INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
For the last several years, we&ve compiled profiles of women founders and investors at the end of each year because they&ve either raised
substantial amounts of money or otherwise achieved notable milestones.
This year, we don&t want to wait until December
We&re too excited about the progress we&re witnessing, with women-led startups getting seed, Series A or later-stage funding each week —
all while top venture firms grow more serious about pulling women into their most senior ranks, female VCs band together to fund female
founders and other women go about launching their own funds.
Some of you will note that this list is far from comprehensive, and we&ll
But we think it better to celebrate the accomplishments of some of the women who deserve attention than try to capture every last person
we&d include if only there were more hours in the day.
Herewith, a list of 25 founders and investors who&ve had a pretty good 2018 so far,
with a second list of women in the industry coming shortly, so stay tuned.
Brynn Putnam, founder and CEO of Mirror
Harvard grad Brynn
Putnam was once a professional ballet dancer, but she may eventually find more fame as a serial founder
Two years after her last performance in 2008 with a ballet company in Montreal, Putnam started a New York-boutique fitness studio, Refine
Method, around a high-intensity, interval workout
It would later sprout into three studios in New York and attract the likes of Kelly Ripa and Ivana Trump.
Now, Putnam is using its founding
principal — that gym users can wring more from their workout hours — to build yet another business called Mirror
Centered around an at-home device, it looks like a mirror but enables users to see an instructor and classmates for fitness routines like
Pilates, all while tracking their performance on screen
Mirror isn&t available to buy yet, but investors are already sold, providing the company with$13 million in funding earlier this year so it
can bring its product to fitness buffs everywhere.
Ritu Narayan, co-founder and CEO of Zūm
Ritu Narayan led product management at
stalwart tech companies, including Yahoo and eBay, but her biggest challenge eventually became how to ensure that her kids got to where they
needed to go during her working hours
She knew she wasn&t alone; there are roughly 73 million children under age 18 in the U.S., many of whom are driven around by frenzied
parents who are trying to make it through each day.
Enter Zūm, a now 3.5-year-old company that promises reliable transportation and
care for children ages five and older
Zūm isn&t the first kind of Uber for kids
In fact, another competitor, Shuddle, shuttered in 2016 after burning through more than $12 million in funding
But Narayan company appears to be doing something right
Earlier this year, Zūm raised $19 million in Series B funding, including from earlier backer Sequoia Capital, which is famously metric
driven.
The company has now raised $26.8 million altogether.
Daniela Perdomo, co-founder and CEO, goTenna
When Hurricane Sandy cut off
power in and around New York City in the fall of 2012, Daniela Perdomo and her brother, Jorge, were struck by the need for a network that
would enable people to call or text even when there no Wi-Fi or cell signal
Today, that company, goTenna, is taking off, powered by an early device it created that pairs with a cell phone via Bluetooth to transmit
messages using radio frequencies, along with a newer version of the device that allows them to create a kind of mesh network.
To date, the
company has sold more than 100,000 units of its devices
It has raised roughly $17 million from VCs
In May, the company also partnered with an outfit called Samourai Wallet to launch an Android app that, beginning this summer, will enable
users to send bitcoin payments without an internet connection
The move could prove crucial for some of its customers, particularly in disaster areas.
Chloe Alpert,CEO and co-founder of Medinas
Health
Hundreds of billions of dollars& worth of surplus medical supplies are discarded every year, according to Chloe Alpert, the founder
of Medinas Health, a Berkeley, Calif.-based startup that uses inventory data and matching software to help big hospitals sell excess
equipment to small clinics and nursing homes.
Alpert thinks Medinas can create cost savings for both sides by creating something that fast
and trustworthy and working with third parties who can disassemble, ship and re-assemble medical equipment.
Investors believe her surplus
Her 10-month-old company raised $1 million in funding earlier this year, including from Sound Ventures, Rough Draft Ventures, Precursor
Ventures and Trammell Ventures.
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, co-founder of Promise
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins was raised by a single mom who
occasionally fed her two daughters with food stamps before a union job enabled the three to escape welfare
But that formative experience made a lasting impact
In fact, after graduating from college, Ellis-Lamkins worked for a union that helped organize low-wage home care
By the time she was 26, she was head of the San Jose-based South Bay Labor Council.
Ellis-Lamkins is far from done in her work to ensure
that the disadvantaged can prosper
Her newest project: working in partnership with governments that release people from jail on condition that they work with her company,
The big idea: Promise provides support to people caught in the criminal justice system to ensure they can return to their jobs and families
until their case in resolved, rather than remain incarcerated because they can&t afford bail
The latter scenario happens all too often, agree VCs
Toward that end, earlier this year a handful of investors — including First Round Capital, Jay-Z Roc Nation, 8VC and Kapor Capital —
provided Promise with $3 million to help put an end to it.
