Femstreet Issue No. 61 - Weekly Newsletter on Women in Tech, Entrepreneurship and Diversity in Venture Capital

Issue #61
Your Weekly Newsletter on Women in Tech, Entrepreneurship and Diversity in Venture Capital

This is issue No. 61. The last issue had a 49% open rate and the top two articles were:

• Six Rising Stars In Venture And How To Network With Them

• Mastering Growth Economics: What $100M Startups Do Differently

Insights

From the Investor

How can you as VCs early in our careers work smarter to gain exposure and expertise on boards…short of waiting 30 years? Jessica Lin, Co-founder and GP at Work-Bench, on Growth Hacking Board Experience as a VC.

There’s been a lot of confusion in the ecosystem about what Seed and Series A means today — both in Europe and in the US. LocalGlobe VC put aside their preconceived ideas and alongside Atomico and Dealroom decided to look at the data to answer the key questions founders have. Suzanne Ashman, Investor at LocalGlobe on why Seed has come of age.

One-year-old Bracket Capital is already an investor in Lyft, Bird, Airbnb and Coinbase. Bracket is led by Yalda Aoukar and Jihan Bowes-Little, co-founders and managing directors based in Doha, Qatar and Los Angeles, respectively. The two relative unknowns, in venture at least, have had successful careers at private equity groups and hedge funds, recently opting to steer their careers in different directions.

Just in case you missed it...These are the Forbes 30 Under 30 in the category Venture Capital in the US.

Nikita from NTT published two golden Q&A's with fantastic women in venture, Seedcamp's Natasha Lytton and Pelion Venture Partners' Holly Preslar.

For some female investors, meeting with male founders can mean weathering unwanted advances or pointed questions about their role and experience. Wait, is this a date? Horror stories from female investors working with a male founder.

Kara Nortman, Partner at Upfront Ventures, on the Future of Work, and the Future of Workers. Kara joined Ben Perreau from SYPartners on the Leading Into the Unknown podcast to discuss the importance of founder - funder chemistry, elevating the humanity in VC, and supporting diversity in tech.

Microsoft names finalists in its $4M Female Founders Competition. M12, along with EQT Ventures and SVB Financial Group, launched the Female Founders Competition in July, which will award two women-led companies $2 million each in funding. These are the two winners among 10 finalists that get access to tech resources and mentoring.

Why Serena Williams Wants To Invest In Female-Run Start-Ups. Williams, who’s invested in nearly 30 different companies so far, also said that she’s aware that the rate of investment in women of color’s companies is significantly smaller than even that 2 percent. The mother of one said she’s determined to change that statistic.

Melinda Gates: What #MeToo Meant For Venture Capitalists

Looking for a job in VC? Our friends at Project A’s investment team in Berlin are hiring from entry-level to partnership.

From the Operator

Whoop Whoop, since November 19th is WOMEN’S ENTREPRENEURSHIP DAY, Femstreet added some extra pieces of content from women entrepreneurs and features more female-founded startups than usual.

How smiling and starting all over can save a company from falling. 5 years later: Touchland. The errors, learnings and secrets of a company that went from a very strong start, to being on the edge, and to finally crazy ramp-up.

On a maternity leave as a startup founder - The journey of refocusing life. Yana Vlatchkova, Founder of Swipes, shares her story from a founder to a full-time mom for one year. To make space for both dreams — life as a founder and life as a parent, Yana had to resolve a few problems and to find the solutions fast, as they were expecting a baby boy in 8 months.

Why female founders need to be part of a business community. Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice president for Europe, the Middle Eastand Africa, on why she believes women are sometimes being held back by who they know — or don't know.

Who is your favourite female founder in enterprise software? Meet Jennifer Tejada, the secret weapon of one of Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing enterprise software startups. PagerDuty is now a so-called unicorn, after raising $90 million in September that brought its valuation to $1.3 billion. Another reason you’re likely to start hearing more about PagerDuty is its CEO of three years, Jennifer Tejada, who is rare in the world of enterprise startups because of her gender but whose marketing background makes her even more of an anomaly — and an asset.

5 questions to ask before quitting your job to start a company. Many people fantasize about quitting their office jobs to start their own venture.

Three Female Entrepreneurs Share Some Real Talk on Starting Your Own Business.

How To Do Smarter Estimations: Estimations are especially important when it comes to running a viable business, in particular when you’re a tech company developing one or more software products. The success of your tech business depends on it.

"Just strap in, hold on, and go for it." A day in the life of startup founder Laura Lambert, founder of London-based independent jewelry brand Fenton & Co.

Preethi Kasireddy, Co-founder, CEO and Blockchain Engineer of TrueStory, shares a fantastic explainer on distributed consensus in Let’s take a crack at understanding distributed “consensus”.

The Key To A Killer Elevator Pitch Is Not Pitching. If your startup were a person, does your elevator pitch adequately capture his/her personality? The key to an enticing elevator pitch is to borrow the same method we use to introduce our friends.​

...And Elsewhere

A reading list for men who care about feminism. The Wing swoops into women’s history with a new podcast: No Man’s Land. Women who wear plus sizes spend 20 cents on the dollar to what women who wear straight sizes spend on clothing. Dia&Co Raises $40 Million for Plus-Size Fashion. The Significance of Michelle Obama’s Fertility Story.

Research

A bot now tells Financial Times reporters if they’re only quoting men. The Financial Times is automatically warning its journalists if their articles quote too many men, in an attempt to force writers to look for expert women to include in their pieces.

It has been a year since the #MeToo movement went viral. But how do I make my CEO pay attention to this issue? How do I convince my CEO that we need to invest sufficient resources in preventing harassment? Convincing CEOs to Make Harassment Prevention a Priority.

