Female Foundry Week 149: From us to U.S. The unpaid user dilemma. The solo founder era.
Welcome to The Week 149, 2024 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - the Future of Venture is Here.
In the news
Dutch QurieGen, co-founded by Kinga Matuła, fetches a €2.2m Pre-Seed round from Tensor Ventures, Lighthouse Ventures, BSV Ventures and others to build ‘Google Maps for cells’ and transform cancer drug discovery; AI startup Nettle, co-founded by Katya Lait, picks up a £1.45m Seed round led by Project A to address shortage of risk engineers; German Wallet Studio, co-founded by Anna Bojic, lands a $8m Seed round co-led by Earlybird Venture Capital and b2venture to fuel the future of customer interaction; FRench AI-powered jewelry design platform Blng AI co-founded by Valerie Leblond, raises a $3m Seed round led by Speedinvest.
VC Firm Revent, co-founded by Dr. Lauren Lentz, launches €100m Fund II for founders engaged in systemic change; former Accel Partner Candice du Fretay launches $20m fund Outlier Grove to accelerate European B2B Startups in the US.
Spotlight
From us to U.S.
It looks like the Silicon Valley venture capital powerhouse a16z, is setting its sights on a record-breaking $20bn fund—its largest to date. The goal? To capture the surge of international interest in U.S.-based artificial intelligence startups at the growth-stage, building on the ‘America-first’ momentum created by Trump’s tariffs and its growing track record of AI-first growth stage rounds - A16z has already made investments in billion-dollar rounds of startups like xAI, Safe Superintelligence, and France-based Mistral, and this isn’t the first time A16Z is looking to pump its later-stage investments game.
In 2022, the firm raised $9bn across a series of funds, including $5bn specifically for growth-stage investments. Earlier this year, it secured another $7.2bn through a similar multi-fund structure, with $3.75bn earmarked for growth-stage startups.
But $20 billion is game on a whole different level.
To assemble such a massive fund, a16z has to draw heavily from global investors looking for streamlined way to back leading U.S. AI companies without getting bogged down by cross-border complications, especially as geopolitical and regulatory pressures continue to rise.
If successful, the fund would be among the largest ever raised in the venture capital world—second only to SoftBank’s historic Vision Funds. SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1, launched in 2017, reached $100bn, while its successor, Vision Fund 2, currently manages about $56bn. Sequoia Capital, another heavyweight in the space, manages a similar amount across multiple funds, including a nearly $20bn evergreen vehicle.
The $20bn ambition means that A16Z must convince its investors that it will be able to hit $640bn exit value just to make 3x (!). For reference, combined value of top 10 VC-backed IPOs of all time has been $478bn.
If this equation already hasn’t blown your mind, I just want to add that OpenAI has just raised $40bn in deal with SoftBank that values it at $300bn.
AI is bringing a whole new scale to funding rounds and valuations, making international fundraising increasingly common.
Building
The unpaid user dilemma.
I caught up with an early-stage founder this week who has been gaining good momentum on new user sign-ups for her app. What seemed like a promising traction of over 10,000 users, however, might be a perfect trap! Why?
Because unless you have a clear path to monetising those users without asking them to pay directly, and one that can keep your investors happy (advertising revenue is getting harder to rely on in the age of influencer saturation and targeted marketing fatigue), then that traction may not take you far.
If you're seeing that level of interest, it might be the right moment to start testing the value of your proposition by introducing some form of pricing. That could be modular (based on features or access), tiered (based on usage), or something else entirely. The point is: at some point, you need to understand what people are actually willing to pay for.
In times when a founder’s time never been so precious, perhaps it is not the best use of your time (and resources) to be growing your user base and still having no revenue?
I say ‘perhaps’ because it depends on the nature of your growth. If it’s organic—driven by product-led growth, a well-designed flywheel, or your distribution strategy kicking in—great. Keep going. But make sure you're thinking seriously about how to monetise that momentum as it builds.
However, if your growth is the result of your own direct engagement—campaigns, outreach, manual hustle—then two things matter: 1. What’s the cost of that growth? 2. Do you actually believe your product delivers value?
Focusing on growing a free user base without a pricing model in place might be delaying a critical test. Remember: pricing isn’t just about generating revenue—it’s also about building your confidence in the value of what you’re creating, and understanding just how valuable it really is. Pricing turns users into customers and forces you to understand what your users really care about, where your product stands in the market and where you should be spending your money, time, and efforts!
Analysis
The solo founder era.
It looks like solo founders might be not that alone - according to the freshly-released data, the proportion of solo-founders has grown significantly, from 17% in 2017 to 36% in 2024. than doubled over the past decade. At the same time, startups with three or more co-founders have become less common.
What’s driving the trend? Barriers to launching a business are being lowered and AI tools are filling the knowledge/experience gaps normally filled by potential co-founders.
Still, going solo has its downsides, especially when it comes to raising venture capital. Even though solo founders made up over a third of new companies in 2024, they only accounted for 17% of the startups that managed to close a VC round that year.
Hiring
This week hiring:
CULTMIA ➯ Senior Brand Marketing Manager | Zelt ➯ Founder Associate | Relay Technologies ➯ Growth Marketing Manager.
Events This Week
Monday, April 14, Paris ➯ Beyond Worlds, London ➯ Agentic AI & Beyond | Tuesday, April 15, Lisbon ➯ Scaling to millions meetup | Wednesday, April 16, Berlin ➯ ClimateX Demo Day | Thursday, April 17, London ➯ Pitch and Run London, Paris ➯ Llama Lounge 17.
Have a great rest of your weekend, see next Sunday!
Agata
Written by Agata Leliwa Nowicka, the Managing Partner of the Visionaries AI Incubator, a startup adviser, a two-time entrepreneur, and a founder of Female Foundry based in London.
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