Female Foundry Week 39: Startups are borrowing more. Building referral loops. Traits of top talent for Web3 economy. The rise of direct VC investments from family offices.
Welcome to The Week 39, 2022 Edition of the Female Foundry weekly newsletter!
Female Foundry - where female investors and founders meet.
In The News
Data-visualisation software Pigment, co-founded by Eléonore Crespo and based in Paris, raises a whopping $73m Series B from Greenoaks to take on Excel and expand to the US; Also Paris-based, well-being app Tiimo founded by Helene Lassen Nørlem and Melissa Azari bags €3m in Seed round led by Sune Alstrup and EASME; Biotechnology Research startup Phagos Biotech co-founded by Adèle James and based in Copenhagen, raises €2.4m led by Demeter and Hoxton Ventures; Vienna-based sustainability startup Livin Farms, founded by Katharina Unger, raises €6m Series A from Peter Luerssen and HAX.
EU appoints an external VC to boost its collapsing startup financing scheme.
EU has just hired a Luxembourg-based firm Alter Domus, a specialist in private equity, real estate, and infrastructure investments, to be a key decision-maker on startup equity funding for its flagship deep-tech scheme. The decision is meant to solve a bottleneck problem for a programme that saw only one company, out of a hundred accepted, receiving equity backing since the launch of the programme last year. Read full story ➯ More on the scheme ➯
Spotlight
Startups are borrowing more as easy Venture Capital money vanishes.
With the appetite for risk tumbling, the result of a broader macro-economic instability, cautious Venture Capital investors have been slowing their pace of writing checks. As a consequence, cash-restrained startups have been increasingly turning to debt as a way to meet growing investor expectations. VC funding has been down by 8% in the past 6 months while the venture debt category has increased by 7.5% over the same period, according to Pitchbook. The changing landscape of the market has larger financial firms like Blackstone expecting to loan $2 billion to growth companies in the coming years. What are the implications of the shift? Lizette Chapman discusses the potential impact of the trend. Read full story ➯
Fundraising
How to build powerful referral loops for your startup.
A well-designed referral loop can prove to be the most powerful driver of growth for a startup. After all, some of the most successful businesses today embedded not one but several viral loops into their products right at the beginning of their growth journey. What is a referral loop? How do you design one? Daphne Tideman shares simple-to-implement strategies and breaks down different types of loops so you create one that fits your startup. Read full story ➯
3 traits of top data science talent for the Web3 economy.
Hiring the right data science talent can prove vital for many upcoming startups in the Web3 space. Ya Xu, VP of engineering and head of data at LinkedIn, shares the key insights gained from her long experience working at LinkedIn. Read full story ➯
Analysis
The rise of direct venture capital investments from Family Offices.
Since 2010, when Family Offices accounted for just 1.8% of the total number of venture deals, the number of Family Office investments in startups has been growing at a whopping compound growth rate of 24.9%, according to Silicon Valley Bank. Today, Family Office-backed deals account for about 4.7% of the total value of all venture deals. Rebecca Hinds & Anne Gherini look at this interesting trend that may, in a long term, disrupt the LP-VC structure. Read analysis ➯
From the Community
One week to go to Sifted Summit in London.
Tickets to Sifted Summit are almost sold out! Meet more investors and founders in London on the 5-6th of October.
We offer a 15% discount on full-priced tickets for all our subscribers. So instead of £349 (startup) or £549 (investor), you will pay £296 & £466 respectively. Both female investors and founders are welcome! Tickets ➯
Hiring
Check Female Foundry Job Board and join female-founded startups.
Vira Health ➯ Junior Ops Associate | Rosaly ➯ Senior Account Exec | Outmind ➯ Sales Executive
Find more female-founded startup jobs here.
That’s all for this week!
Have a great weekend 👋
.
Agata
Written by Agata Nowicka, a serial entrepreneur and an investor based in London.
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