Female Foundry Week 81: In the name of.. Finding the North Star. Secondaries heat up. Community Fundraising roundup.
Welcome to The Week 81, 2023 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
In the news
London-based Béa Fertility, founded by Tess Isabelle Cosad (see the Three Point Zero podcast with Tess here), picks up a €2.9m Series A led by Octopus Ventures for its clinical-grade home ICI treatments; French Dioxycle, co-founded by Sarah Lamaison, lands a $17m Series A led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital; London-based Thymia, co-founded by Emilia Molimpakis, bags a £2.4m Seed round led by Kodori Ventures for its mental health platfom; Also London-based Space DOTS, co-founded by Bianca Cefalo, fetches a €1.3m Pre-Seed round from several VCs and angel syndicates; German startup The Oater founded by Sarah Nesti and Lisa Nesti, picks a Pre-Seed led by Rüdiger Koppelmann; Tilebox, co-founded by Vienna-based Laura Costa, raises a €1.5m Seed round led by Cocoa Ventures, Possible Ventures and Remote First Capital; German startup Likeminded, co-founded by Kimberly Breuer, picks up a €5.9m Seed round led by Holtzbrinck Digital for its mental health platform.
Spotlight
In the name of..
When Elon Musk tweeted, ‘the bird is freed,’ as he bought Twitter last year, everyone assumed he referred to liberating the platform from its figurative shackles, but had anyone suspected he planned to liberate the Twitter brand too? It has been merely 10 days since the Twitter bird has been replaced by the ‘X’ in the pursuit to create the ‘everything app,’ and it is already estimated that the move might cost the company $20bn. But how important is the brand name, really? This week, Steve Jobs’s only son, Reed, announced the launch of his first VC fund focusing on cancer treatments. Its name? Unsurprisingly, Yosamite. Starbucks, Apple, Google have over years gone through some of the most profitable rebrands. But not all rebrands (and brands) prove successful. Even though it's hard to blame only the rebrand for its struggles, Facebook has lost $500bn since rebranding to Meta, though recently reported 11% revenue growth.
Responding to a user who suggested that ‘Twitter could rebrand to a donkey and I’d still scroll for 6 hours a day’, Musk tweeted (..or ‘xed?’) that he had already changed the Twitter logo to a Shiba Inu dog, as part of a Dogecoin related stunt, last year and it had ‘no impact’.
I have always thought that rebrands were meant to bring more value as opposed to creating no impact, but time will tell whether comparing a fluffy dog to a stark ‘X’ was a good move for a company whose revenues are currently down by 50% since Musk’s acquisition.
Fundraising
Finding the North Star.
In today’s data-driven world, there is a higher than ever expectation from investors for you to track everything, from revenue to employee churn to product data. No customers? No problem. You should still track your website visits, organic impressions, Google searches—ugh! It is not hard to get overwhelmed by the options. Ninety percent of the world’s data has been created in just the past few years, and the profusion of analytical possibilities today allows every department, every team, and even every contributor to chase their own metrics. But if each team defines goals differently, they can work against each other and duplicate effort. What might help is the North Star Metric.
Coined by a startup investor, Sean Ellis, to align teams, simplify operations, and accelerate growth, North Star metrics are meant to get everyone in a company focused on one goal. In general, North Star metrics must do three things: lead to revenue, reflect customer value, and measure progress. What are your company’s North Star metrics? Not sure? Read this article to help you find them. Here are a few examples (check minute 4:00 onwards) and here. Have you defined your North Star metrics but are still not sure how to use them? Check this article and this one.
Analysis
Secondaries heat up.
Investing giant Brookfield Asset Management and Sequoia Heritage, the $16bn fund managing the wealth of Silicon Valley elite, announced this week that they are teaming up to launch a new $2bn investment vehicle that will invest in venture-backed startups whose valuations have plunged.
This is big news not only for struggling startups but also the secondary market (check Week 76 and Week 72) that has been experiencing significant growth over the past years.
According to the report released last week, GP-led secondary transactions are particularly in vogue, with the number of GP-led transactions tripling in the past year, jumping from 10% to 31% of all transactions. The report also found that almost all, 93% compared to 79% last year, GPs in this space said they believe 2023 deal volumes will exceed last year’s levels.
This bullish outlook is reflected in demand for finance for secondary deals, which has proved resilient. The number of GPs using debt on LP-led deals has risen from 30% to 46% compared with last year. What is interesting, though, is that 77% of secondary managers expect their use of debt financing to remain the same in 2023, despite interest rate hikes.
From the Community
Community round up: July.
After the record-breaking June, July was a still strong fundraising month for female founders in the Female Foundry community in Europe, who raised €101.5m across fundraising stages.
Hiring
This week hiring:
GetHarley ➯ Commercial Director | Synthesia ➯ Head of website | FINDIQ ➯ Area Sales Manager.
See more jobs on the Female Foundry Job Board.
Founder & Investor Meetups
The last call for all founders to apply to TechChill Milano Fifty Founders Battle, where startups from all fields compete for international recognition and a €10,000 prize. Application deadline: August 11. Apply here.
Wednesday, August 09, Paris ➯ Réunion entrepreneurs et professionnels, London ➯ PE/VC Networking | Thursday, August 10, London ➯ Startup Meetup, Amsterdam ➯ Netwerklunch.
That’s all this week. Enjoy your 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.