Female Foundry Week 108: Lights and shadows. You are not alone. Rapid fall of global equity supply. Female Foundry x SuperVenture.
Welcome to The Week 108, 2024 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
In the news
London-based Avenir, co-founded by Andrea MacDonald, picks up a €487k Pre-Seed round from SFC Capital and Techstars for its wealth management platform; Also London-based Marleybones, founded by Mikala Skov and Josephine Rode Bager, fetches a €1.05m Seed round led by JamJar Investments for its superfood brand for dogs; Berlin-based Torg, co-founded by Rita Kerbaj, picks up a €2.7m Seed round for its AI powered food sourcing platform; Amsterdam-based Renewaball, co-founded by Hélène Hoogeboom, raises a €3m Seed round led by Rubio Impact Ventures to reduce environmental impact of tennis and padel balls.
Spotlight
Lights and shadows.
The total solar eclipse in the US overshadowed all other news at the beginning of this week - it is estimated that 32 million Americans enjoyed seeing the moon cast its spectre on the planet. While the next full eclipse is accurately scheduled for the 22nd of August 2044 - what’s far from accurate is any prediction about how the world will look like when it happens next time. If we take it as given that AI will eat software and assume that software has already eaten the world - how will AI be powered? That will be in big part down to who controls chip supply (and what AI regulation looks like).
Just last week, four chip manufacturing mega powers: the US, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan announced there were on a mission to further overhaul the global chip supply chain. The proposed ‘Chip 4 Alliance’ aims to internalise all aspects of the semiconductor industry—spanning research and development, design, manufacturing, packaging, sales, and consumption—within their borders. What’s key is that the coalition will only engage with external partners under tightly controlled conditions.
To put into perspective, the US, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan already pretty much control the entire global semiconductor industry, accounting for 82% of the global market share, and 74% of the semiconductor global value chain with 84% of chip design. They collectively occupy a 77% share in the market for manufacturing equipment and as high as 99% for memory chips. Taking into account these numbers, the Alliance is clearly more than just cooperation. The question remains: Where does Europe’s future stand in this cartel-style agreement? What these four governments agree on will shape the global market and politics around it, but can countries control production and fully manage trade for a solution defined by innovation?
Fundraising
You are not alone.
..there is always someone else. Whether you are pitching for funding, trying to poach that strategic hire, or looking to get that exceptional advisor on board, there is always someone or something else as part of the equation. You never operate in a vacuum and therefore, your success is, in part, always dependent on the wider context. I am mentioning this not to stress you out or make you constantly look over your shoulder - I personally believe that watching every move of your competition is a waste of time that can be spent somewhere else: for example, to truly define your core competence and double down on it!
But. I regularly have two back-to-back calls with different startups solving the same problem (trends in venture are that real!) and every time it's easy for me to recognise a founder who simply believes that solving a problem is enough for them to get funding and the one who already knows that it is not. See, staying competitive is not about that competition slide with green tick-boxes and features - it is about how you think about your business: about the way your create a high retention culture, it is about the size of your ambition, about how your maximise customer value when thinking about your product roadmap, about the sequence of your next hires.. If you truly believe in who you are, ‘who you are’ will be in the centre - in everything you do, and, it will be different.
Analysis
Rapid fall of global equity supply.
High inflation and overall geo-economic instability are continuing to delay IPOs, leading companies to opt for stock buybacks over new share issuance. Newly-released data reveals that for the third consecutive year, global equity supply is falling, now at the fastest pace in 25 years.
Companies are staying private for longer. The number of listed companies in the US has fallen from more than 7,000 to fewer than 4,000 since 2000, a 40% drop. A similar trend has been seen in Europe. While last month’s successful Reddit IPO raised hopes for a thawing of the IPO market, many CEOs remain cautious, delaying their plans for IPOs until 2025 due to current interest rate uncertainty and upcoming volatility related to the November US presidential election.
Community
Female Foundry x SuperVenture
Female Foundry is an official partner of SuperVenture 2024 taking place on the 04-7th June 2024 in Berlin and we have a 10% promo code on all tickets for the Female Foundry community!
If you would like to take advantage of this offer, just reply to this email and I will send you the promo code.
Results Ticket draw: Dublin Tech Summit, 29–30 May 2024 in Dublin
The complimentary €335 + VAT ticket winners are:
Emma (Gst528), Denise (qp104), Elani (lmGfn), Patricia (HcKd0), Katerina (pPK5Z), Henrietta (ABt28), Niamh (SKy72) and Maria (Bu62hd). I will get in touch with you shortly.
Founders & Investors Meetups this week
Wednesday, April 17, Berlin ➯ Italian Startup - Pitch Day - Drinks & Pizza | Friday, April 19, Lisbon ➯ IP Essentials: Preserving Your Startup Legacy, ➯ StartUp Day @ TecStorm'24.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Corma ➯ Stagiaire - Bras Droit CEO | DRUID AI ➯ Enterprise Account Executive | watttron ➯ Sales Associate.
See more jobs on the Female Foundry Job Board.
Enjoy your Sunday and have a great week ahead!
Agata
Written by Agata Leliwa Nowicka, an investor, a startup adviser, a two-time entrepreneur, and a founder of Female Foundry based in London.
Suggestions? Drop me an email.
Check femalefoundry.co for more fundraising tools and investor content. View other Female Foundry articles.