Female Foundry Week 127: Rate cuts. A few notes on market entry. Sitting. Waiting. Google Connect.
Welcome to The Week 127, 2024 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - the future of venture is here.
In the news
German Exakt Health, co-founded by Lucia Payo Molina and Maryke Louw, fetches a €2m Seed round led by Barmenia Next Strategies to personalise training using AI; Stockholm-based Qura, co-founded by Elisabet Dahlman Löfgren, picks up a €2.1m Seed round led by Cherry Ventures to build LLM-structured legal databases; Paris-based La Solvie, co-founded by Ariane Komorn, lands a €4m Series A round led by Partech to address the shortage of energy renovation professionals; London-based Quin AI, co-founded by Gulsah Gulser, raises a £1.5m Seed round led by Blackfinch Ventures to anlayse online behaviour prediction and personalisation; UK-based Vsim, co-founded by Michelle Lu, bags a $21.5m Seed round led by EQT Ventures to accelerate the development of its high-performance physics simulation platform; Oslo-based Findable, co-founded by Linn Kristin Stokvik, lands a €9m Series A round led by Point Nine to automate property sales admin; Estonian ÄIO, co-founded by Nemailla Bonturi, raises a €6.1m Series A round led by Voima Ventures to develop sustainable oils from wood and agricultural residue; German Biovox, co-founded by Carmen Rommel, picks up a €2.2m Seed round led by High-Tech Gründerfonds to accelerate the development of sustainable healthcare plastics; London-based Simpler, co-founded by Rania Lamprou, lands a €9m Series A round from new and existing investors, including MMC Ventures and Venture Friends, to enhance its Checkout as a Service offering across Europe ; Berlin-based Cariqa, co-founded by Tamara Ciullo, fetches a €1m Pre-seed round from several investors including Anthemis, Plug and Play, and Vento Ventures to develop a consumer-facing EV charging marketplace; Italian Mapo Tapo, co-founded by Alessia Fontanari, secures a €1.15m Seed round from the Argo acceleration program to support locally certified sports guides; Hamburg-based climate tech repath, co-founded by Liza Altena, raises a €3.6m Seed round co-led by Lightbird and Greencode Ventures for its climate risk and adaptation platform.
Spotlight
Rate cuts.
Last Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced its first interest rate cut since the early days of the Covid pandemic, slicing half a percentage point off benchmark rates in an effort to head off a slowdown in the labor market and finally reversing the most aggressive interest rate increase program in decades.
This is a major news to the venture capital community.
While the cut on is unlikely to have an immediate effect on the venture market after two tough years, the months ahead with lower interest rates could improve access to capital for startups and spur more initial public offerings, allowing investors to finally get their cash out of startup investments.
The Fed’s announcement follows a series of rate cuts by other major central banks, including the European Central Bank, which again lowered its deposit rate earlier in September, by 25 basis points to 3.50%, which helped to drive a 17% rise in M&A deal value over the previous quarter.
Newly-released data also shows (see new research by Stripe) that AI start-ups are generating revenues at a faster pace than previous waves of software companies. But materialising AI potential requires capital. It’s good to see the funding environment turning positive for both investors and startups.
Meet Visionaries Cohort I
Samphire Neuroscience
“We are here to transform the status quo for women through medical-grade technology.”
This week, it’s time for Samphire Neuroscience, the last company from Cohort I of the Female Foundry Visionaries AI Incubator in partnership with Google Cloud.
Did you know that women lose an average of 23 days per year due to PMS symptoms, and 70% of women with severe PMS experience suicidal thoughts? Additionally, women spend 34% more on healthcare than men across all age groups.
Meet Harvard and Oxford graduates —Emilė Radytė and Alex Cook, the team behind Samphire Neuroscience who have developed a patented neurotechnology device for PMS and menstrual pain. The key to Nettle (Samphire’s inaugural device) is its effectiveness combined with ease of use. Nettle requires just 20 minutes a day for only 5 days per month to see a significant reduction in pain, with zero side effects.
To date, the Samphire Neuroscience team has filed for three patents, completed manufacturing setup, added 12,000 people to the waitlist, generated £50,000 in revenue from the first manufacturing batch sold, and raised $2.3 million from several industry VCs.