Jesse Genet, founder and CEO of Lumi
In 2014, Jesse Genet was trying to
convince a panel of investors on &Shark Tank& to write her a $250,000 check for five percent of her company, which, at the time, sold photo
Genet left empty-handed, but she didn&t give up, instead turning her company, Lumi, into a business that designs and supplies beautiful
packaging for many top e-commerce companies that sell directly to consumers
It also landed $9 million in funding earlier this year led by Spark Capital, with participation from Forerunner Ventures and earlier
investor Homebrew.
It been a process, but Genet seems to have anticipated it would be, telling Business Insider back in 2015, &One key thing
is not to rush your own business
Even if you&re not making a ton of money, that experience of just living the company day-in and day-out, getting that feedback and
experience, is something you can never replace.&
Sarah Guo, general partner, Greylock Partners
Sarah Guo didn&t necessarily set out to
become a venture capitalist
She certainly didn&t imagine she would become one of the most senior investors at one of the oldest venture firms in the country
Yet Guo is both of these things, having been promoted last month to general partner at 53-year-oldGreylock Partners five years after joining
the firm as a principal.
For Guo, the appointment caps a lifetime spent in the world of startups
Before joining Greylock, she worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, where she led much of the bank coverage of business-to-business tech
companies and advised public clients, including Twitter, Netflix, Zynga and Nvidia.
A graduate (for both her undergraduate degree and MBA)
of the University of Pennsylvania, Guo also worked previously at Casa Systems, a 15-year-old tech company that develops a software-centric
networking platform for cable and mobile service providers and that — in a twist that we think is pretty neat — was founded by her
parents.
Charlotte Fudge, founder and CEO of CentralReach
CentralReach builds practice management software for the developmental
disabilities sector, with a focus on both research and practice
It isn&t the kind of company to make headlines, but the five-year-old, Pompano Beach, Fla., company managed to attract the attention of
powerhouse firm Insight Venture Partners
Insight invested an undisclosed amount of funding in the company earlier this year, some of which CentralReach has already used to acquire
Chartlytics, a behavioral change analytics software startup.
For Charlotte Fudge — a registered nurse who founded CentralReach and
continues to lead it as its CEO — the developments have to be exciting
She has spent her career focused on people with autism and related disabilities; having the deep-pocketed support of an investor will
presumably help her company reach more people than ever.
Emily Weiss, founder and CEO of Glossier
Emily Weiss has been called the
&millennials& Estée Lauder.& It didn&t take long for her to get there, either
Indeed, a little more than three years ago, Weiss was still overseeing highly popular blog Into the Gloss when an early meeting with Kirsten
Green of Forerunner Ventures helped move Weiss in a new direction: that of selling beauty products that cost a fraction of what some
traditional brands charge and are pared back in every other way, too.
Customers are fanatical about the company, whose Instagram counts 1.2
million followers and counting
Investors love the company look, too
In February, Glossier closed on $52 million in Series C funding in a round that it characterized as oversubscribed
The company has now raised $86 million altogether.
Anne Boden, founder and CEO of Starling Bank
There are powerful women in banking; there
are powerful women in tech
Anne Boden is among a small but growing number of powerful women who are straddling both worlds, and her influence seems to grow by the
The former COO of Allied Irish Banks and a former top executive at RBS and ABN AMRO before that, Boden is now founder and CEO of Starling
Bank, a digital-only outfit that does its lending via smartphones, gained its U.K
banking license in 2016 and has big ambitions to expand across much of Europe.
Indeed, as rival challenger bank Revolut eyes the U.S.,
Starling — which has already raised a reported £48 million by hedge fund manager Harald McPike — is currently looking to raise another
£80 million in fresh capital in an investor search that could potentially extend beyond the U.K
The company also quietly blew up a partnership with the fintech unicorn TransferWise, which it had partnered with last year to provide
international payments capabilities
As Boden told TechCrunch last month of the move, Starling figured it &could provide a better user experience by doing it ourselves.&
Shruti
Merchant, co-founder and CEO of HubHaus
When Shruti Merchant dropped out of a med school program in Concord, Calif., to move 40 miles away
to San Francisco, she didn&t know anyone, so she and six other people who discovered each other on Craigslist rented a big house together
they became great friends in the process
Merchant was already trying her hand at entrepreneurship, but the experience made her think a bigger idea might center on managing such
co-living situations, so she co-founded HubHaus to do exactly that.
So far, so good, it seems
HubHaus, which rents out large houses and subleases out bedrooms, creating housing communities in the process, now oversees dozens of
It also raised $10 million in Series A funding earlier this year, led by Social Capital.
