Femstreet's Special Summer Edit
Issue #50
Your weekly newsletter on women in tech, venture and entrepreneurship
Welcome to our special (end of) summer edit. ☀️ To celebrate the 50th issue, Femstreet shares a list of the highlights and must reads of this summer.
Today also marks one year since I sent out the first newsletter issue. 🎉 I thought it's time to share some stats with you:
Femstreet readers have been extremely active: Average overall open rate is 43%, Average click through rate of those that open emails is 53%, Femstreet grows around 5-7% per week alone and has done zero advertising or paid marketing.
Gender: 86% female, 14% male (!!!)
Top locations: 45% UK, 35% US, 6% Germany, 5% Sweden (Main hubs are London, NY, SF and Berlin)
Readers are leadership teams of 70+ VC funds (I stopped counting at 65) in Europe and the US, journalists, accelerators and a high concentration of CEOs and their teams.
Thank you 🙏
The last issue had a 44% open rate and the top two articles were:
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Highlights
Summer 2018
Research
Finally, Evidence That Diversity Improves Financial Performance
Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions
Venture capital’s major diversity problem: 40% of venture capitalists went to Harvard or Stanford
Funds
Bumble announces a fund to invest in women-led businesses
Microsoft's VC arm commits $4 million to empower women entrepreneurs. Apply here.
Goldman Sachs Is Investing $500 Million In Female-Led Startups
Ten Female Founded Venture Capital Funds You Should Have In Your Network
Cowboy Ventures closed its third fund.
10 British VCs To Start Sharing Diversity Data On All The Startups They Meet
Arlan Hamilton’s Backstage Capital has invested in 100 startups with underrepresented founders
Andreessen Horowitz wants to fund more black entrepreneurs
Female Founders Insights
5 Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Acquired Their First 1000 Customers
How to Secure VC Funding When You're the Only Woman in the Room
What I wish I knew about fundraising as a first-time founder
Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake Talks About Leading A Public Company & Her Upcoming Maternity Leave
Stacy Brown-Philpot of TaskRabbit on Being a Black Woman in Silicon Valley
How 20-Year-Old Kylie Jenner Built A $900 Million Fortune In Less Than 3 Years
Investor Insights
What you need to raise a Series A by Ophelia Brown, Founder of Blossom Capital
‘How valuable is your MBA?’ by Caye Hurtado of Balderton Capital
How Theresia Gouw Became America's Richest Female Venture Capitalist
A VC who just raised $22 million to invest in startups reveals one thing you should never say to a female investor
How to get a job in venture capital.
Thingtesting, an Instagram account featuring product reviews by a VC for the curious in startups and tech
Insights
From the Investor
‘Thank God You Exist.’ These Female VCs Have $27 Million to Invest in Women’s Ideas
Duggal and Sutian Dong are the partners of the Female Founders Fund, a venture capital firm dedicated to funding new tech-related companies created by women. TIME Inc
Andreessen Horowitz is announcing its third new general partner in just three months: Angela StrangeStrange is now the third person who has been named general partner at the nine-year-old outfit over the last three months. Notably, she is the third woman to be named general partner since the firm announced its first female general partner in June. TechCrunch
"The subtle art of (not) understanding DNVBs" by Caye Hurtado, Investor at Balderton Capital
Caye shares her 6-step framework and a DNVB Cheat Sheet to evaluate DNVBs holistically and understand the most relevant points to consider, both for investors and entrepreneurs. Medium
Speaking of DNVBs, Joseph Flaherty of Founders Collective shared his thoughts on exit multiples for direct to consumer product startups here: Hackernoon
Sarah Kunst forms Cleo Capital to seed female founders
Entrepreneur Sarah Kunst is raising $10 million for a new fund called Cleo Capital, which will provide capital to female entrepreneurs to act as scouts, Axios has learned.
She's already secured $1.7 million, per an SEC filing.
