who turned a side hustle into a quest to redefine the term 'mogul' for women
Tiffany Pham was still in her twenties when she launched Mogul, a social media platform and website for millennial women, which now has 18 million users in 196 countries. In her new book, "You Are a Mogul," Pham shares what she went through to build the start-up and the career advice she has for other aspiring entrepreneurs. CNBC
If You're Networking Mostly With Women, You're Leaving Money on The Table
While women-only groups provide support and opportunities, female founders should not necessarily only network with other ladies. Forbes
Research
Quartz analyzed the top female founders to understand why their companies are worth just 20% of men’s
Quartz selected the top 351 male- and female-led startups since 2013 by valuation, fundraising, and growth. Quartz
How Discrimination Against Female Doctors Hurts Patients HBR
Put your money where your mouth is: how investment is reinforcing the gender gap in tech Tech Nation
#BuiltbyWomen Europe
Norwegian Blueye Robotics aims to develop and sell the world's finest drone for underwater exploration.
The Danish startup Lix is digitising the textbook marketis by building an e-learning platform that is safe from piracy.
Testlio is a Estonia and US based testing company that helps businesses deliver amazing customer experiences by providing a community of highly vetted testers and an end-to-end QA management platform.
📆 Events
Elizabeth Galbut from SoGal Ventures runs a free monthly Zoom webinar for people interested in working in venture capital. You can sign up for a slot by using her Calendly link
- September 17th in Stockholm: Startup Sweden Meetup with a focus on female founders
- September 18th in London: Deeptech Tuesday - Female Deeptech Founders
- September 20th in London: Startup F*ckups with Hiroki Takeuchi, CEO & Founder of GoCardless
- September 25th in London: Fairer Funding Now: How Do We Make Funding More Diverse
- September 27th in London: Mumpreneur & Female Entrepreneur Networking
- October 1st in London: Vestpod: Investing part II! The Female Only Workshop Night
- October 2nd in London: BeautyTech London: Beauty Founders (Treatwell) & Investors (Felix Capital) share their learnings
- October 2nd in London: Breaking Myths and Barriers in Venture Capital
- October 4th in LA: FounderMade's Consumer Discovery Show - Get a 25% discount with the code FEMSTREET25
- October 24th: Voulez & EY Pitch Clinic for Female Founders
In case you missed it ...
Here are 536 women in the UK who could speak at your tech event.
Investor Insights
‘How valuable is your MBA?’ by Caye Hurtado of Balderton Capital
Tara Reeves of LocalGlobe shares What this VC has learned since coming back from maternity leave
Co-founder of Diversity VC shares her seed investing framework
10 British VCs To Start Sharing Diversity Data On All The Startups They Meet
Female Founders Insights
How to Secure VC Funding When You're the Only Woman in the Room
5 Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Acquired Their First 1000 Customers
What I wish I knew about fundraising as a first-time founder
Fundraising While Pregnant: How to Raise $20 Million for Your Startup
Research
There are very real differences in how women and men (and VCs) view entrepreneurship
Finally, Evidence That Diversity Improves Financial Performance
Boston Consulting Group finds female-led startups raise less, earn more
Comments, questions, tips? Send me a note!
Until next Sunday,
Sarah
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