Kathy Hannun, co-founder and CEO of
Dandelion
Nearly straight out of college, Kathy Hannun was brought onto the evaluation team of Alphabet X group, which is responsible for
coming up with the next &moonshots& for the company
Eventually, she and several colleagues spied an opportunity too good not to pursue independently
The end result: Dandelion Energy, which says it makes &geothermal heating and air conditioning so efficient, it pays for itself.&
Investors
certainly don&t mind relying on Dandelion
New Enterprise Associates, BoxGroup and others provided the year-old, Brooklyn-based company with $4.5 million in fresh funding earlier this
year, bringing its total funding to $6.5 million to date
The day after the new round closed, Hannun had a baby.
Ran Ma, co-founder and CEO of Siren
Ran Ma spent years as a biomedical engineer at
Northwestern University and, before that, as research assistant at Johns Hopkins Hospital, working in nephrology, including as it relates to
In those roles, Ma learned plenty, including that kidney disease impacts up to 40 percent of diabetics, and that diabetes afflicts roughly
400 million people — a giant percentage of whom are unable to feel pain from ulcers and gangrene, which can lead to amputations.
It those
kinds of stats that compelled her to startSiren, a three-year-old, Copenhagen- and San Francisco-based company that making textile products
that empower their wearers, starting with machine-washable and dryer-proof socks that can measure a wearer foot temperature to show him or
her what going on through a connected app
(A heat spot, for example, can signal a burgeoning infection.) Investors certainly like Ma approach to helping diabetics detect potential
injuries before they become debilitating
They provided the company with $3.4 million in funding earlier this year
Among those footing the bill: DCM, Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund.
Nicki Ramsay, founder and CEO of CardUp
After spending roughly eight
years with American Express in a variety of roles, Nicki Ramsay spied an unmet need
Specifically, AmEx customers couldn&t use their credit cards to pay for rent or taxes, among other things
Her solution: CardUp, a company that enables users to set up recurring payments to use their credit cards, from Citi, Visa, MasterCard and
elsewhere, to pay for everything from rent to car loans to insurance to — in the case of small business owners — employees& salaries,
all while earning rewards
(Why just pay your rent, when you can pay your rent and get 70,000 air miles in the process)
Investors clearly like the idea of providing
incentives to users willing to use their credit cards as a financing tool
In March, Sequoia India and the seed-stage venture firm SeedPlus gave Singapore-based CardUp $1.7 million in seed funding, money it is using
to grow its staff, as well as market itself to a growing number of small- and medium-size businesses.
Gwyneth Paltrow, founder and CEO of
Goop
Goop, the wellness newsletter-turned-media and e-commerce company founded a decade ago by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, gets plenty of
grief for its highly unscientific advice around vaginal steaming and the dangers of bras
Perhaps most famously, it has marketed jade eggs to its followers, suggesting that they put themin their vaginasto cultivate their sexual
energy.
While funny to a great many people, Paltrow may get the last laugh
In March, her 150-person company raised $50 million in Series C funding from new and earlier backers, including New Enterprise Associates,
Lightspeed Venture Partners and Fidelity, money that Goop intends to use to expand internationally, including through experiential retail,
&image events& and through good-old-fashioned marketing.
Naomi Hirabayashi and Marah Lidey, co-founders of Shine
While Naomi Hirabayashi
and Marah Lidey worked together at a nonprofit in New York, they formed their own personal support system with each other and close friends;
they wanted to create something like it for others, too
There were already plenty of self-care apps, but none reflected their experience as women of color
As Hirabayashi told TechCrunch earlier this year, &We saw there was something missing in the market because well-being companies didn&t
really reach us — they didn&t speak to us
We didn&t see people that looked like us
We didn&t feel like the way they shared content sounded like how we spoke about the different well-being issues in our lives.&
The product
they settled on would become Shine, a startup that sends users a daily text with actionable tips around confidence, daily happiness, mental
health and productivity to help them get through the day
Investors are feeling good about Shine, too, seemingly
Two years after raising seed capital, the company nabbed $5 million in Series A funding in April led by earlier backer Comcast Ventures,
with participation from numerous other outfits, including The New York Times.
Ankiti Bose, co-founder and CEO of Zilingo
Ankiti Bose is
the rare female founder in Asia startup scene, but that fact doesn&t seem to be slowing down her company in any way
Rather, Zilingo, an e-commerce startup that recreates online the experience of visiting Southeast Asia bazaars, raised $54 million in fresh
funding in an April round that brings the company total funding to $82 million.
Why are investors so enthusiastic Bose background — she
worked both as a McKinsey analyst in Mumbai and later an as investment analyst for Sequoia Capital in Bangalore — certainly helps
But so does the market she is chasing
By providing a way for independent merchants to operate online storefronts, Zilingo is managing to compete effectively against the likes of
Amazon in what expected to be an $88 billion market by 2025.
