Updated Female Founder Spreadsheet

This is Flo Freely, the code name for the new and improved Underwire Female Founder Funding Update. Access the full spreadsheet here.

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Crazy, sexy, cool data

Mama's been giving her spreadsheet some TLC.

I spent the past two weeks revamping the Underwire Female Founder Fundings Update. Yeah, the name's a mouthful. But that bitch is SEO'd up. Just between you and me, I call it Flo Freely in honor of Margaret Jane Swendsen's alter ego, and the hope that one day funding will flow freely and equally to womankind.

I never thought I'd enjoy working a spreadsheet so much. Pffftt, yes, Sarah Bryar, I really just said that.

So what's up with Flo?

You can now access year-to-date funding and exit details for U.S. headquartered companies with at least one female, non-binary, bigender, gender fluid, gender-nonconforming, or transgender female founder.

For ease of weekly reporting, I made an executive decision to focus on:

• Crunchbase as my primary data source; Crunchbase gets its data from AI and machine learning, a venture network program, investor and founder contributors, third-party partnerships and in-house data analysts

• Additions from Fortune Term Sheet, as well as investor and founder word of mouth for deals that don't show up on Crunchbase (happens very rarely)

• U.S. only companies (for now)

• Filings for Pre-Seed, Seed, all Series rounds, Venture - Series Unknown, Angel, Private Equity, Debt Financing, Convertible Note, Crowdfunding, and Initial Coin Offerings.

At the bottom of each future newsletter I'll cover filings reported from Friday to Friday of the previous week. Details will include:

• Company name and industry

• Founder(s) name and title

• Last funding round and type of deal

• Number of funding rounds total

• Top 5 investors

• Links to their website and Crunchbase profile

• Notable insights about a founder, investor, or category.

Finally, one big change to save my sanity: the weekly summary will only be available in the newsletter. The easiest way to stay current on female fundings is to subscribe to the Underwire newsletter (it’s an irreverent doozy).

Click here to see the full year-to-date Underwire Female Founder Update.

Tips encouraged

Contact Underwire if you’re a founder or investor with a funding tip to share. In addition to inclusion in the YTD update, I’ll feature your company info in an upcoming newsletter.

Summer Female Founder Funding Update

Welcome to Underwire’s female founder funding update. We track this information to combat the negativity around women-led venture funding (yes, it still hovers around 3%). We know that it can feel self-defeating to read about companies getting funded when you’re not. Still, this is important to track. This page is proof that women are building and scaling incredible companies. Dream big, dammit!

We cover mostly venture capital updates and exits. We source our updates from Fortune’s Term Sheet newsletter (edited by Polina Marinova), Crunchbase, GeekWire and tips from local investors and founders.

Here is the Underwire Funding Update spreadsheet with a year to date (to the best of our knowledge) summary of fundings, including founder names and titles, industry, investors and diversity info. This is a labor of love from a person that dislikes spreadsheets, so be nice. Better yet, contact us if you have info to share or want to make improvements.

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Funding

Genneve, $4 million, Seed, Jill Angelo, Founder & CEO
Seattle-based digital health platform for women in midlife. BlueRun Ventures led the round, joined by StartupHealth and Maven. (Website, Crunchbase)

Herbivore Botanicals, $15 million, Series A, Julia Willis, Co-Founder, Co-CEO and CCO
Seattle-based clean beauty brand. Silas Capital led the round, joined by Stage 1. (Website, Crunchbase)

Figure8, $40 million, Series A, Maryellis Bunn, Co-Founder
New York-based brand marketing firm and creator of the Museum of Ice Cream. Lead investors include Elizabeth Street Ventures and Maywic Select Investments, joined by OCV Partners. (Website, Crunchbase)

Hipcamp, $45 million, Series B, Alyssa Ravasio, Founder and CEO
San Francisco-based outdoor recreation content platform. Round led by Andreesen Horowitz, joined by Jay Z (Marcy Venture Partners) and Will Smith (Dreamers Fund). (Website, Crunchbase)

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Welcome to Underwire’s weekly female founder funding update. We track this information to combat the negativity around women-led venture funding (yes, it still hovers around 3%). We know that it can feel self-defeating to read about companies getting funded when you’re not. Still, this is important to track. This page is proof that women are building and scaling incredible companies. Dream big, dammit!

We cover mostly venture capital updates and exits. We source our updates from Fortune’s Term Sheet newsletter (edited by Polina Marinova), Crunchbase and GeekWire.

