Female Foundry Week 151: Investing Reimagined. Revenue per employee. European deals pick up. Female Foundry x SXSW.
Welcome to The Week 151, 2025 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - the Future of Venture is Here.
I am back! After over three weeks travelling around the world, it feels good to be back. The highlights? Being invited to speak and present the Female Innovation Index at the SuSHi Tech conference in Tokyo and meeting a few very cool SF based VCs (more on that in the coming weeks)!
In the news
Now, let’s catchup on all the fundraises that were announced while I was away.
German ubiMaster, co-founded by Jana Krotsch, secures a €7M round from multiple investors including Owl Ventures, Bayern Kapital, amberra, MPA Capital and AUXXO; Also German space traffic management startup OKAPI:Orbits, co-founded by Kristina Nikolaus lands a €13M round led by Ventech; Irish Tipple, co-founded by Laura Meredith, bags a $4M round led by Quadri Ventures; French H’ability, co-founded by Marie-Odile McKeeney picks up a €1.2M round led by a combination of private investors and financial institutions including Bpifrance, Banque Populaire, and CIC; Swiss DePoly, co-founded by Samantha Anderson, lands a $23M round led by MassMutual Ventures and Wingman Ventures; British Rundle, co-founded by Basak Baykan raises a $900K round led by TIBAS Ventures; Amsterdam-based Pro Parents co-founded Joyce Knappe picks up a €1M round from multiple angels and Quantum Leap Capital; UK-based Spotlight Pathology, co-founded by Samantha Perona fetches a £425K round led by EHE Ventures; UK-based Etiq AI, founded by Iris Anson and Raluca Crisan raises a €900K round led by GapMinder VC; Also UK-based Loxa co-founded by Tori Hutchinson fetches a €1.9M round led by the Angel Investment Network; Also UK-based Doubleword (formely TitanML) co-founded by Meryem Arik, lands a €10.6M round led by Dawn Capital; British Juice, led by Katherine Chan bags a €29.4M round from Falco Capital and Aern Capital; Spanish Oniria Therapeutics, co-founded by Esther Riambau and Isabel Puig raises a $2M round led by Fundación Botín; Amsterdam-based Toloka, co-founded by Olga Megorskaya raises a $72M round led by Jeff Bezos; British MindSpire, co-founded by Jane Ollis secures a £850K round led by SFC Capital; Turkish TaleMonster Games, co-founded by Irem Sumer and Simay Kahraman bags a $7M round led by General Catalyst; Swiss ReproNovo, co-founded by BingMei Hao and Jean Marie Duvall lands a €65M round led by Jeito Capital; German Penzilla, co-founded by Catherine Leser picks up a €3.2M round led by Acadian Ventures and Delin Ventures; British Zendo, co-founded by Jade Batstone raises a $2.2M round led by Fly Ventures; UK-based Atomik AM, co-founded by Kate Black picks up a €713K round from from NPIF II – Praetura Equity Finance; Ukranian Pleso Therapy co-founded by Anna Lissova fetches a $1.2M round from Vchasno Group, TA Ventures, and BADideas; British EverybodyCounts, co-founded by Judy Hornigold raises a £500K round led by Fuel Ventures; Also British Valerie, co-founded by Wizz Selvey, picks up a £500K+ round from multiple angels; Austrian Uvisa Health, co-founded by Ella Smoraczewska Harris secures a $600K round from several angels; Spanish Habitacion co-founded by Anna Bedmar fetches a €1.3M round led by Demium Capital; Danish Augmented Hearing co-founded by Mette Louise Vestergaard Carstensen secures a €3M round led by Crowberry Capital.
Spotlight
Investing Reimagined.
Today, I want to write about a trend, aspects of which I touched on a bit before (see Spotlights in Week 45 and Week 142)–it’s clear: Venture capital is undergoing a quiet revolution.
For many years, VC game has been all about putting modest bets into promising early-stage companies with a hope of a few breakout successes down the line (7-12 years’ long line). Not any more. The VC industry (especially in the US) is rapidly evolving into something that looks a lot more like AI-driven and and multi-strategy private equity. Earlier this month, the backer of Anthropic, Wiz, Solana and others, Lightspeed Venture Partners' announced it had registered as an investment advisor, a regulatory shift that now allows the $31B firm to invest more freely in public stocks, secondary shares and crypto.
And Lightspeed is not alone, with RIA status other firms who’s status also changed in recent years like Andreessen Horowitz (in 2019), Thrive Capital (in 2021), and General Catalyst (in 2019) are no longer bound by traditional VC rules. They can now buy public stocks, lead buyouts, build AI-powered roll-ups, run evergreen funds, and dominate the growing secondaries market —it’s a complete reset of how venture capital operates!
What drives this trend?
The old VC playbook—spray and pray for a few home runs—is losing steam as IPOs and exists in general are slow, capital floods into Series A–C rounds, and technology becomes commoditised. Today, founders demand much more than passive capital to justify dilution. The result? The new VC model that blends evergreen capital, AI-powered operations, and flexible deal structures under a single roof.
In this new model, firms don’t just write checks—they build, buy, transform ..and hold.
