Female Foundry Week 69: The new way of running big. How to deal with a "No". User experience vs extra features. VCs are dipping into AI. Female Foundry x EQL: HER London Tech Week.
Welcome to The Week 69, 2023 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
In The News
Barcelona-based creator of autonomous industrial robots, Keybotic, founded by Irene Gómez Alemany, picks up a €3m Seed round from a number of family offices; Zug-based Viatu, co-founded by Bárbara Büchel, raises a €0.9 Seed round led by Ndoto LLC for its platform that simplifies booking of sustainable travel; Vienna-based supply chain risk management and compliance platform Prewave, co-founded by Dr. Lisa Smith, bags a €18m Series A+ round led by Creandum; London-based micro-ticket investment platform Odin, co-founded by Mary Lin, raises a £2.4m Seed round from angel investors to help founders, angels and VC's to connect, collaborate and invest globally; Stockholm-based Freshsound, co-founded by Sara Larsson, lands a €2m Seed round led by Zenith Venture Capital and Aligned for its self-service platform to license commercial music; Fermify, founded by Eva Sommer, picks up a €5m Seed round led by by Climentum Capital, for its affordable animal-free casein made from microbes.
Spotlight
The new way of running big.
SoftBank Vision Fund, a renowned backer of some of the most prominent startups such as Uber, Arm, Slack and Wework (to name a few), disclosed a record loss of $32bn for the financial year ending March 31 this week. In 2017, Softbank raised eyebrows across the entire investment community with the launch of its debut $100bn fund - the biggest venture fund in history. The daring size of the fund was matched with the feverish pace of its investments. It took just 4 weeks for Softbank to invest in Oyo, and 6 weeks to write a $400m check in Greensil. But the wheels have now turned.
Over the past three quarters, Softbank deployed just $1bn, but its unfamiliar cautiousness still did not stop the mounting losses that now raise questions about the fund’s future. Softbank blames falling tech stocks, soaring inflation, rising interest rates, the war in Ukraine, the failure of SVB ..and even increasing tensions between the US and China, for its subpar performance, and counts on pending exits: The US listing of the UK chipmaker Arm, and a slow-moving sale of Nvidia, to recover some losses. Accel’s Harry Nelis said last week: ‘At Accel, we’re back to a three-year deployment cycle, with a more traditional period to really properly diligence an opportunity”.
The new way of running big, is running slow.
Fundraising
How to deal with a "No".
Let’s state it. Life of a founder is a life of pitching. Pitching to potential clients and partners. Pitching to your employees. Pitching to investors. But, as much as painting that vivid and bright future of your solution in minds of other people might be fun, the idea of a rejection, and a rapid fall from cloud number nine, is not. The harder you fall, the harder it is to get up. I have been there hundreds of times. What kept me going?
1. Keeping perspective: Remember, VCs reject far more companies than they invest in (Check: VC funnel). Lucrative potential clients get pitched all the time. Don't take it personally, it might be just about the timing. And so, 2: Ask for feedback: Every rejection is an opportunity to learn. If a VC or a client passes on you, always ask for feedback. Not every fund will respond, good ones will. Feedback can prove invaluable in refining your pitch and business strategy. 3. Keep good standing: Don’t be defensive! Even if a VC doesn't invest, maintain a positive relationship, ask for introduction to other investors or potential clients, make sure you follow up once you get to the next value inflection point of your company. Lastly, don’t linger too much on any single “no”. It is genuinely not worth it. Pitching is a numbers game. The best founders I have seen, were able to take the most valuable bits of feedback and quickly move on.
User experience vs extra features.
This week, I caught up with a founder who I have known for some time, and who, after months of anticipation, finally showed me her newly launched productivity software. The product seemed well-thought through, but what spoiled my experience, was just an overwhelming number of features. I drowned in the sea of options and little buttons. I was out.
It is so tempting, especially if you are a natural builder, to keep on developing new features, but what you might be missing, is that your customers just want a seamless experience. The most successful products are often simple and focus on solving a very narrow set of problems. Ever heard of Slack? Google Maps? Grammarly? Instagram? So, as much as fixing bugs can be daunting, it can actually translate to a lower churn and higher user satisfaction. So, before you jump into a new feature idea, stop. Are you still solving a problem? Here are a few useful tips on how to create the best user experience.
From the Community
Female Foundry x EQL:HER | London Tech Week
📣 Announcement! Female Foundry is partnering with EQL:HER and London Tech Week to host an in-person event in London on the 14th of June!
We are aiming to bring VC investors, angels, and 100+ female founders, so apply for your FREE ticket now - we expect the tickets to sell out fast!
With your event ticket you will also receive a VIP Pass to London Tech Week that will give you access to:
Main Stage panels
Start-up Zone
Enterprise Zone
Leaders Zone
AI Summit at Tobacco Dock
Networking hubs
Live demo areas
Live streamed and on demand content
Are you a VC or an angel investor (male or female)?
Reserve your spot here:
Are you a female founder?
Confirm your interest here:
I am looking forward to seeing you there. It’s going to be great to meet you in person!
Analysis
VCs are dipping into AI.
VCs have traditionally relied on a combination of human intuition and in-depth research to make investment decisions. Swept along the AI craze, more and more investors are turning to AI bots and products to help them to efficiently scan hundreds of potential investments, identify new trends, pinpoint the most promising opportunities and help with due diligence process. In each case, leveraging AI's ability to uncover risks and issues that may have gone unnoticed with traditional methods. It is estimated that there are currently 1,376 chatbots on the market. In the past few weeks, Pitchbook released its VC Exit Predictor, the shares picked by a chatbot outperformed 10 top investment funds.. The question arises, will the new VC game be all about data? And if so, what role will imperfect, procrastinating, inconsistent, and moody humans play in it? Read full story ➯
Ticket draw: Dublin Tech Summit | 31st of May - 1st of June 2023 | Dublin
The winners of the complimentary tickets to the Dublin Tech Summit are: Victoria (xqKx2D), Lara (CAwuWi), Rayane (JlCeD0), Maddy (UP5fL3), Kat (G9250L), Yu (s45FGk), Berenice (S9Pasd), Tim (Fd7s8a), Fiona (dH7s0D), Briana (H23Gsd). Congratulations! I will get in touch with you shortly.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Human Forrest ➯ Head of Sales - AdTech | Green-Got ➯ Customer Care Analyst & Ops | Piclo ➯ Commercial Manager.
See more jobs on the Female Foundry Job Board.
Founder & Investor Meetups
Sunday, May 14, Amsterdam ➯ The Future of Business - workshop | Monday, May 15, online ➯ Female Founders & Fundraising, Paris ➯ How to find investors for your startup? | Thursday, May 18, London ➯ Women In Tech UK, London ➯ Networking for Female Entrepreneurs.
Allia Impact Accelerator has just opened up applications for its 6 month programme. ➯ Apply here ➯ Register to the information session here. Application deadline: 2nd June 2023. Programme launch: 26th June 2023.
Have a great Sunday! See you next weekend!
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 Mariangela Cordella from Nauta Capital for sourcing our weekly meetups.