Here is the Underwire Funding Update spreadsheet with a year to date (to the best of our knowledge) summary of fundings, including founder names and titles, industry, investors and diversity info. This is a labor of love from a person that dislikes spreadsheets, so be nice. Better yet, contact us if you have info to share or want to make improvements.

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Funding

Anomalie, $13.6 million, Series A, Leslie Voorhees, Co-Founder & CEO
San Francisco-based custom wedding gown company. Goodwater Capital led the round, joined by investors including Signia, SoGal Ventures, Lerer Hippeau’s BN Capital Fund, and Fin’s Sam Lessin. (Website, Crunchbase)

Chief, $22 million, Series A, Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan, Co-Founder and CEO and Co-Founder, respectively
New York-based private network of women. General Catalyst and Inspired Capital co-led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

DotLab, $10 million, Series A, Heather Bowerman, Founder and CEO
San Francisco-based personalized medicine company for women’s health. CooperSurgical led the round, joined by investors including Tiger Global Management and Luxor Capital Group. (Website, Crunchbase)

Genome Medical, $23 million, Series B, Lisa Alderson, Co-Founder and CEO
Monterey-CA network of genomics services experts using telemedicine to integrate genomic insights into everyday health care. The latest financing was led by Echo Health Ventures, a collaboration between Cambia Health Solutions and Mosaic Health Solutions. Other backers included LRVHealth, Casdin Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Manatt Venture Fund and Dreamers Fund. Thanks for Kristine Ashcraft, CEO of YouScript for the tip.(Website, Crunchbase)

Homeroom, $3.5 million, Seed, Casandra Espinoza Stewart, Co-founder & CEO
San Francisco-based platform for after-school enrichment programs. Forerunner Ventures led the round, joined by Felicis, Precursor, and Kapor Capital. (Website, Crunchbase)

Miss Grass, $4 million, Seed, Kate Miller, Co-founder and CEO
Venice, Calif.-based cannabis brand with a content and e-commerce platform. Investors include Listen Ventures, Casa Verde Capital, Advancit Capital , firstminute capital, Third Kind Venture Capital, and Muse Capital’s Assia Grazioli-Venier and Rachel Springate. (Website, no Crunchbase listing)

Remedy, $10 million, Series A, Christina Gabrysch, Co-Founder
Austin, Texas-based provider of healthcare services. Sante Ventures led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

Exit

SheWorx, Undisclosed, acquired by Republic, Lisa Wang, Founder
New York-based platform and event series for female entrepreneurs. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. (Website, Crunchbase, article on Republic’s blog)

New Fund

Vice Ventures, $25M fund to back sinful sectors, led by founding partner, Catharine Dockery. (Website, Crunchbase)

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Mejuri, $23 million, Series B, Noura Sakkijha, Co-Founder & CEO
Toronto-based fine jewelry brand. New Investors include NEA and Imaginary, as well as Felix, BDC, Incite, and Dash Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Zum, Undisclosed, Follow On to Series C, Ritu Narayan, CEO & Founder
Redwood City-based logistics platform offering child transportation for school districts, raised funding of an undisclosed amount from Citi Ventures. The investment adds to its existing $40 million Series C round. (Website, Crunchbase)

Other Funding Updates

New VC Fund
Serena Williams formed a venture firm called Serena Ventures, which invests in early-stage companies that “embrace diverse leadership, individual empowerment, creativity and opportunity.”

Crunchbase Q1 2019 Diversity Report — Female Founders Receive 17% of Q1 Funding
In Q1 2019, $8.1 billion went to companies with at least one female founder in the first quarter of this year, representing 17% of venture dollars. Of that, 2% was invested in only female founders, and 15% went to companies with male and female co-founders. (Read the report)

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

BentoBox, $16.4 million, Series B, Krystle Mobayeni, Founder & CEO
New York-based service that helps restaurant owners build mobile-friendly websites. Threshold Ventures (formerly DFJ Venture) led the round, joined by Bullpen Capital, Haystack and Female Founders Fund. (Website, Crunchbase)

HiMama, $5.4 million, Series A, Alana Frome, Co-Founder & CTO
Toronto-based early childhood technology startup. Round 13 Capital led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

ShopBack, $45 million, Series B, Josephine Chow and Lai Shanru, Co-Founders
Singapore-based affiliate marketing startup offering cashback and consumer rewards in Asia Pacific. Rakuten Capital and EV Growth co-led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Blume, $3.3 million, Seed, Bunny Ghatrora and Taran Ghatrora, Co-Founders and C-Level Execs
Vancouver, B.C.-based female hygiene and wellness subscription box service. Felicis Ventures led the round, joined by investors including Victress Capital. (Website, Crunchbase)

