Canva: From yearbooks to $40B; How to build your first enterprise B2B marketing team; Tales of crypto adoption
Where women in tech lead, shape and fund the future.
I’m Sarah and this is the 197th edition of Femstreet, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content by female CEOs, operators, and investors. If you enjoy the content, please like it above and share it with friends. Be prepared to bookmark your favorites. Enjoy!
Insights
What a week it’s been: Northzone portfolio company Spring Health raised a $190M Series C at a $2B valuation - this makes CEO April Koh the youngest woman to run a unicorn. From yearbooks to $40B: Canva, co-founded by Melanie Perkins, raises $200M at a $40B valuation, making it the world's most valuable company founded and led by a woman. Mutiny, co-founded by Jaleh Rezaei, raised $18.5M from Sequoia to help B2B brands personlise their websites in realtime. When is technology regulation not technology regulation? The modern tech stack for PLG companies. Calculate employee stock options. A Googlesheet of women led blockchain companies and investors. Why Kirsten Green of Forerunner might not invest in the next Warby Parker. Inside Reach Capital’s edtech-powered returns.
People
Meagan Loyst, investor at Lerer Hippeau and the brains behind the Gen Z VC Summit has been promoted to Associate. Congrats, Femstreet friend!
Katherine Wu, formerly Notation Capital, joins Coinbase Ventures.
Elena Burger joins the a16z crypto team as a deal analyst.
Evgenia Plotnikova got promoted to General Partner at Dawn Capital, making her the youngest woman promoted internally to the GP position in Europe.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by…
Want to invest as little as $1K in vetted startups?
Vitalize’s new angel investing community with 50%+ underrepresented angels offers “angel investing for everyone,” even if you’re not accredited. Their venture capital fund funnels great deals to the community that are high potential but too early for seed-stage funding.
Sign up by September 22nd to join their 170+ founding members in learning about and investing in startups!
What founders, startup operators, and investors are talking about…
Tales of crypto adoption
Where are the opportunities for more people to engage in crypto in a capacity that isn’t (just) flipping NFTs, using DeFi, or working for a DAO? Games are cool but people can find better, cheaper games in the app store. Elena Burger of a16z explores emerging ways to make crypto more accessible by lowering barriers to entry…Read more.
The myth of ‘founder DNA’
The media likes to portray an image of the successful founder and that you have to be a certain way to run a company. Whilst there are certain traits and archetypes we see in founders more than others; don’t believe the hype. There is no one size fits all. Here is from Ellen Donnelly how to use your strengths and passions to design your dream business…Read more.
Six ways to change the way we think about meetings in a remote era
Do you still find yourself running Zoom marathons? “Meeting efficiency” is one of the top five drivers of employee engagement during this COVID era. USV alum Bethany Crystal on the 6 ways we might rethink meetings when we are all working from home or in a hybrid setting…Read more.
Ready to build your first enterprise B2B marketing team?
Congrats! Make sure you don’t rush into posting job descriptions. Netta Kivilis of Blue Seedling poses (and answers) four fundamental questions that need to be considered before you hire your first enterprise B2B marketing team…Read more.
Developer experience is the strategic differentiator
Empowering developers to build matters more than ever before. “We’re now seeing the rise of developers: as buyers, as influencers, as a creative class.” Jean Yang of Akita Software shares her take on dev UX and why it’s time to push developer experience across multiple stakeholders…Read more.
You just raised your Seed but feel like you’ve got 3 months of runway after paying for Carta, AWS, Stripe, Twilio and 20 other tools?
As a Femstreet member you get access to 75+ software deals.
In addition to the discounts for Stripe, Carta, Airtable, Mercury & many more, for $10 per month or $100 per year, Femstreet members get:
💬 Access to our private community network with 650+ members on Slack
📩 An additional weekly Member Briefing in your inbox
🎥 Interactive bi-weekly video networking sessions - our next one on September 22nd is focused on fundraising to get you all prepped for Q4!!!
💥 Vetted resources like our Operator Ocean with 200+ resources
🛠️ A free featured job post on our job board as annual membership holders
👀 Whether you’re seeking your dream role or dream employee — Femstreet Jobs has you covered. Check out all the new opportunities on our Job Board
The Femstreet job board makes it easier for everyone to recruit from and find their next big gig within our global community.
Want to get in front of Femstreet’s finest? Featured job posts sit on top of the feed, get promoted in our newsletter, and will be tweeted. New jobs drop every Friday!
Featured Jobs this week
👉 Senior Product Designer @Boost
👉 Product Marketing Designer @Pitch
👉 Junior Full Stack Dev @Boiler Room
👉 Social Media & Community Manager @Gelt
👉 Communications Manager @Substack
👉 Community Lead @3Box
👉 Chief Marketing Officer @Easy Crypto
👉 VP Operations @Tiny Care
👉 Venture Science Associate @Climate Tech Venture Studio
👉 Senior Product Manager @Hopin
Check out all of the open roles or post your own here.
Reach out to our community of young business professionals and decision-makers, tell your story through a source our readers trust through sponsored ads or feature job postings on our job board & newsletter.
Our readers are global and increasingly more diverse, ambitious professionals, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers. I’ve created a sponsor deck for those that want to partner with us in Q4.
And In Case You Missed It
How founders can learn from athletes to build better teams, understand the importance of recovery, improve focus, and prioritize self-reflection. 👇
A straight-talking deep dive into the equity terms that matter for founders.- for everyone
Is your cap table broken? Mistakes to avoid.- for everyone
The future of media, community-driven knowledge networks, and the ownership economywith Sari Azout - for everyone
How to set up a modern GTM motion for a SaaS startup. - for everyone
Are sports cards the future of retail investing? - for everyone
Community-led product growth - for everyone
How to hack media messaging and effectively bootstrap PR - for members only
8 things to think of when first angel investing- for members only
5 internal processes to increase customer retention- for everyone
How to build and scale a remarkable startup without compromising on people or culture - for members only
That’s it for this week. ’Til next Sunday, dear friends 👋
Comments, questions, tips or raising your Seed round? Send me a note
Written by Sarah Nöckel, Seed Investor at Northzone. Born in Germany. Based in London. You can find me elsewhere on Twitter and Instagram.