Female Foundry Week 138: Here We Go! Soft Launch of the Female Innovation Index 2025. What you want. Founder salaries go up. Female Foundry x TechChill Riga.
Welcome to The Week 138, 2025 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - the Future of Venture is here.
Hi everyone! Happy New Year. Great to be back after a long Christmas break. If it feels to you like 2025 is already flying by—stop. There are still 347 days for you to discover, achieve, and grow. We are just getting started.
In the news
What a great start to the year for fundraising! Bulgarian green packaging startup Lamon, co-founded by Gergana Stancheva, secures a €6M Series A round co-led by Eleven Ventures and Citibank MD; Edinburgh-based biotech Concinnity, co-founded by Jessica Birt, secures a €3M a Seed round co-led by Science Ventures and Catalyst Health Ventures to advance its AI-driven gene therapy safety solutions; Irish AI startup Jentic, co-founded by Dorothy Creaven, secures a €4M Pre-seed round led by Elkstone to develop an integration layer for AI agents; Ukrainian cybersecurity startup LetsData, co-founded by Ksenia Iliuk, secures a $1.6M Pre-seed round led by SMOK Ventures to combat disinformation using AI-driven analytics; French medtech startup Robeauté, co-founded by Joana Cartocci, lands a $28M Series A round led by Plural, Cherry Ventures, and Kindred Ventures to develop neurosurgical microrobots; Greek robotics startup Progressive Robotics, co-founded by Zoe Doulgeri, picks up a €1.55M seed round led by Marathon Venture Capital to democratize robotic automation; London-based AI video creation startup Synthesia, co-founded by Lourdes Agapito, bags a €174M Series D round led by NEA to advance its AI-powered video platform; Amsterdam-based fintech startup Klearly, co-founded by Eva Rosa Bian, lands a €6M seed round led by Global PayTech Ventures to expand its in-person payment solutions for SMB merchants; UK-based NatureMetrics, co-founded by Dr. Kat Bruce, bags a €24.3M Series B round led by Just Climate, EDF Pulse Ventures, and Monaco ReOcean Fund to accelerate its AI-driven platform for nature intelligence.
Finnish deeptech fund Voima Ventures, co-founded by Inka Mero, closes a €100M Fund III to support innovation in the Nordic and Baltic regions.
Fundraising
What you want.
I spoke with a founder earlier this week who had been rejected by her first pilot clients. She felt confused. She felt alone, and wanted me to tell her what she was doing wrong to get on the ‘right track’, so she can get funding later this year. The truth is, she is on the right track. The track of being a founder.
See, some things won’t change in your company-building journey, no matter how much funding you raise. Being a founder will regularly put you off balance, push you to your limits, test your convictions, beliefs, and who you believe you are. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. In the process, it will make you a different person, regardless of whether you want it or not. As a founder, you will need to take risks. You will need to trust strangers and sometimes let go of people who have always been there for you. Oh, and you will need to learn so much—not by reading books, but by speaking (again, and again) to strangers. You will need to accept that you are wrong more often than you are right, and as long as you’re on the upward path, that is okay.
As a founder, you will always be expected to have answers—even when you don’t have any, even when you are freaking out. You will face your limitations over and over. Hit dead ends until you don’t. You will need to quickly become talented at ..picking talented people—people more talented than you are—and be grateful for that.
As a founder, you will need to be good at creating (and realising) the best opportunities (and knowing what “best” looks like).
As a founder, you will need to get comfortable with rejections, even when some will not make any sense. Believe me, one day you will become so comfortable with them that you will actually enjoy them. I know, it sounds insane. But when things do go your way from time to time, you’ll have all the energy, passion, and ideas to surf that wave. As a founder, you will need to learn how to stay present with so little time for your family. Be ready to work harder at keeping old friendships. Be ready to work harder. But always look for ways to not.
And above all, while riding this crazy rollercoaster, you will absolutely need to fight hard to build the company you want, not the company others think you should want.
Community
Soft Launch of the Female Innovation Index 2025!
Closer, closer, closer...
On the 29th of January in London, in partnership with Dawn Capital, we are co-hosting an exclusive Soft Launch Event for the second addition of the Female Innovation Index 2025—Europe's largest annual report by Female Foundry capturing the level of funding and innovation driven by female entrepreneurs.
Join me and select female founders, investors, sponsors, and partners for a great evening of celebration and networking, as we unveil the first insights gathered from the Female Innovation Index survey ahead of the big official launch in London in early March.
Thank you to our anchor sponsors—Cooley, Google Cloud, and the London Stock Exchange—for their continued support in making the Index a reality!
*We have a few spots reserved for the Female Foundry Newsletter Community. Claim your spot at the Soft Launch Event.
Analysis
Founder salaries go up.
After a few lean years, it looks like startup founders are on the upswing, with increases seen in 2024 at nearly all funding stages, a newly-released report shows.
In 2024, French founders saw the biggest pay jump, with average salaries rising a whopping 60% to €124k—overtaking their UK peers at €107k. Bootstrapped founders also doubled their median pay last year, and Series B founders enjoyed the biggest pay checks of €159k, though at the cost of holding less equity. Still, driven by the AI boom, founders with experience in product roles have been taking the biggest checks, reaching as high as €116k. Climate-tech founders are the highest earners, followed by health and bio-tech founders.
It looks like bonuses are also making a comeback, with some CEOs taking home over €100k in extra cash last year.
Community
Female Foundry x TechChill Riga 2025
Female Foundry is an official partner of the TechChill Riga taking place on the 6-7 of February in Riga and we have 2 x €559 FREE Passes to give away to the Female Foundry Community!
To enter the FREE ticket draw, submit your interest below. Deadline: 25th January, 10pm GMT. T&C of TechChill apply. I will announce the winners here in next week. Good luck!
Hiring
This week hiring:
Findable ➯ Account Executive | Datamaran ➯ Client Advisor | Carmoola ➯ Social-First Marketing Designer | Deverium ➯ Senior Product Designer.
Events This Week
Monday, January 20, Berlin ➯ AI Fireside Chat | Wednesday, January 22, London ➯ Disruptive Tech London, Paris ➯ GenAI Evening Panel | Thursday, January 23, Berlin ➯ Tech & Innovation Club, ➯ Road to START Summit 2025 | Friday, January 24, Paris ➯ Mistral AI Hackathon.
Have a great week ahead! See you next Sunday.
Agata
Written by Agata Leliwa Nowicka, the Managing Partner of the Visionaries AI Incubator, an investor, a startup adviser, a two-time entrepreneur based in London.
♡ Thank you Alice for helping out with the research!
Suggestions? Drop me an email.
Check femalefoundry.co for more fundraising tools and investor content. View other Female Foundry articles.