Cora, $7.5 million, Series A1, Molly Hayward, Co-Founder
San Francisco-based women’s wellness brand delivering organic tampons and elegant accessories. Harbinger Ventures led the round. Notably, Cora has 80% female board representation. (Website, Crunchbase)

Elvie, $42 million, Series B, Tania Boler, Co-Founder and CEO
London-based health and lifestyle brand developing technology for women (breast pumps). IPGL CEO Michael Spencer led the round, joined by Octopus Ventures and Impact Ventures UK. (Website, Crunchbase)

NextGen Jane, $9 million, Series A, Ridhi Tariyal, Founder
San Francisco-based women’s health tech startup. Material Impact led the round, joined by Access Industries, Viking Global Investors and Liminal Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Nutrafol, $35 million, Series B, Dr. Sophia Kogan, Co-founder, Chief Medical Advisor
New York-based health and beauty nutraceutical brand that aims to improve hair growth performance. L Catterton led the round, joined by investors including Unilever Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Good Dog, $6.7 million, Series Unknown, Lauren McDevitt, Co-Founder, Chief Experience Officer
New York City-based marketplace to allow people to get a dog from a breeder, shelter or rescue. Investors include BoxGroup, Felicis, Slow Ventures, Fuel Capital, BarkBox, and SV Angel. (Website, Crunchbase)

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Ellevest, $33 million, Series A, Sallie Krawcheck, Co-Founder and CEO

New York-based digital investment platform. Investors include Pivotal Ventures, Valerie Jarrett, Rethink Impact, PSP Growth, PayPal, Mastercard, Google’s Eric Schmidt, GingerBread Capital and Elaine Wynn. (Website, Crunchbase)

Bonus: Ellevest produced an interactive, annotated press release that adds fun color commentary about investors and the team. Might be worth borrowing the tactic to liven up a staid press release.

Tinkergarten, $21 million, Series B, Meghan Fitzgerald, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer

Northampton, MA-based edtech platform offering outdoor learning classes and activities for kids, entire round funded by Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo. (Website, Crunchbase)

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Cleo, $27.5 million, Series B, Chitra Akileswaran and Shannon Spanhake, Co-Founders
San Francisco-based supplemental benefits company that partners with enterprises like Uber, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Slack to offer supplemental benefits to working parents. Greylock Partners and Forerunner Ventures led the round. Cleo has an all-female, three-person board. (Website, Crunchbase)

Glossier, $100 million, Series D, Emily Weiss, Founder and CEO 🦄
New York-based direct-to-consumer beauty products retailer. Sequoia Capital led the round, joined by Tiger Global Management, Spark Capital, Forerunner Ventures, Thrive Capital, IVP, and Index Ventures. The financing sets a $1.2 billion valuation. (Website, Crunchbase)

Henry the Dentist, $10 million, Series A, Alexandria Ketcheson, Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer
New Jersey-based mobile dental practice. Forerunner Ventures led the round, joined by Brand Foundry and Trail Mix Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Maude, $1.5 million, Seed, Eva Goicochea and Dina Epstein, Co-Founders and CEO and CPO, respectively
New York-based sex essentials company, Tune House Capital led the round, joined by RRE, CASSIUS Family, Outbound Ventures, Shrug Capital, and Pico Alto Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Rent the Runway, $125 million, Venture Round, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss, Co-Founders and CEO and Head of Business Development , respectively 🦄
New York-based e-commerce website that rents designer apparel and accessories. Investors included Franklin Templeton Investments, Bain Capital Ventures, and T. Rowe Price. (Website, Crunchbase)

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🦄 Other Female Founded Unicorns 🦄

23andMe — Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs

Nextdoor — Sarah Leary and Madison Bell, Co-Founders and VP of Marketing and Operations and Chief Product Officer

Cloudflare — Michelle Zatlyn, Co-Founder and COO

Credit Karma — Nichole Mustard, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer

Houzz — Adi Tatarko, Co-Founder and CEO

Eventbrite — Julia Hartz, Co-Founder and CEO — IPO’d in September 2018

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Crunchbase released an analysis that shows over $8 billion in funding internationally has gone to women-led companies since the start of 2019. 

Here are the biggest deals:

The rundown:

Grab, $1.46 billion, Series H, Tan Hooi Ling, Co-Founder
Singapore-based ride-sharing service. SoftBank Vision Fund led the raise.

Horizon Robotics, $600 million, Series B, Annie Tao, Co-Founder, VP Operations
Beijing-based AI for robots. Investors include Morningside Venture Capital, Hill House Capital, Sequoia Capital, GSR Ventures, Linear Venture, Innovation Works, ZhenFund, Wu Capital, Tsing Capital, and Vertex Ventures.

