Female Foundry Week 131: Big stakes America. The Outliers. Rounds are up. Female Innovation Index 2025 x Slush.
Welcome to The Week 131, 2024 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - the Future of Venture is Here.
In the news
Another great fundraising week for the European female founders!
London-based Psyrin, co-founded by Julianna Oláh, secures a £1m Pre-Seed round led by 2048 Ventures, to revolutionise mental health care with AI and speech technology; Latvian PrintyMed, co-founded by Sandra Treide and Jekaterina Romanova, picks up €800k in grants to advance its 3D-printed medical device technology for organ transplants; London-based Bendi, co-founded by Mandeep Soor, picks up a $1.04m round led by Future Planet Capital, for its AI-driven platform to automate supply chain mapping and ESG risk assessments; London-based Cult Mia, co-founded by Nina Briance, tops up seed funding to £4.5m from H&M Group Ventures and Fuel Ventures for its luxury retail platform; Belgium-based Swoove Studios, co-founded by Rita Peeters, closes a €6.9m Seed round from European angel investors for its digital media platform; French Beyond Aero, co-founded by Eloa Guillotin, lands a $44m Series A round co-led by Giant Ventures and Bpi France to electrify aviation; German UnitPlus, co-founded by Kerstin Schneider, lands a €4.7m round led by Pact, to help companies invest capital optimally; London-based Cat In A Flat, co-founded by Julie Barnes, gets acquired by Rover; Turkish martech unicorn Insider, co-founded by Hande Cilingir, raises a $500m Series E round led by General Electric; UK-based CybaVerse, co-founded by Gemma Blake, secures a €1.3m round from several angels and investors including FSE Group and Haatch, for its cybersecurity platform for small to medium businesses; Netherlands-based ANTENNEX, co-founded by Anouk Hubrechsen, picks up a €1.5m Seed round, led by Value Creation Capital, for its measurement instrumentation for next-generation integrated antenna systems; Also German Emidat, co-founded by Lisa Oberaigner, bags a €4m Series A round led by General Catalyst, for its platform to simplify emission management in the construction industry; German GIFTD, co-founded by Hannah Kromminga raises a €535K Pre-Seed round from several angels and investors including Thies Network and quantumReality, for its inventory repurposing platform; Swedish plant-based milk company Sproud, welcomes Maya Jama as investor and co-owner.
Spotlight
Big stakes America.
Tomorrow we will witness perhaps the most important US election of our lifetime.
As the razor-thin Trump-Harris race nears its end, the venture capital world is also watching closely. Big names like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel back Trump for his promises of tax cuts and deregulation, while many support Harris, who has rallied a large portion of the VC community with her ‘VCs for Kamala’ campaign.
The stakes are high. Recent years of inflation, sluggish IPOs, and stalled VC investments have led many in the industry to favour policies that support growth and reduce tax burdens. Trump’s pledge to cut corporate taxes resonates with many VCs, particularly those looking to lower capital gains taxes and eliminate the net investment income tax, benefiting a wide range of investors. Meanwhile, Harris's proposed 25% minimum tax on income over $100 million, including unrealised gains, has raised concerns about increased reporting requirements for ultra-wealthy investors, prompting private equity and VC firms to prepare for potential shifts.
The election results next week will no doubt have significant impact on financial markets, and both sides' tax agendas hold distinct implications for private equity. A new report shows that 74% of tech leaders believe the outcome of the US election will strongly influence the levels of investment and therefore innovation over the next decade.
Of course, the US elections are about much more than just venture capital. Now let’s wait - and see!
Community
Female Innovation Index 2025 x Slush.
Are you still looking for a ticket to go to Slush this year and are a female founder, a VC or angel investor? Slush is an official partner of the Female Innovation Index 2025.
Fill in our Female Innovation Index 2025 Survey and get a chance to go to Slush to connect with founders and investors in Helsinki from the 20th - 21st of November.
I will announce the winner of the Slush ticket here next weekend.
*The survey takes only 3 minutes, but your voice will speak volumes when we publish the report in February.
*Please share the link to the survey with any fellow female founders and investors you know!
*The first prize drop on the 10th of November.
Fundraising
The Outliers.
Talk to your customers. Understand their needs. Build something people want. These are well-known mantras. There are two types of founders—those who obsess over their customers and those who don’t. I’d go with the first camp. But here’s the catch: as you work to bring in early adopters and gather feedback pre-product-market fit, be careful. It’s easy to get sidetracked by users with unrelated needs. Speaking with early users is meant to be exploratory, but just because a handful of customers ask for something outside your current focus doesn’t mean it’s time for a pivot.
Should you respond to their needs anyway? Occasionally, these outliers might reveal valuable, unmet needs. But in many cases, addressing these one-off requests can pull you into one-off problem-solving, diverting the team and harming your scalability. Also, if you're building a tech product, you likely want to avoid turning into a consulting service for niche requirements.
So, how should you handle these outliers? Before making any big shifts, take a closer look. Are these users part of a larger market with growth potential? Will serving them disrupt your business model? How big is that group? How fast growing? What is a long-term profitability potential of those users? Could their needs actually unlock a new growth opportunity?
The art of saying no is a critical skill for founders (I might write more about it in the coming weeks). I get it—as a founder you get rejected all the time. It’s hard to say ‘no’ to a ‘yes’. Yet, in the early stages, staying laser-focused on a single, clear problem will allow you to accurately address problems of a small group of users, rather than spreading your efforts thin trying to please everyone. Focus on serving your core users effectively, and you’ll move closer to product-market fit.
Analysis
Rounds are up.
So far, 2024 has been a promising year, with growth in both median cash raised and round sizes across all stages, signalling a healthier funding landscape for startup founders compared to 2023, though still below 2021’s record levels.
According to newly-released data from 2,340 primary rounds raised by US startups in 2024 (excluding bridge rounds), Seed rounds—which include priced seed and SAFE rounds of $2m or more—have a median raise of $3.6m, up 19% from last year, with 68% below the $5m threshold. Series A remains consistent with a $10.6M median, while Series B shows more fluctuation, with a $21m median, reflecting a slight 5% increase. Series C rounds, however, stand strong with a median of $35.7m—a significant 27% rise from 2023—with over half exceeding $25m.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Impact Shakers ➯ Investment Manager | Trinny London ➯ UX Researcher | Byway ➯ Routing Executive FTC | Prewave ➯ Business Development Representative.
Founder & Investor Meetups
After a successful first cohort, Founders at the University of Cambridge have just launched applications for the Start 2.0 programme. Running for 14 weeks from February next year, Start 2.0 will provide capital and hands-on support for companies to develop their product, intellectual property, market, and team to put them in the best possible position to raise their next investment round. Apply ➯ HERE.
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Tuesday, November 05, Lisbon ➯ How to get your startup off the ground? | Wednesday, November 06, London ➯ Europe Climate Week - London Mixer ➯ Generative AI Innovators, Paris ➯ Creative AI Meetup | Thursday, November 07, Berlin ➯ Black Girls Tech Summit Berlin 2024.
That’s all this week. See you next Sunday!
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 for the research!
Check femalefoundry.co for more fundraising tools and investor content. View other Female Foundry articles.
So, amazing to witness all of this success! What a time to be alive...