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Opportunities are not all created equal in the startup world. This week we're featuring stories on what it's like being a underrepresented woman founder in today's startup ecosystem from Nikki Dominguez of Handsome, Njeri Mathu of Health Story, and Angela Benton of Streamlytics. We also update you on the health of the fundraising marketplace, measured by our Pitch Deck Interest metrics.

Nikki Dominguez of Handsome
Nikki Dominguez is the Founder and COO of Handsome, a community-driven career and education network for the beauty industry.

Our data shows that all female teams had their Traction slides scrutinized 50% more than all male teams, what is your experience with this bias?

It really felt like as women we were not allowed to be visionaries. When we walked into a room with investors we had to prove our traction. We couldn't talk about vision, it was about the proof. It's the reason we raised money the way we did. We did raise-build-raise-build. VCs asked for a proof point, so we would go hit that proof point and come back and get a check. Then we would get the next proof point and go hit that to get our next check. We've raised over $600k, but we've had to do it in stages rather than with one big check.

Njeri Mathu of Health Story
Njeri Mathu is the Founder of Health Story with 11+ years of experience successfully developing and launching new businesses, brands and products across B2B, B2C, and SaaS ventures.

We've seen that minority founders reach out to 20% less investors in their Pre-Seed round than their non-minority counterparts, what about the fundraising ecosystem contributes to this factor?

Starting a business as a single, Black female founder is daunting. Before taking the first step I've worked hard to find my community to help make the process easier. Everyone has been really positive about some of the changes that appear to be happening in venture capital. New funds dedicated to black and brown founders are great, but we also all feel like we'll believe it when we see it. The wisdom I've been getting from other founders is to try and connect with VCs who have a history of investing in underrepresented founders. Or to reach out to VCs who look like me. But those aren't that easy to find.

Angela Benton of Streamlytics

Angela Benton is the Founder and CEO of Streamlytics and is a pioneer of diversity in the technology industry and raising awareness around the inequalities that exist in the industry.

With the existing bias in VC, what can underrepresented founders do to raise money for their businesses?

Running an accelerator for underrepresented founders it was just understood that our pitch decks had to look different. In order to get someone’s attention I knew the teams going through my accelerator had to look great on paper. It taught me a lot. I'm a third time founder and when it came time for me to raise for my current startup I decided to bypass VC funding. I knew the value of my business and I knew what going to VCs meant in terms of time and effort. Given the state of venture capital for people of color, our Reg-CF [crowdfunding] offering was a powerful tool to raise the capital quickly so that we could focus on business growth and obtain a valuation that was accurate for what we have built. I decided to use Start Engine and raised almost $1.1M in equity crowdfunding in just seven days.

 Pitch Deck Interest Metrics Update

Key insights on the health of the fundraising marketplace since last week.

Recommended Reads

Believing And Investing In Underrepresented Founders

In this episode of Igniting Startups, you’ll get to hear Anastasia Tarpeh-Ellis share her thoughts on why investors should believe and invest in underrepresented founders, how she found a great mentor, the amazing culture at Backstage, and finding a breakthrough in her product.

Read the interview details and link to the podcast on Powderkeg's blog

Resources to Find, Support and Invest in Black Founders

The team at Cleo Capital compiled a number of resources for the Black founder community, in addition to resources to help allies support Black professionals and give them space to excel.

Read the full post on Medium

Practical Steps To Combat Discrimination In VC

Mary Ann Azevedo of Crunchbase caught up with Preston James, co-founder of DivInc, to discuss the challenges facing underrepresented founders today and what he thinks can be done to help change things for the better. 

Read the full post on Crunchbase News

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