DaDa, $255 million, Series D, Hui Zhi, Founder and CEO
Shinghai-based online English training institution for one-on-one online tutoring. Investors include Warburg Pincus, TAL Education Group and Yonghua Capital.

Zilingo, $226 million, Series, D, Ankiti Bose, Co-Founder and CEO
Singapore-based online fashion marketplace. Round investors include Temasek Holdings, Sofina, Sequoia Capital India, EDBI, Burda Principal Investments and Angel Capital Management.

Relex Solutions, $200 million, Series Unknown, Joanna Smaros, Founder and Director, Scandinavia
Finnish retail and supply chain system. Led by TCV.

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From that same Crunchbase analysis, Underwire discovered three missed raises by U.S. companies:

Confluent, $125 million, Series D, Neha Narkhede, Co-Founder and CTO
Palo Alto-based streaming platform, backed by Sequoia. (Website)

Andela, $100 million, Series D, Christina Sass, Co-Founder and COO
New York-based distributed engineering teams with Africa’s top software developers, led by Generation Investment Management. (Website)

ImpactAlpha, $100 million, Zuleyma Bebell and Avary Kent, Co-Founders
Berkeley-based, investment news media organization. Led by Equilibrium Capital. (Website)

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Funding update for week of March 11, 2019

KonMari Media, $40 million, Marie Kondo, Founder
Marie Kondo, the author, businesswoman, and personality behind the popular Netflix series “Tidying Up,” is reportedly in talks to raise up to $40 million in venture funding to scale her personal media brand, KonMari Media. Details undisclosed. (Website)

Kuli Kuli, $5 million Series B, Valerie Popelka, Anne Tsuei, Lisa Curtis, Co-Founders
Oakland-based superfood brand. Griffith Foods led the round, joined by eighteen94 capital, InvestEco, S2G Ventures, Authentic Ventures, VilCap Investments and Rocana Venture Partners. (Website)

Luminary Media, $60 million, Series Unknown, Lauren Perkins, Co-Founder, Head of Talent
New York-based podcast subscription service. Notably, they haven’t launched an actual product. Lead investor was New Enterprise Associates. Two male co-founders. (Website)

Max-Bone, Undisclosed, Parisa Fowles-Pazdro, Founder and CEO
Los Angeles and New York-based pet label, raised Series A funding of an undisclosed amount. Colle Capital led the round, joined by investors including Cooley LLP. (Website)

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SheEO 2019 U.S. Finalists

SheEO offers another path to funding for majority woman-owned companies with at least $50,000 in revenue and mission to better humanity.

This year’s U.S. Finalists:

• BioCellection

• Farm From a Box

• Tyga Systems

• S.O.U.L. Sisters

• Solstice

Learn more about SheEO and this year’s global ventures.

February Ifs

Illustrations by Blair Breitenstein / @blairz.

Hearts & Millions

I love this issue of the Ifs. Here’s why: Seven heart-centered must-reads, six fundings with over $163 million raised, and three exits (two at $100 million each). ❣️💪🏽💸

If flab has landed

Take this 3-question quiz to get your ass back. This is from Richa's article on how to grow without VC and a classic example of Frontend Bait in a customer-loving Value Ladder. 

If objectivity eludes you 

This is why thinking of your business as your baby could be stalling growth. Informed by Finnish research that confirms the emotional connection to your business mirrors your emotional connection to a child.

If buying chocolate and roses feels shallow 

Go deep this Valentine's day. Buy nothing, reinvest in the relationship and finish what you started. Raptitude did this for a year and one million people read about it.

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That orange blob is a chicken wing. Delivered by a drone. There’s a model for that, mockumentaried in the Crunchbase series "A Startup Takes Flight.”

If confused by funding lingo

In the five-part series, "A Startup Takes Flight," Crunchbase skewers the Valley’s lust for the next-big-thing while mockumenting a fictitious company’s growth from unpriced Seed round to acquisition. Along the way, you get clear examples of the legal and insider terminology used in deal-making (cap tables, deal terms, valuations, etc.), and more importantly, the mechanisms that VCs use to protect themselves in the deal. You know what happens when they know more than you. No excuses, ladyballers.

If Snapchat's in your mix 

Here’s what it takes to put together world-class social content. A short-read overview of Vogue International's three Snapchat Discover channels, team resources required, and why they love Gen Z.

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Bianca Valenti surfing the big waves at Maverick’s in December 2018. Photo by Dina Litovsky/Redux, for The New York Times.

