Female Foundry Week 70: The silent investor. How to build your network. The untold upside of convertibles. Waiting game for M&A. Three Point Zero: Building global clinical trials marketplace.
Welcome to The Week 70, 2023 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
In The News
Hamburg-based foodtech startup Ingarden, co-founded by Mariana Ferreira, secures €500k from angel syndicates and direct investors; Manchester-based Sticky, co-founded by Priscilla Israel, picks up a £1.5m Seed round led by Praetura Ventures to help companies better utilise physical space; Cambridge-based healthtech startup TidalSense, co-founded by Dr. Ameera Patel, bags a £7.5m Series A round led by BGF and Downing to better asses lung function; London-based Deployed, co-founded by Emma Rees and Kayleigh Kuptz, fetches a £3.2m Seed round co-led by Amrock Ventures and M12 Microsoft Ventures for its project management software.
Spotlight
The silent investor.
Germany has INVEST-Zuschuss and Start-up Entlastung, France has FTS and Crédit d'Impôt Innovation, UK has SEIS and EIS. There are over 30 tax incentive schemes across Europe and as it turns out, they all might be channeling significant amount of private capital under the radar of typical VC investments. It was announced this week that EIS and SEIS investments in the UK skyrocketed last year, reaching an all-time high in funds raised since the inception of these schemes. In the 2021-22 tax year alone, a whopping 4,480 companies managed to secure a remarkable £2.3bn through the EIS scheme in the UK, representing a impressive 39 percent increase in funding compared to the previous year.
As much as it is unlikely for those figures to be beaten this year, given the sluggish investment landscape, and more capital deployment options for private investors, what is clear, government tax relief schemes play an important, yet, sometimes underestimated role in the venture landscape. Read full story ➯
Fundraising
How to build your network.
I know that you have been going to founder and investor meet ups. I know you have been signing up to conferences, demo days etc. alongside juggling implementation of your new data capture system. Has it made any difference? A strong network is not about how many people you know; it's about how many people all the people you know, know. You want to create a network where your friendly contact may know your Wonder VC, who knows a Tech Titan, who knows your Dream Employee.
This means, intentionally connecting with people outside of your usual circles, backgrounds, and industries. I regularly curate and evaluate my portfolio of connections (it means people with whom I have had at least a coffee once). In my black book of contacts, you will find a neuroscience professor, a film director, a marine biologist, clinical research pharmacist, geriatric doctor, forensic tax accountant.. once you build a diverse network, the possibilities of activating it are endless! Step out of your comfort zone, and connect with passionate and interesting people seemingly unrelated to what you do - and watch the dots join up.
The untold upside of convertibles.
This week, I caught up with a founder who has just raised a $75k angel round through a convertible note. I raised capital via convertible loans myself before, and through our conversation we agreed that apart from providing needed capital and being simple, cheap and quick to execute, raising capital through a convertible loan might have yet another benefit. Here is a good article that explains well what convertible notes are. What is this extra benefit?
Raising a convertible loan enables you to defer your equity valuation to the later date and therefore is an opportunity for you to articulate your company next value inflection point and set specific strategic targets that you and your investor agree on. That value inflection point effectively dictates your conversion valuation. Are you on track to close those three big account clients by July? Here is your value inflection point. As always, consider your company’s unique situation before making any decisions. To make it balanced, look at potential drawbacks of raising capital through a convertible note here.
Analysis
Waiting game for M&A.
Although the number of completed acquisitions for venture capital-backed companies hit a ten-year low in Q1, according to the data released this week, the number of potential buyers that are actively exploring acquisition options is increasing. Currently it is mainly talk, startups do not feel immediate pressure to sell, and potential buyers, including larger startups, publicly traded companies, and private equity investors are waiting for prices to drop - possibly at the end of the year. This is when many early and mid-stage startups are expected to run out of their runways and trigger a wave of consolidation. What else is holding the buyers back? Read full story ➯
From the Community
Three Point Zero Podcast
Building global clinical trials marketplace with Liz Beatty, the Co-Founder of Inato.
This week, I spoke with Liz Beatty from Paris-based Inato who recently raised a $20m Series A+ round from Cathay Innovation to scale her global clinical trial platform that brings research to patients where they live. (see: Week 64).
In the episode, we talk about building marketplaces, useful metrics for proving user engagement, how to facilitate an efficient Series A due diligence process, thinking big, and why the future of medtech innovation will be powered by clinical trials data.
Female Foundry x EQL:HER | London Tech Week
122 female founders and 34 venture capital investors signed up in the first 24 hours of our ticket release to Meet the Investor Power Hour we are hosting with EQL:HER and London Tech Week on the 14th of June!
We are now at the 228 people mark ..and have only 120 spaces. Thank you for every one who has signed up, if you don’t get your ticket this time, you will be first to know about our next event.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Prewave ➯ Business Development Team Leader | Odin ➯ Partnerships Manager | Agreena ➯ People Partner.
See more jobs on the Female Foundry Job Board.
Founder & Investor Meetups
Sunday, May 21, Paris ➯ Women in Tech Global Summit | Monday, May 22, online ➯ Female Founders & Fundraising | Tuesday, May 23 Berlin ➯ Reshaping Tech: Uplifting Diverse Talent | Wednesday, May 24, Tallin ➯ Latitude59, Gdansk ➯ Infoshare | Thursday, May 25, Amsterdam ➯ Female Ventures Monthly Networking Drinks | London ➯ Networking for Female Entrepreneurs.
Have a great Sunday! Ciao from Italy.
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.