Female Foundry Week 150: Where everyone goes. The timelines. Double digits. Female Foundry x AI RUSH.
Welcome to The Week 150, 2024 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - the Future of Venture is Here.
I hope you are all enjoying the Easter break!
Three years on, this is the 150th edition of the Female Foundry Newsletter—hard to believe! You are now one of 7,394 readers tuning in every Sunday. Thank you for being part of this journey.
In the news
Estonian startup Esgrid, co-founded by Katrin Isotamm and Oksana Tolmatshova, raises a €900k Seed round led by 2C Ventures for supplier management for SMEs; British startup Portia AI, co-founded by Emma Burrows, lands a €5m round led by General Catalyst to help developers build AI agents; Dutch beSirius, co-founded by Anastasia Kuskova, picks up a €3m Seed round led by NAP (formerly Cavalry Ventures), for its ESG platform for metals, mining, and heavy industries; French Klaimy, co-founded by Amira Nakouri, fetches a €1.2m Seed round led by Insurtech Gateway, to support medical underwriters and claims handlers with its AI copilot; UK-based Vizzy, co-founded by Jess Woodward-Jones, bags a £3.65m Seed round led by Adjuvo to streamline early-career hiring.
Spotlight
Where everyone goes.
It looks like global startup fundraising is off to a strong start, with $91.5bn raised in Q1 of 2025 already—an 18.5% increase from last year, and the second-highest quarterly total in the past decade(!).
But before we pop open that champagne bottle, let’s dive deeper into underlying trends.
In Europe, total tech investment actually dipped slightly from €11.8bn in Q1 2024 to €11.6bn in Q1 2025, with AI startups taking €2.9bn—up 52% from €1.9bn a year ago. —48% of all new unicorns in Q1 2025 are AI companies.
The UK AI startups took almost €1.4bn so far this year—nearly half of all European AI funding, with Isomorphic Labs’ €528m, and Synthesia’s €158m taking the biggest share. Germany saw a 74% increase in AI funding, and surprisingly, France saw an 18% decline! —Still, AI now makes up 21% of France’s tech investment.
Without AI, however, the rest of the European tech scene actually saw a 10% year-over-year funding drop... and despite all the AI excitement, there’s still a huge amount of dry powder sitting on the sidelines—to be precise, $677bn globally—and most of it in VC funds that are three to five years old.
Historically, VC funds used to deploy around 37% of dry powder annually. Over the last year, however that figure has dropped to just 18%! So while the AI boom is driving a lot of optimism, that enthusiasm is yet to translate into faster capital deployment.
Fundraising
The timelines.
I spoke with a few founders this week, who are currently in the midst of fundraising, and today, I want to highlight a common yet often overlooked mistake I see in pitch decks, and that is articulating timelines.
95% of decks I see include some form of time projections. About 85% present their growth projections over a five-year period. - I’ve even seen a few that go beyond that, projecting up to 10 years, which can be acceptable for deep-tech startups. Roughly 75% of the decks feature the expected “hockey stick”. However, here’s the kicker—around 80% of those 85% that do include a 5-year growth projection, fail to pair it with a clear, 12-month roadmap, that is far more critical for the current financing round.
That’s right! Around 70% of founders I see, leave out this seemingly obvious yet crucial detail—one that’s essential for assessing the plausibility of their future trajectory!
As a former founder, I don’t understand why (surely, you know what you want to achieve in the next 12 months?). As an investor, I actually see it as a red flag.
We all know (and I hope you do too!) that those 5-year projections are going to be off, most likely waaay off - and so, you must understand that they are just here to paint a narrative and answer the high-level questions: Are your growth projections plausible? What are the key growth inflection points you foresee in the coming years? And what are your potential capital needs to fuel your startup’s development and growth?
The five-year projection is a big-picture story.
What’s still missing is a zoomed-in version of the next 12 months that tells me how you’re planning to fuel growth, address current bottle-necks, build momentum, de-risk the business, and unlock new opportunities in the next 12-16 months (basically next funding round). That’s the crux of it. Basically, I need to build conviction that: 1. you are not going to go bust. 2. you are going to be able to raise based on your metrics. 3. you will be able to execute on your product roadmap.
Not complementing your long-term vision with a zoomed-in 12-16 month version, leaves many, many question marks on the table (and very little time to address them on an intro call!). Remember: A big part of an investment process is an assessment of how you think - so provide me with more data to make this process efficient!
Analysis
Double digits.
It looks like the VC firms looking to raise new funds in 2025 will have a much easier time if their long-term IRR is in the double digits, the latest research finds.
IRR is a key number for LPs, especially in later years when it reflects real returns from exits rather than just paper gains. Early on, it’s often in the red due to fees and lack of liquidity, but it tends to improve as companies grow.
Those VC firms who’ve raised since 2021 have averaged a solid 14.4% over 10 years, while whose GPs who that haven’t raised a new fund, have an average IRR annualised over 10 years at just 4.6%. Clearly, with IPOs still on hold and a persistent lack of liquidity, LPs are more cautious, leaning toward funds with double digit IRR numbers.
Community
Female Foundry x AI RUSH
Female Foundry is an official partner of AI RUSH Summit taking place on the 16th May 2025 in London and we have a 40% discount on all ticket types! (e.g.£479 excl. 20% VAT → £287.4) for the Female Foundry community!
To get the discount, book your tickets via this link and apply the promo code: FEMALE40FOUNDRY, T&C of AI RUSH apply.
I’m one of the speakers joining the Summit, let’s meet!
Hiring
This week hiring:
SNUGS ➯ Content Creator | PLANTED ➯ Sales Manager | Green Fusion ➯ Product Manager | Secfix ➯ Business Development/GTM.
Events This Week
Wednesday, April 23, London ➯ Embodied AI | Thursday, April 24, London ➯ AI & Blockchain Startup Demos Roast, Amsterdam ➯ Mentor Meet Startups, Berlin ➯ DeepTech Night.
Enjoy the rest of your Easter weekend. It’s my birthday on the 28th, and I will be travelling, see you next in two weeks’ time!
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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Check femalefoundry.co for more fundraising tools and investor content. View other Female Foundry articles.