Female Foundry Week 85: Spark in the darkness. You are the momentum. European venture funding halves. Female Foundry x Sifted Summit.
Welcome to The Week 85, 2023 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
It's great to be back! While I was away sailing, watching birds, and tanning (and successfully not checking my phone), 23 female founders in Europe successfully closed their funding rounds. Whoop!
In the news
Iceland-based Snerpa Power, founded by Íris Baldursdóttir and Eyrún Linnet, picks up a €2.2m Seed round co-led by Crowberry Capital and BackingMinds; German Atopia, co-founded by Annabell Vacano, bags a 6-figure Pre-Seed round; Swedish Adsorbi, founded by Hanna Johansson and Kinga Grenda, fetches a €360k Pre-Seed round led by Metsä Spring and Chalmers Ventures; French Dattak, co-founded by Charlotte Couallier, raises an €11m Series A round led Bpifrance; Also French Teale, co-founded by Julia Néel Biz, bags a €10m Series A round co-led by Alter Equity and Bpifrance; German Aily Labs, founded by Sara Bisbe López and Bianca Diana Anghelina, lands a €19m Series A round led by Insight Partners; German Anytype, co-founded by Zhanna Sharipova, raises €12.4m Series A round led by Balderton Capital; London-based Kamma, co-founded by Orla Shields, picks a €4.2m Seed round led by Clean Growth Fund; Oslo-based Strise, co-founded by Marit Rødevand, raises €10m Series A led by Atomico; London-based healthtech Jude, founded by Peony Li, picks a €3.9m Seed round led by Eka VC and Joyance; Danish Woba, co-founded by Malene Madsen, fetches a €2.95m Seed round from existing investors PreSeed Ventures and EIFO; a London-based Opna, co-founded by Shilpika Gautam closes a €6m Seed round led by Atomico; Spanish Inari, co-founded by Veronique Gob and Teresa Madariaga, picks up a €5m Seed round from Caixa; UK-based ClimateAligned, co-founded by Krista Tukiainen, raises a $2m Pre-Seed round co-led by Pale Blue Dot and Frontline Ventures; Romanian DRUID AI, co-founded by Andreea Plesea, bags a $30m Series B round led by TQ Ventures; Lithuanian The Knotty Ones, founded by Sandra Pangonyte, Danutė Rasimaviciute and Akvilė Meškauskaitė-Dobrajs closes a €250K Pre-Seed round from multiple angels; UK-based Kestrix, co-founded by Lucy Lyons, raises a £500k Pre-Seed round led by Notion Capital.
Spotlight
Spark in the darkness.
Shares of Arm Holdings closed up nearly 25% on Thursday, marking their first day of trading on the Nasdaq in the most anticipated IPO of the year. Arm's IPO raised about $4.87bn, and is the largest tech IPO since Rivian's offering in late 2021. Despite the IPO, SoftBank still owns a 90% of the company.
But Arm’s successful debut is great not only for SoftBank, who has not had much good news lately, but also provides a glimpse of hope for the sluggish IPO market that has put a hold on the plans of many venture-backed startups over the past two years. Recent filings by Instacart (Sequoia’s $8m stake from 2013 is now worth $1.5bn (!)) Klaviyo, and Turo also indicate a potential easing of the IPO drought.
Listing in the dry market, however, is not all fireworks.
According to the analysis, nearly half of the 171 companies that went public in 2021 with valuations over a billion dollars, and are still trading, are now worth less than $500m. This year, the performance of companies entering the public markets has been mixed.
Fundraising
You are the momentum.
I only got back from holiday on Thursday, but just before the weekend, I managed to catch up with a founder of a promising mental health startup. Hopeful of boosting her traction ahead of her fundraising at the end of the year, she has worked for the entire summer. Perhaps it was not a great idea. Worn out and with a lack of ideas (and a shortening runway) she has not managed to close a single sale and now feels deflated - two weeks before formally starting the fundraising process.
See, it is not about that single client. Whether you are at the stage of testing a business opportunity or have a team, funding, and plans to enter a new market, don't forget that YOU are the momentum. Regardless of the market dynamic, you set the pace, the vision and the direction, and you need to be able to operate at the levels of creativity, agility, and boldness that are necessary to make that vision happen.
Analysis
European venture funding halves.
European venture funding totalled $12.4bn in Q2 2023, which is half of what it was in 2022 and a third compared to its peak in 2021, according to the latest data. The funding decline is in line with the US, where funding also halved. However, since the European startup ecosystem is younger, it is also more vulnerable. According to the same report, approximately 18% of global venture capital was invested in Europe-based startups in Q2 2023.
From the Community
Female Foundry x Sifted Summit
Female Foundry is an official media partner of Sifted Summit, a two-day celebration of European startups and tech happening on 4-5th of October in London and we have 1x ticket to give away to a lucky person in the community!
To enter the FREE ticket draw, submit your interest above. Deadline: September 23, 10pm BST. T&C of Sifted Summit apply. I will announce the winners here next weekend. Good luck!
For those who want to grab one of the last remaining tickets now, here is a 10% discount code.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Dattak ➯ Marketing & Communications | Prolific ➯ Product Led Growth Marketer | Hepster ➯ Account Executive.
See more jobs on the Female Foundry Job Board.
Founder & Investor Meetups
Hackquarters has just launched the applications to its latest Proptech Startup Challenge. To learn more, go here. Applications close on the 2 October. Apply ➯ here.
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Tuesday, September 19, London ➯ Super Women in Enterprise Tech | Wednesday, September 20, Amsterdam ➯ Fundraiser Hub Nieuw-West, Berlin ➯ Funding Day | Friday, September 22, Amsterdam ➯ Founder Hotseat: Pitch Your Startup to Benelux Investors & Advisors, Berlin ➯ The Future of Healthtech, London ➯ Pitch & Demo Day Cleantech.
It is great to be back. Enjoy the rest of the 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.