Female Foundry Week 99: The Launch. How not to rely on other people. M&A picks up the pace, early.
Welcome to The Week 99, 2024 Edition of the Female Foundry newsletter!
Female Foundry - where investors and female founders meet.
In the news
Munich-based Planet A Foods, co-founded by Dr Sara Marquart bags a €14.2m Series A round led by World Fund for it’s sustainable cocoa-free chocolate; Vienna-based Proofcheck, co-founded by Tara Więckowska-Merrigan, snaps a €500k Pre-Seed round led by 5502 Fund of BackBone Ventures to fuel corporate editorial departments with tailored LLM; UK-based Evaro, co-founded by Thuria Wenbar, picks up a €1.4m Seed round led by Cornerstone VC to create digital clinics for consumer brands; Berlin-based BlueLayer, co-founded by Vivian Bertseka lands a €9.2m Series A round led by Point Nine for its carbon project management solution; Zurich-based carbon credit insurer CarbonPool, co-founded by Mathilda Strom and Nandini Wilcke secures an €11.2m Series A round led by Heartcore Capital and Vorwerk Ventures to underwrite the carbon credit markets; London-based Naq, co-founded by Nadia Khadim, picks up a €3m Seed round led by No Such Ventures for its compliance optimisation solution.
Spotlight
The State of Gender Diversity in European Venture report is out!
Twelve months. 106 people involved. 645,375 companies analysed. 18 European countries covered. 1,168 survey responses received (!). 70 people interviewed. 300 insights delivered.
Finally the State of Gender Diversity in European Venture report is out! Phew! What a ride it has been. Luckily, I have been blessed with fantastic sponsors - Google, the London Stock Exchange, Ashurst, Accenture and HSBC Innovation Banking - and partners to make this report possible. This is all for you to get the most comprehensive and vivid picture of what the female entrepreneurship and investment in Europe currently looks like and where the opportunities are to back more European female founders and emerging fund managers.
Thanks for everyone who joined the official launch of the report in person in London and online on Monday.
I have put a lot of effort to make this unprecedented level of granular data stretching over 300 insights in the report palatable and engaging for you. I hope you find some interesting data. Please drop me a line if you have any feedback.
Since its launch on Monday, the report has also received great coverage from some of the most exciting European venture media outlets! See what Maddyness, Startups Magazine, Tech.eu, UKTN and Tech Funding News have had to say about the report. Also, over the coming weeks I will be sharing some of the data captured.
Fundraising
How not to rely on other people.
I am sure that it’s not just me who feels that years are getting shorter and months are getting quicker, and yet, when you are a founder, a big portion of everything you do, whether it is fundraising, hiring, getting customer traction, depends on other people. Or does it?
I caught up with a startup founder this week who is building an interesting B2B compliance solution - she thought December was slow to get feedback from her early-adopter clients because of a Christmas break, but then January came and it turned out that everyone suddenly hit the skiing slopes! When you are a founder, you cannot wait for the timing of the world to align with you. You need to make the world work for you, otherwise you might find yourself paddling in the same spot a few months down the line. How?
Always create options for yourself. It takes rigour and imagination. Client A is not responding? Know your next-best-option client. That top hire opted for another role? Know ahead how you will maximise on that Plan B hire. You have not heard back from a VC firm for a week after what you thought was a perfect pitch? Stop wondering and keep talking to other investors! The biggest killer of momentum for every startup is the time that gets chewed up by waiting. So, don’t look for perfection and always maximise the options you’ve got.
Analysis
M&A picks up the pace, early.
The recently released data reveals an uptick in M&A transactions, particularly among early-stage startups, marking a significant shift from previous years. Before the downturn, while it was not unusual for founders to secure up to €3m from secondary share sales alongside their Series A funding rounds, fast-growing companies often hesitated to sell early, buoyed by the promise of building too-good-to-sell businesses. The current fundraising climate, however, has made raising new capital significantly more challenging. The once-common practice of selling secondary shares at the Series A stage has become rare, and many more founders are now opting to get acquired instead. The new wave of M&A activity among early-stage startups, however, is leaving many venture capital investors dissatisfied. Early-stage M&A deals rarely make a significant impact on VCs’ fund returns, nor do they enhance the return profile of the fund.
Hiring
This week hiring:
Skyqraft ➯ Global Account Director | Teale ➯ Finance Manager | Thymia ➯ Quality Assurance Manager.
See more jobs on the Female Foundry Job Board.
Have a great Sunday and the rest of the week - see you next Sunday.
Agata
Written by Agata Leliwa Nowicka, an investor, a startup adviser, a two-time entrepreneur, and a founder of Female Foundry based in London.
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Check femalefoundry.co for more fundraising tools and investor content. View other Female Foundry articles.