Aditi Avasthi, founder and CEO of Embibe
Five years ago, Aditi Avasthi
decided to apply what she&d learned about economics at the University of Chicago and two years at Barclays to help students in her home
The result was Embibe, a Bengarulu, India-based online coaching startup that tries to address not only access but also under-performance by
taking a forensic approach to everything a student does online and trying to reach them when and where they most need help
The idea is to deliver far more accurate feedback — while simultaneously having to rely on fewer teachers.
Avasthi must be on to something
Earlier this year, the Indian conglomerate Reliance paid out $180 million to the company in exchange for a 73 percent stake in the business,
a part of which came from Embibe&e earlier investors
It was a big win for these backers, Kalaari Capital and Lightbox, which appear to have provided Embibe with just $4 million in backing
Of course, it none too shabby a development for first-time founder Avasthi, either.
Katie Haun, general partner at Andreessen
Horowitz
Earlier this week, nine-year-old Andreessen Horowitz(a16z) announced its first female general partner: Katie Haun, whose star has
quietly been rising in the Bay Area over for the past couple of years
Haun, who is leading Andreessen new $300 million crypto fund with general partner Chris Dixon, is kind of a big deal, so it no surprise that
a16z nabbed her.
Among her other many accomplishments, Haun spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor with the U.S
Department of Justice, where she focused on fraud, cybercrime and corporate compliance no-nos alongside the SEC, FBI and Treasury
According to Haun bio, she also was the DOJ first-ever coordinator for digital assets, and she led investigations into the Mt
Gox hack and the task force that investigated and ultimately took down the online drug marketplace Silk Road
Haun is also a lecturer at Stanford Business School and she a director on the board of the digital exchange Coinbase, which was backed early
on by a16z.
Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall, co-founders of Winnie
Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall know how to build products
Mauskopf spent most of the last decade working on products at Twitter, Postmates, YouTube and Google, while Halsall was doing much the same
at Postmates, Quora and Google
No wonder that when the two came together to create Winnie — a mobile app that offers parents information about nearby kid-friendly
places, what sort of facilities for families a location may have and, more recently, an online community where parents can ask questions and
participate in discussions — investors took notice, investing $2.25 million in the company two years ago.
They haven&t lost interest
Instead, the now two-and-a-half-year-old app, which has reportedly surpassed one million users, just locked down a fresh $4 million in seed
funding earlier this week, led by Reach Capital
Winnie has now raised $6.5 million altogether.
Falon Fatemi, founder and CEO of Node
Falon Fatemi used to take pride in becoming Google
youngest employee at age 19
But after logging four years with the search giant and another two years at YouTube, Fatemi is making her mark by building her four-year-old
startup, Node, into an ever-growing operation.
Just in April, the company — which makes an AI-driven search tool that helps people
understand who in their professional network can be the most helpful at any one point in time and why — raised $5 million in fresh funding
from Recruit Strategic Partners and Jeffrey Katzenberg WndrCo
The round brings Node total funding to $21 million altogether.
Renee Wang, founder and CEO of Castbox
Renee Wang was born in China and
reportedly attended a boarding school in the rural countryside outside Beijing, tutoring her fellow students — while also teaching herself
Indeed, after graduating from Peking University with a double major, Wang found herself at Google, where she worked for the company in Tokyo
It was there, from inside the search giant operations, that she could see spikes in user searches for podcast content and decided there was
room for an app to dominate the space.
Enter Castbox, an app that uses natural language processing and machine learning techniques to power
some of its unique features, like personalized recommendations and in-audio search
The app is also capable of suggesting what to listen to next based on users& prior listening behavior, and its in-audio search feature
actually transcribes, indexes and makes searchable the audio content inside podcasts
With so much going on, it no wonder investors are listening
In April, they gave Castbox $13.5 million in Series B funding
Altogether, it has raised $29.5 million.
Laura Deming, partner of Longevity Fund
Photo: Maarten de Boer/Getty Images
Twenty-four-year-old
Laura Deming is younger than most of her venture capital peers, but she taken seriously nonetheless — and it no wonder
The New Zealand native was home-schooled, developing along the way a fascination with the biology of aging
In fact, before she was even a teenager, she found herself working in the lab of Cynthia Kenyon, a renowned molecular biologist who
specializes in the genetics of aging
By the time she was 14, Deming was a student at MIT, and by age 16, she was a college-drop out, having been accepted into Peter Thiel
two-year-old Thiel Fellowship program, which gives $100,000 to young people &who want to build new things.&
Build things, she has done
Last year, Deming closed her second venture capital fund with $22 million
