Seed/Angel Funding
The Next Women is organizing it's next Pitch Event on February 24, 2012 in Amsterdam in the beautiful Elicium (photo).The pitch events are designed to improve access to financial and professional networks for women entrepreneurs and to enhance and accelerate a faster growth of their business.Therefore, The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation supports this upcoming pitch event, because female entrepreneurs are a potential for growth.
It’s been a great 12 months for Lisa Falzone. Last year she
raised $3.7 million in her series "A" funding round; then last month at the Macworld
– iWorld event, her company Revel
Systems was officially announced as the winner of the Best iPad Business App of the Year Award.
A new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) looks at how new businesses and start-ups have
been raising money since the crisis.
With banks reluctant to provide loans to start-ups and venture capital firms preferring to invest in later stage companies, a growing class of experienced entrepreneurs and business people are stepping in to fill this funding gap.
These “angel investors” not only provide funding but also leverage their expertise to provide mentoring to the entrepreneurial teams in which they invest, according to a new OECD report.
100 interviews with entrepreneurs, policy makers and academics from 32 countries.
Financing High-Growth Firms: The Role of Angel Investors looks at angel investment around the world and includes over a hundred interviews with entrepreneurs, policy makers and academics from 32 countries.
Can you elaborate a bit on: "How did you fund it, with how much money, and what is the business model? This is for a lot of people great to read, how you did it, what route you chose, which hurdles etc. as for many this is a thing to consider when starting out. Also, on how you are dealing with the growth is interesting.
This is what I asked Charlotte Semler-West, serial entrepreneur and founder of Charlotte & Co, and prior thereto, founder of Myla. She replied:
I chose the fund the business start-up myself. I had previously founded and run a VC backed business start-up and I really didn’t want to go that way again. I can say the following….(probably more than you wanted!!!) (see further down in the interview, ed. SGB)
The Pipeline Fellowship, which trains women philanthropists to
become angel investors, has opened a call for applications from women social
entrepreneurs interested in presenting their businesses to its Boston and NYC
Pipeline Fellows.
Women-led startups will
present to investors who “get” their social mission, as well as their
for-profit business structure, and will have the opportunity to secure an
investment (up to US$50k) from the Pipeline Fellows.
This week I did my first
official investment pitch in Amsterdam at The NextWomen Pitch Event, along with 9
other slightly nervous women.
Organised brilliantly by Simone Brummelhuis, we got the chance to practise our pitches in the afternoon, followed by the real thing in the evening to a room full of people with 6 potential investors.
Nine women-led startups and a number of mostly female guests gathered at Microsoft in Amsterdam on 29th November for a Pitch Event with a mixed panel of experts and angel & VC investors.
The event was organized by The NextWomen, in cooperation with Astia and supported by Microsoft BizSpark. Astia’s Simone Brummelhuis kicked off by announcing that the theme of the evening was "Gold and how to dig for it as an entrepeneur". The panel - the goldmine - were then asked to briefly introduce themselves and offer their golden tip to the pitching entrepeneurs. Their advice:
When Ashley Kingsley and Whitney Trujillo, co-CEOs of Daily Deals for Moms, were looking
to expand their business in April 2011 after running it on their own for about
a year, they thought angel investors were the way to go.
But they weren’t sure on how to go about finding investors who would be interested in their deal site offering discounted deals on clothing, kids activities, and other offerings.
“We just kept reaching out to more and more people. Every time we talked to one person we learned something … it really became this educational series of meetings that led us to really get a good grasp on the next steps to take,” explained Trujillo. “It was a very quick learning curve.”
We have a huge problem folks… We simply don’t have enough women
investors in hi-tech and startups as a whole around the globe. Why not?
Let me start off by saying that ‘women’ are the larger demographic ‘purchasers’ globally. Women are constantly making purchase decisions and very involved in making global ‘buy’ decisions.
I was recently quite taken with the statistic that the largest percentage of the wealthiest (self made) women in the world are in China, in real estate.
Women are highly educated, earn significant incomes and have access to wealth.
So, the question is why do women shy away from investing in startups globally?
Robyn Scott is a social entrepreneur and author. Co-founder
of OneLeap, she also co-founded Mothers for All, which she started with proceeds from her
first book about growing up in Botswana.
Robyn is one of the Future 100 Young Social Entrepreneurs of the Year, announced today, Social Enterprise Day, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011.
OneLeap offers Special Delivery for the web age - getting your pitch through to busy potential clients, employers, investors and mentors. Special delivery means getting guaranteed attention, while making a good impression. For recipients, special delivery recognises the value of their attention. It enables them to focus on high-quality messages from serious senders. And every message they read effortlessly raises money for their favourite charity.
Upcoming Events
24 Feb 2012 - 13:00 - 17:00Amsterdam, Netherlands
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