The Body Series: How Technology Is Transforming Women’s Healthcare. Femstreet is obsessed with the category of fertility. From "digital" birth control to a wearable breast pump, the women’s health market is gearing up to see an unprecedented wave of innovation. Y Combinator leads with 15 investments in women’s health startups over the last 5 years. CB Insights explored the current landscape and what technologies are taking off.

"Oh, honey, your numbers look great. Who did them for you?" Unfortunately, it is still that bad in 2018...Read more in the exclusive Women Entrepreneurship Report: Hundreds of Female Founders Speak Out on Ambition, Politics, and #MeToo. To fully understand the female entrepreneurial experience in 2018, Inc. and Fast Company, asked women who have started all kinds of companies just how they do it.

#BuiltbyWomen Europe

London-based retail tech SaaS platform Mercaux has closed a £3.5m Series A funding round led by European VC fund Nauta Capital. As Nauta Capital announces its investment, they discuss what attracted them to the company and the evolution of the retail industry.

London-based Raremark is a free online service in rare disease, which makes scientific and medical knowledge accessible and understandable for patients and carers.

Warsaw-based Ulala Chef is a marketplace where clients meet professional chefs to throw private dinner parties at home.

Hamburg-based Enyway is an energy marketplace where green energy producers sell directly to consumers.

London-based Scoro is developing a comprehensive work management solution for professional and creative services.

Have you heard about cell-based meat? Companies like Memphis Meats (US) and Meatable (NL) are making meat from stem cells. The female-founded and London-based HigherSteaks is about providing you with that juicy, tender and delicious meat you love but without harming our health, planet and animals.

Tired of boring high street jewellery? Motley London is a new e-commerce jewellery brand with an innovative model, collaborating with top fine jewellery designers and cutting out the middleman to offer striking original designs at an affordable price. And this festive season, because Motley London have just launched, they’re offering a 10% discount with the code CHRISTMAS10.

📆 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.

- November 19th in London: Women's Entrepreneurship Day - Cocktails and Carbs at Wayra UK

- November 20th in London: The Female Financial Dialogue #Finimized

- November 22nd in London: Women in AI, WaiTALK AI & Healthcare

- November 26th in London: London 2018 Tech Inclusion

- November 28th in Berlin: The Marketplace Conference 2018, Speedinvest and Point Nine are LOOKING FOR MORE ROCKSTAR FEMALE SPEAKERS!

- December 4th in London: Money & Mindfulness: The Female Only Workshop Night

- December 6th in London: Learn with Leika - 1:1 mentoring for female engineers

In case you missed it ...

Here are 536 women in the UK who could speak at your tech event.

Investor Insights

• 7 Women Investors Reveal What's Different When a Woman Evaluates Your Pitch

• A VC who just raised $22 million to invest in startups reveals one thing you should never say to a female investor

• What you need to raise a Series A (and why it isn’t 100k MRR) by Ophelia Brown, Founder of Blossom Capital.

• How to get a job in venture 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

• Melinda Gates: Why I’m betting on diversity

• Clara Lindh Bergendorff, Investor at Firstminute Capital replies to Justin Kan's piece and shares musings on B2B vs. B2C vs. B2B2C

• Tips for Latinx Founders

• Greylock Partners, “Anti-Harassment Policy Template for Startups”

• Mark Suster, “Why Female Founder Office Hours is So Important”

• Li Jin, Consumer investor at a16z, on the 5 things she looks for to figure out if an e-commerce startup is a good opportunity.

• Ashley Lundström of EQT Ventures on how AI can be harnessed to help filter out unconscious bias in Venture Capital

• What Every Early-Stage Founder Should Know About Valuations

Operator Insights

• How to Secure VC Funding When You're the Only Woman in the Room

• Y Combinator, “Fundraising Advice from Female Founders”

• 5 Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Acquired Their First 1000 Customers

• A startup founder who was rejected 148 times before raising almost $30 million made 2 small changes to get investors excited.

• Running a business with boobs: the things I never say.

• Stop pointing out there’s a female engineer in the room.

• What I wish I knew about fundraising as a first-time founder

• Fundraising While Pregnant: How to Raise $20 Million for Your Startup

• How A 25-Year-Old CEO Leads A Workplace Full Of 20-Somethings

• 22 Powerful Women on the Productivity Tips That Help Them Succeed

• How I raised a $1.7M pre-seed led by Sequoia & South Park Commons to transform retail

• How product managers can use metrics for good storytelling.

• How do you get male Venture Capitalists to Invest in your female-targeted product?

• How to successfully lead a team of engineers

• Insights from a female founder in food manufacturing

• He shared his sexual preferences with me at a networking event. This was my response.

• Your Customer Is Not a Statistic. Here’s Why You Need to Get to Know Her Personally — and a Surprisingly Simple Way to Do So.

Research

• What school did you go to? Venture capital’s major diversity problem 40% of venture capitalists went to Harvard or Stanford

• HBR finds Male and Female Entrepreneurs Get Asked Different Questions by VCs — and It Affects How Much Funding They Get

• Quartz analyzed the top female founders to understand why their companies are worth just 20% of men’s

• There are very real differences in how women and men (and VCs) view entrepreneurship

• Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions

• Women Benefit When They Downplay Gender

• Finally, Evidence That Diversity Improves Financial Performance

• Boston Consulting Group finds female-led startups raise less, earn more

• Harvard Business Review findsinvestors punish entrepreneurs for stereotypically feminine behaviors.

• Women Ask for Raises as Often as Men, but Are Less Likely to Get Them

Partnership Opportunities
Whether you're a VC fund, accelerator or a founder, email me for collaboration inquiries. (Just hit send, it's already filled out!)

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Until next Sunday,
Sarah