If in need of a Fuck Yeah!

Read this outstanding article on the push for gender equality in big wave surfing. Read it for the lesson on how to harness coalitions and small government, such as land-use commissions, to demand change. Read it for the love of great writing. Read it for the role models, as per usual, a group of supremely talented women outworking and outwitting men for the right to compete and get paid equally. The best article of the year (so far).

If your teen has lusty Qs 

Planned Parenthood's Roo chatbot answers with honesty, sensitivity and humor. Props for the gender inclusivity. This is an ingenious use of tech to reach Gen Z, their next gen of supporters.

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Funding

Remarkably, $800,000 Seed, Erina Malarkey, CEO and Co-Founder; Anna-Lea Dieringer, Chief Product Officer 

Seattle-based marketing analytics software for the real-estate industry. Round led by Pioneer Square Labs Ventures with angel investors in real estate and technology. Remarkably is the first all-women-led company to spin out of Pioneer Square Labs. (Via PSBJ)

PartySlate, $3 million Seed, Julie Roth Novack, CEO and Co-Founder

Chicago-based PartySlate is a digital platform designed for event professionals. Led by Hyde Park Venture Partners; other investors include Purple Arch Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, and InvestHER Ventures. 

Ritual, $25 million Series B, Katerina Schneider, CEO and Founder

Los Angeles-based Ritual is a direct-to-consumer vitamin company. Previous investors Founders Fund, Norwest Venture Partners and Forerunner Ventures participated. Three-quarters of Ritual's board members are women and 60 percent of its 47 full-time employees are female.

Billie, $25 million Series A, Georgina Gooley, Co-Founder

Brooklyn-based wellness company Billie sells direct-to-consumer shaving supplies and body products for women. Round led by Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing Group. Silverton Partners, Female Founders Fund, and Lakehouse Ventures also participated in the round. (Fortune)

Cuyana, $30 million, Series C, Karla Gallardo, CEO and Co-Founder; Shilpa Shah, Co-Founder

San Francisco-based direct-to-consumer fashion brand focused on responsibly sourced, high-end apparel and accessories. Cuyana was profitable in 2018. Backed by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital. (Business of Fashion) 

FabFitFun, $80 million Series A, Katie Echevarria Rosen Kitchens, Co-founder, Editor in Chief  

Los Angeles-based subscription-box service for beauty and wellness products. Led by Kleiner Perkins. FabFitFun financing follows a period of hockey-stick growth for the nine-year-old company, which topped $200 million in revenue last year.

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Exits

Killer Infographics, acquired by Lieberman Research Worldwide, amount undisclosed, Amy Balliett, CEO and Founder

Seattle-based visual communication company known for stylized infographics and videos. Notably, they designed their own confidential information memorandum — CIM — for potential partners, instead of letting a brokerage firm do the work.

Read GeekWire's insightful Q&A with Amy with practical advice about bootstrapping. Hire a bookkeeper, have money in the bank before you start the company, network with the men, and this....

“For the first five years of this company, I tried to avoid conflict. I often would put emotions of other people above business needs. But then I started letting the needs of the business drive all decisions over my own emotions. I do think that’s something women aren’t taught to do or expected to do. Women are often vilified when they do that. But the fact is, when you have 25 families that rely on you for their source of income, you need to let the needs of the business drive decisions over emotion.

Ultimately, I had to learn to stop apologizing and I really had to learn to stop justifying the same decisions I’d make that a man would make. Women often have to justify logical decisions and emotionless decisions and it makes it pretty hard if you’re running a business. Women have to earn it far more.”

— Amy Balliett, CEO and Founder, Killer Infographics  

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More exits

L., acquired by P&G for ~$100 million, Talia Frankel, Founder 

San Francisco-based L. is a retailer of period products and prophylactics. Founder Talia Frenkel was a photojournalist before she started L. through Y Combinator.

Why this acquisition is important:  According to TechCrunch, “For investors with knowledge of the company, the P&G acquisition is a harbinger of things to come. The combination of a non-technical, female founder operating in the consumer-packaged goods market with a mission-driven company was an anomaly in the Silicon Valley of four years ago, but Frenkel’s success shows what kind of opportunities exist in the market…’With this acquisition investors need to update their patterns,’ said one investor with knowledge of the company.” (TechCrunch)

To that end...

The Laundress, acquired by Unilever for $100 million, Gwen Whiting and Lindsey Boyd, Co-Founders 

NYC-based The Laundress is a luxury eco-friendly home-cleaning products startup. The founders never took venture capital money and sell 85 products, from specialized detergents to dish soap. (Fast Company)