Female Foundry Week 63: It's a big sell-off. The March Roundup. How to talk to users. The raise of a solo GP. Series A gets harder, but the rounds are bigger. SuperVenture.
Welcome to The Week 63, 2023 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
In The News
Stockholm-based open banking platform Open Payments, co-founded by Louise Brandt, picks a €3m venture round led by Industrifonden; London-based Luna Daily, founded by Katy Cottam, raises a €3.3m Seed round led by Redrice Ventures, Joyance Partners and Velocity Juice for its female care brand; Cambridge-based PocDoc, co-founded by Kiran Roest, picks a $6m Seed round led by MMC Ventures and Forward Partners for its digital health platform; Lisbon-based AssetFloow, co-founded by Katya Ivanova, fetches a €1.5m Seed round for its behavioural AI software; Switzerland-based AERA Health, co-founded by Judy Okten and Andrea Gartenbach, bags a €4m Pre-Seed round to enable a new era of healthcare; Copenhagen-based CAPSULE, co-founded by Louise Kristine Linde, Nadia Wabra and Emilie Seegert, secures a €600k Seed round for its digital wardrobe app.
A London-based VC fund, Anamcara, led by a solo female GP, Annelie Ajami, closes its first $10.5m fund to back early-stage B2B software startups. A Berlin-based Beyond Capital, also led by a solo female GP, Gloria Baeuerlein, closes its first a €21.5m angel-operator fund to invest in Pre-Seed and Seed B2B startups.
Spotlight
It's a big sell-off.
A Bloomberg study released this week predicts that the VC industry, currently worth $2trn, is facing a significant valuation haircut that could see an overall decline in portfolio value by 25% or even 30%, equalling over $500bn in the next 2 years -pointing at the failure of Silicon Valley Bank as one of the driving forces behind the situation. While some LPs see an upside to the SVB failure, the overall consensus among LPs is that more scrutiny into reported valuations is needed, following the emergence of many VC funds, either trying to borrow against a pool of portfolio investments within a fund, sell assets from a fund they already manage to a new fund, or raise alternative financing via private credit, in each case, trying to delay the hard truth of the decline in valuations. As a consequence of this diminishing confidence in valuations, further fuelled by an accelerating decline of asset prices, a growing number of LPs are trying to liquidate their VC positions. The question remains: what is going to stop this big sell-off? Read full story ➯
Fundraising
Community fundraising roundup: March.
Despite slow fundraising conditions, female founders from the Female Foundry community in Europe raised €153.7m in March!
How to talk to users.
Understanding the hidden truths about your customer’s “pains” and “wants“ is fundamental for shaping your business and establishing product-market fit - deciding to pivot into a new direction stems from that knowledge too! But defining the right questions to ask, processing the information, and doing it at the right time is challenging - so how should you make it work? Keep the process structured; remember, you are not a user; don’t talk about your solution; capture the facts first - then draw the insights; prioritise open questions. Here is a longer list of questions you might find helpful to get you going. Read full story ➯
Analysis
The raise of a solo GP.
Following a successful streak of solo GPs in the US, more solo GPs (including more female GPs) are emerging in Europe, bringing more pace and fresh networks into the ecosystem. While solo investing is not new - we have seen many exited founders-turned super angels investing in startups for years - most of them have tended to stay at the pre-seed, angel level rounds, eventually bringing more experienced GPs to join the pack. This is now changing. We see new structures and bigger fund sizes that make many solo GPs able to compete for deals with traditional, established VCs. How will the current slow fundraising environment impact this trend? Read full story ➯
Series A gets harder to raise, but the rounds are bigger.
A recent study finds that since peaking in late 2021, Series A funding has been falling for five consecutive quarters, reaching its lowest levels in the last quarter. Series A Crunch, has been a familiar topic for many investors and founders, but the recent shift in the macroeconomic climate and stricter investor expectations, have made it harder for Seed stage founders to raise fresh capital. While there are fewer Series A deals happening, the good news is that for those startups who close them, the typical check size is bigger. So far this year, the median size of a Series A round has been $12m, compared to $7.5m in the same period last year. That said, Series A quarterly investment is still down about two-thirds from the highs hit in late 2021. Read full story ➯
From the Community
SuperVenture x Female Foundry
Female Foundry is an official partner of the SuperVenture conference taking place on 5-7 June in Berlin and we are offering a 10% discount on all tickets purchased with the Female Foundry promo code.
To get a 10% discount on all ticket types, just respond to this newsletter.
Hiring
This week hiring:
HERMONE ➯ Social Media Intern | Unitary ➯ Finance Coordinator (remote) | SACLÀB ➯ Customer Service Representative
For more listings, check Female Foundry Job Board.
Founder & Investor Meetups
Monday, April 03, Paris ➯ How to find investors Online ➯ Fellowship for Female Founders | Tuesday, April 04, Online ➯ 6 Figure+ Women Business Owners | Wednesday, April 05, Berlin ➯ Founders Panel talk | Thursday, April 06, London ➯ Business Networking Stockholm ➯ Nordic Launch | Saturday, April 08, Paris ➯ Startups Program.
Enjoy your weekend and see you next Saturday!
Agata
Written by Agata Leliwa Nowicka, an investor, 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.
♡
Thank you Eden, and Mariangela Cordella from Nauta Capital for sourcing our weekly meetups.