Current team’s focus?
The team is looking for introductions to potential clinical partners (HCPs and practice owners) operating in any EU/UK countries and distributors in ROW markets (India, China, UAE, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and others).
Want to get in touch? Drop an email to Em ➯ here and follow the team ➯ here.
Check other female-founded companies in Cohort I.
Fundraising
A few notes on market entry.
I spoke with a founder this week who has been on the journey of finding product-market fit. She has developed a promising algorithm to analyse complex data and decided to target a niche market to quickly prove its value. Great approach, I thought! I meet so many founders these days who want to address huge markets all at once, which is pretty much impossible to do. When solving for an enormous market you first must find an entry point.
However, when searching for your niche, be careful! Always think three steps ahead. What’s the growth rate of your niche? With that growth, how big can it get in the next five years? How easy it will be to serve adjacent (and much larger) markets with what you have developed? How transferable will your learnings be? Think about your know-how, your network, and your team’s expertise. Don’t fall into the false belief that you have nailed your product-market fit just because you’ve found initial traction in your specific niche; expanding into adjacent markets can be costly and may prove to be impossible if you don’t start with the right niche.
Analysis
Sitting. Waiting.
The slow exit environment over the past 18 months is now hitting harder the venture capital space. A recent report reveals that over 90% of 2021-vintage VC funds (yep, you read it correctly: 90%) have yet to distribute any capital—a stark contrast to only 16% of 2020 funds and 25% of 2019 funds being in the same position at this stage.
This is still only part of the picture: over 60% of 2019 funds and 40% of 2018 funds are also yet to give any cash back to LPs. While some fund managers capitalised on the earlier valuation boom to return capital, those who missed that window now clearly face tough market conditions. The broader market environment is showing that fund performance is increasingly dependent on the timing of the fund's inception.
Community
Join us at Google Connect!
Google Cloud, our partner for the Visionaries AI Incubator, is hosting its newest major event, Startup Connect, dedicated exclusively to startup founders, accelerators, and VCs in the UK and Ireland, on October 10 2024, at Tobacco Dock in London.
The FREE tickets are going fast, so make sure to secure yours!
During this full-day event, you will:
Build invaluable connections with London's top founders, investors, accelerators, and incubators who are fuelling the next generation of startups.
Gain first-hand access to Google Cloud's latest innovations in generative AI, application modernisation, collaboration, data cloud, open infrastructure, security, and productivity.
..and meet the Female Foundry team and the startups from the Visionaries Cohort I.
Sifted Summit is taking place next week (2-3 October 2024) at Magazine London under the theme of Startup Revival – Exploring how European startups are bouncing back in 2024 and we have an exclusive 20% discount on all tickets using the promo code: CPFemale20. Meet Europe's top startup founders, operators, and investors – a unique chance to expand their network and make meaningful connections.
Use this link to get your 20% discount!
FREE ticket draw: Two winners of CogX Leadership Summit on AI complimentary £999 passes are Elsa (MLs7w) and Sze Man (Ushd4). Congrats! I will get in touch with you shortly. You can view the draw here.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Inbolt ➯ Sales | Lovetovisit ➯ Account Executive | Prewave ➯ Project Assistant | Forward Earth ➯ Founder’s Associate Intern.
Founder & Investor Meetups
Tuesday, October 01, Barcelona ➯ The Barcelona Startup Conference 2024, Berlin ➯ Berlin Quantum Day | Wednesday, October 02, London ➯ Product Pulse Meetup Investor Perspectives: Key Insights for Founders | Thursday, October 03, Paris ➯ Future Forward Paris: A Leadership & Innovation Summit.
Evangelistas' has just launched its first Super Angel Program, designed to empower seasoned operators and entrepreneurs to become the next wave of Europe’s top startup investors and addresses the growing demand for operator-led capital and mentorship in the early-stage funding space, with a focus on building a diverse, highly skilled investor pipeline across the continent. To learn more, check out: Meet our Special Guests, Watch our Video, and Find more Details.
That’s all for this week! 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.
Thank you Alice and Anj for your research.
Check femalefoundry.co for more fundraising tools and investor content. View other Female Foundry articles.