Kunst made news last year for disclosing that she had received inappropriate messages from investor Dave McClure, who later was forced out of the firm he had founded. TechCrunch
7 Women Leaders At Corporate Venture Capital Funds You Should Know
The number of CVCs active at the seed stage jumped 45% (in 2013 only 101 CVCs participated in seed rounds, now that number is 243). Here is a list of seven women in CVC to add to your network (along with their insights on how they use their networks to benefit portfolio companies and guidance on how to pitch them). Forbes
An Interview with Elizabeth Weil, Managing Partner at 137 Ventures
Elizabeth Weil brings perspective as an operator, corporate development leader focused on M&A, and venture investor. She offers expertise to founders on the journey from inception to scaling and evaluating exit and liquidity options. Village Global asked Elizabeth about the VC landscape, what gets her to “yes” and lessons learned while helping Twitter scale. Medium
This Unlikely VC Has Invested $4 Million in Underrepresented Founders
Women, people of color and LGBTQ founders receive less than 10 percent of venture capital. Arlan Hamilton is changing that. Entrepreneur
Why This Goldman Investment Banker Turned VC Owns Her Firm's Checkbook
When you spend a decade working on M&A deals and readying companies for IPO, moving to a seed fund is like going back to the sandbox after earning your degree. But for Iris Choi, Floodgate’s first partner outside of the founding team, this move was all about vision and value. Forbes
From the Operator
Built by Women: Ashleigh Hinde, Founder & CEO of contact lens brand Waldo
Waldo is a UK-based direct-to-consumer contact lens brand simplifying the process of buying contact lenses, by making them more affordable and providing a better customer
experience. Waldo launched in August 2017 and just secured a $5m investment. Femstreet met up with Ashleigh to discuss her biggest learning when fundraising and what it takes to run a successful e-commerce business in the age of Amazon. Femstreet
The best kept secret of hiring top talent: A Great Talent Brand
Must read tips on building a great talent brand by Emma Ruth Phillips, Operations Director of Localglobe VC. Medium
Equality for Women: Why You May Be Missing Some of the Best Talent
Marc Lore, President & CEO of Walmart shares what he has learned about creating work environments where women can excel. Linkedin
Success With Moira Forbes
A 12-episode video series featuring compelling conversations with the most notable female leaders in business, entrepreneurship, media and policy. Forbes
How Policymakers, Business Leaders, And Investors Can Better Support Female Entrepreneurs Forbes
Girls Who Code brings in $1M from Lyft rider donations
Girls Who Code, an organization focused on closing the gender gap in tech, has raised $1 million from Lyft riders since the ride-hailing company added the non-profit organization to its Round Up & Donate program last year. TechCrunch
Hannah Rozenberg develops online tool for designing architecture without gender bias
Royal College of Art graduate Hannah Rozenberg has developed a digital tool that calculates the underlying gender bias in English architectural terms, to help create more gender-neutral environments. Dezeen
Volunteer instructors needed for Code First: Girls course this autumn
The University of Sussex is partnering with Code First: Girls to run free community coding courses at the University. They are currently looking for their next intake of instructors.
Research
Why Women Stay Out of the Spotlight at Work
To get ahead in the workplace, you have to be seen. Being visible at work allows employees to demonstrate their skills, land prominent assignments, and build strategic relationships. HBR
Women Entrepreneurs Are Optimistic About Their Businesses and the U.S. Economy, Study Finds Fortune
How to Diversify Your Professional Network HBR
#BuiltbyWomen International
The Female-founded startups at Y Combinator Demo Day
👡 Stockholm-based Volumental combines the world's fastest high accuracy 3D foot scanning system for retail, with an advanced AI driven 'Fit Engine' that generates highly personalised footwear recommendations.
☕💅 NYC-based Chillhouse is a downtown escape for city dwellers seeking a modern path to total relaxation with style, character, and ease.
🥤CupClub is a London-based reusable packaging service for food and beverages. Cupclub's cups are instead designed to be reused 132 times and then recycled.
💅 New York-based Mented is a luxury beauty company targeted to women of color.
🏖️ Summersalt is a St. Louis-based swimwear brand. Designer swimwear without the designer price tag! 5x stronger (and cuter) than your ordinary suit. Everything is under $95.
📦 San Francisco-based Shippo is the best multi-carrier shipping software for e-commerce businesses competing with Amazon. Their 35K+ customers use Shippo to get rates, track, and print labels for millions of packages per month.
👙 Harper Wilde is an online portal for shopping lingerie and offers a hassle-free answer to the overpriced and hyper-sexualized bra market. Get $5 off for first order!
🥑 NYC-based Daily Harvest delivers convenient whole-food eats to your doorstep. Packed with superfoods, organic fruits and vegetables, they are ready to enjoy in seconds.
Get 3 free cups with the code RE-85G7S9S.
📆 Events
Apply for the Female Founders Office Hours London on September 4th.
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 6th in Paris: BrainGym: Women in Tech Intro to Robotics
- September 7th in Stockholm: McKinsey Diversity Workshop
- September 17th in London: Blooms Masterclass: Understanding VAT
- September 18th in London: Deeptech Tuesday - Female Deeptech Founders
- September 21st in London: Leika's Live Panel: "Sexuality: what does that mean in 2018?”
- September 27th in Munich: Female Tech Leaders meet up
Sign up now for Techstars Startup Weekend Women on September 7th in Stockholm
Voulez Monthly Pitch Clinic at Google Campus London: Are you an outstanding female founder? Hurry - applications close 20 September. Sign up now!
Comments, questions, tips? Send me a note!
Until next Sunday,
Sarah
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