Female Foundry Week 88: Where the wind blows. State of Gender Diversity in European Venture. Win investors with your pivot. Funding for GenAI startups slips.
Welcome to The Week 88, 2023 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
In the news
French Pivot, co-founded by Estelle Giuly, raises a €5m Pre-Seed round from multiple investors to optimise procurement management; London-based Morphoses, co-founded by Anna Natsvlishvili and Ilia Tzortzopoulou, secures a €2.1 in Pre-Seed round led by Uni.Fund for its soft skills development platform; Also London-based PartyKit, co-founded by Sylwia Vargas, picks up a $2.5m Pre-Seed round led by Sequoia to power real-time multiplayer collaboration for any app; Berlin-based boutique hotel tech platform Numa, co-founded by Inga Svinhufvud Laudiero, bags a €45m growth financing round led by DN Capital; Finnish Saidot, founded by Meeri Haataja raises a €1.75m Seed round led by Crowberry Capital and Ventic to unlock the potential of generative AI; Rotterdam-based umob, co-founded by Bibi Jorissen, bags a €6m Series A round from multiple investors to expand its Mobility-as-a-Service app in Europe; Stockholm-based Brite Payments, co-founded by Lena Hackelöer secures a €57.3m Series B round led by Dawn Capital to make instant bank payments across Europe; Paris-based Umiami, co-founded by Clémence Pedraza bags a €32.5m Series B to upscale production capacity of meat alternatives; London-based Unitary, co-founded by Sasha Haco, bags a €14.3m Series A round led by Creandum to provide a safer online experience; Barcelona-based Incapto, co-founded by Beatriz Mesas López, secures a €6m Series A round led by JME Ventures to expand its specialty coffee subscription operations; Barcelona-based Genie, co-founded by Cinzia Palumbo, fetches a €1.1 Seed round led by Speedinvest, for its no-code app builder for data science teams.
Spotlight
Where the wind blows.
Despite a challenging fundraising landscape, Atomico announced this week it raised a $1.1bn fund, with $600m earmarked for venture funding and a further $750m for growth, bringing the company closer to its target $1.35bn across both vehicles and to fulfilling its mission to break down the Silicon Valley monopoly in Europe. Atomico follows a recent string of European funds with substantial fundraises, with Dawn Capital’s $700m raise announced just last week, Norwegian PE firm’s Verdane €1.1bn fundraise and a €2.8bn oversubscribed round by UK’s Keensight Capital.
But will the fresh capital achieve its goal of making Europe a new hot bed for startups?
When it comes to the major technological breakthroughs of the past three decades, Europe has mostly taken second place. Even the most successful European scale-ups have been sold to the US category leaders - Booking’com ($135m) to Priceline Group, Whatsapp ($19bn) to Meta, or iZettle ($2.2bn) to Paypal.
And while Silicon Valley’s share of VC funding has been declining, consistent with the overall democratisation of global tech hubs that has been underway since the 1990s, as things stand, the total value of European venture capital funding has been dropping too - In the first half of 2023 by over 60% compared to the same period in 2022.
There are certainly domains where Europe has punched its weight, such as semi-conductors (ASML, NXP), fintech (Adyen, Checkout) and biotech (Biontech, Genmab), and so the question remains, what more will it take for Europe to take this long-imagined lead?
Announcement
State of Gender Diversity in European Venture.
I am happy to finally share what we have been working on over the past few months at Female Foundry!
This time last year, I spent a lot of time thinking about ways Female Foundry could deliver even more value to the strong network of over 5,800 investors, founders, innovators and ecosystem players that we have built across Europe.
I started Female Foundry three years ago with a clear vision: for Female Foundry to be a trailblazer. To me, it just did not make sense to start something new while in a full-time role, in any other way. And, as the word “trailblazer” indicates, I kind of knew from the get-go, that it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.
And so yes, the past few months have definitely felt wild at times. Even though getting back into a founder seat was familiar: finding the right team, investors, building, pitching (and getting rejected), for the first time, I was in uncharted territory - not selling a product, but rather, uncovering a ‘need’.
Do you remember? There are really only two types of people: Followers and Mavericks. As an early-stage founder you need Mavericks - people, who believe before everyone else does. And so, luckily, during the process, I have found not only one, but a whole army of believers: team members, sponsors, partners, volunteers, supporters.
Today, we are on the mission to map the current state of European venture. Why? Because, we believe that only with data, we can take action. And what better way to do it than by capturing the mindsets of founders and investors that shape the venture ecosystem every day?
So now, over to you.
Help us to tell the story of 2023 by reflecting on your experiences as a VC investor, an LP, a female founder or a female emerging fund manager.
We want to hear from you.
The survey only takes 3 minutes but your voice will speak volumes when we publish the report in January.
The more voices we capture, the better. Please share the link to the survey with any VCs, LPs, female founders or female emerging fund managers you know!
Fundraising
Win investors with your pivot.
I wrote a few weeks ago about the unnecessary stigma that surrounds pivots. Pivoting is the rule, not the exception, and an integral part of finding a product-market fit and staying on top of the game for all startups. But what if your existing investor thinks otherwise, or when you realise you need to drastically change the course of action, while out of cash and wanting your existing investor to participate in the next financing round?
Let’s start from the top: communication is key. It is very rare for a pivot to come to you as a surprise. And so, make sure to bring your investors with you on that pivoting journey, and possibly, as soon as you realise you need to change your startup’s strategic direction. One note here: instead of ‘announcing it’, have a conversation, and even better, a positive conversation! Is your new direction likely to unlock a new revenue stream? Accelerate the stalled growth? Untap a new market? Make that the centre of your conversation, but make sure that you can propose a new plan of action too, and back your findings with data! Second: Make sure to include your investors as part of the solution. Remember, investors, especially good ones, want and can provide you with valuable support and resources that are not financial, but can prove invaluable to execute on your pivot effectively. Let them help you. Assume they want to help.
Third: Make sure you know what elements of your original plan can be repurposed in a new direction. Investors constantly think in ROI terms. By giving them ‘a recycling plan’ that describes what can be saved from what has been already built, will provide them with greater peace of mind. Lastly, during all of this, make sure you are not running out of cash at an unmanageable pace. Being desperate for cash is always a red flag for investors.
Analysis
Funding for GenAI startups slips.
Data released this week, shows that one of the hottest investments areas of the year, GenAI, is showing signs of slowing. While investment into GenAI remains historically high, it looks like the excitement for the space from VCs is diminishing as large tech companies take centre stage and investors realise that many GenAI applications are not yet fully developed. - Visa Ventures, a venture arm of the Visa network, for example, announced this week the launch of a $100m Generative AI Ventures fund. In Q3, the number of generative AI deals dropped by 29% from 101 rounds in Q2 this year. Overall deal value has also been gradually decreasing and only jumped to $6.1bn last month due to Amazon's $4bn deal with an OpenAI’s rival - Anthropic.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Teale ➯ Head of Customer Success | Druid ➯ Business Development Representative | 32Co ➯ Finance Manager.
See more jobs on the Female Foundry Job Board.
Founder & Investor Meetups
Tuesday, October 10, London ➯ Ada Lovelace Day: My Fintech Flight Path | Wednesday, October 11-13, Vienna ➯ Lead today, Shape tomorrow, ➯ La création de contenu en e-commerce à l'ère de l'IA, Berlin ➯ Accelerate your startup | Thursday, October 12, Amsterdam ➯ AI Founders Lab.
Enjoy the rest of your 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.