What does it mean in practice? Thanks to its new structure, Andreessen Horowitz helped take Twitter private, launched a wealth platform, and went big on crypto. Sequoia created a evergreen fund to hold long-term positions. Thrive is buying and building AI-native companies with a $1B vehicle. General Catalyst bought an entire hospital system. Lightspeed now runs a dedicated secondary-market operation alongside its venture portfolio (Secondaries’ volumes are expected to top $175B this year).
What does it mean to founders?
For founders, the shift brings much deeper operational support—but also more complex investor dynamics. For LPs, it demands a new lens on manager selection and performance. And for the industry as a whole, it signals a permanent shift.
As the line between venture and PE will blur even more, over the next few years, expect early-stage venture studios, AI-led roll-ups, and public-private crossover strategies to accelerate. Mid-tier VC firms will feel pressure to either specialise or merge as the giants scale up..
Fundraising
Revenue Per Employee.
Revenue per employee is one of the key indicators every startup founder should keep their eyes on today. AI is lifting the bar for startup efficiency higher than ever and founders are now expected to achieve much, much more with fewer people. RPE is how you prove you're doing just that.
E.g. Klarna reported this week it hit 100m users and it is on track to reach $1m in revenue per employee after heavy restructuring and deploying AI across their systems (their employee count went from 5000 to just 2000 within a year). *The news overshadowed the fact that Klarna’s net losses actually increased from $47m to $99m just on Q1 this year.
Let’s get back to the topic.
Say you’re currently generating €240k in revenue with 6 people — that’s €40k per employee. Not bad, but compare that to early-stage companies like Zapier or Notion, which pushed past $300k by automating internal work, focusing on simple distribution, and delaying hires until they have found their product-market-fit and were ready to hit that gas pedal.
Remember, RPE isn't just about cutting costs, it's also about validating your business model. If you need 30 people to run a $1m business, that’s a sign your product, customer acquisition or your ops are not scalable yet. How do you know you are getting things right? Your RPE should be climbing faster than your headcount.
Now, to improve your RPE, start by ruthlessly evaluating what actually drives your revenue. Automate anything that doesn’t. Use AI for support, marketing ops, code generation — whatever frees up your core team to build and sell. Hire only when it unlocks new revenue, not just to ‘move faster’. ..and don’t obsess. Measure RPE quarterly and track it alongside your burn rate. If it's not growing, ask why. Are you monetising too late? Is your product too service-heavy? The earlier you catch the friction, the faster you can fix it. RPE is a mirror — it shows if your business is truly scalable or you are just making your team ‘busy’.
If you're curious about the top companies on the Revenue per Employee leaderboard, take a look here (scroll right in the table to adjust).
Analysis
European deals pick up.
It looks like European VC deals are up. According to the newly-released report, European deal sizes increased across all stages in Q1 2025, with late-stage (up 37%) and venture growth (up 25%) rounds seeing the biggest jumps from last year. Valuations are also on the rise, with only pre-seed rounds being the exception.
Funding is also moving faster, with the time between rounds down to 1.3 years for early-stage and 1.5 years for seed.
Unicorns had a strong quarter too, attracting €2.5B. If this pace holds, 2025 could become one of the biggest years yet for unicorn investment (!). Five new European companies gained a unicorn status (among them UK-based Neko Health and Irish Tines) and there are now 150 companies valued above €1B and a combined worth of €477.3B. Looking forward to seeing what Q2 brings!
Community
SWSX London x Female Foundry
Female Foundry is an official partner of SXSW London taking place on 2-7 June 2025 in London and we have a 50% discount on all ticket types! (That’s a min. discount of £325!) for the Female Foundry community.
This is the first edition of the famed SXSW in Europe. Expect thought-provoking discussions, Oscar-worthy films, and exhilarating art. To get the discount, book your tickets below and use the promo code: FemaleFoundry50. SXSW terms and conditions apply.
I will be in Dublin this week to speak at the Dublin Tech Summit.
On the agenda discussion panels: Wednesday - 15:45-16:10 BST - Bridging the Innovation Gap: How Deep Tech Founders Are Accelerating Growth with AI and Thursday 10:30-10:55BST16:10 BST - SaaS is Dead! At least How We Know It...
If you are around in Dublin, come and say ‘Hi’!
Hiring
This week hiring:
assemblean ➯ Sales Manager | Agurotech ➯ Business Developer | LIBEEN ➯ Sales Executive B2C | Repscan ➯ Becario/a de Marketing en Repscan.
Events
This week
Tuesday, May 26, London ➯ From Brain Imaging to Precision Healthcare, Paris ➯ Climate Afterwork | Tuesday, May 27, London ➯ Building AI-native: The good, the bad, and the ugly, Berlin ➯ Capital Run | Wednesday, May 28, London ➯ AI-Driven Security & Innovation | Thursday, May 29, London ➯ Women of SaaS London.
Coming up
Thursday, June 4, London ➯ CONEXEN London.
Opportunities
Applications are open for the Impact Shakers flagship Raise programme, designed to help diverse founding teams in Belgium successfully fundraise for their impact businesses. Apply by June 9th.
It’s great to be back. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
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.
Suggestions? Drop me an email.
Check femalefoundry.co for more fundraising tools and investor content. View other Female Foundry articles.