Today’s issue is on female-founded startups, which are often overlooked, and thus don’t receive the same investment or exposure as male-founded ones.
But that’s changing. Today I hope to continue that change by sharing some special female startups for you to invest in.
Let’s go 👇
Table of Contents
A refreshing alternative to hard seltzer
Invest in a female-founded premium cocktail brand
After our first investor trip to Mexico, one thought kept bubbling up:
Agave is such a great ingredient. How come more companies don’t use it?
As it turns out, one premium cocktail company is indeed using blue agave. They’re called Melograno, and we met the team on our investor trip to Nashville.
Melograno delivers innovation in the RTD (ready-to-drink) category on the leading edge of global and consumer trends: non-carbonation, healthy lifestyle, premiumization, and natural, “Better for You” ingredients.
Created to leverage all of what consumers look for in the segment’s growing categories of hard seltzers, spirit-based cocktails, and canned wine while leaving behind the negatives associated with each category.
Unique value prop:
- Competitive pricing, yet high margins
- Shelf stable, 80% rebuy rate
- 64% conversion rate at sampling events.
Melograno is currently raising a round of funding to expand the brand further. We don’t normally offer RTD opportunities, but this is definitely one to look at.
Express Interest in Melograno →
Are women-owned startups a better bet?
Last year, Alts contributor Ivana Slavcheva wrote a great piece on investing in women.
If there’s one takeaway from that issue you should remember, it’s this: Women tend to raise less capital than male founders, yet their companies tend generate more revenue!
The Boston Consulting Group looked at 1,500 startups from accelerator network MassChallenge — an admittedly small and regional-biased sample.
But what they found was interesting:
- Women founders receive significantly less funding — an average of $935,000 compared to $2.1 million for men..
- ..But women-led startups generate higher revenue over five years ($730,000 vs. $662,000)
- And they are more efficient in turning investment into revenue (78 cents per dollar vs 31 cents for men)
What’s cool, too, is that this success isn’t limited to female-focused industries.
Kingsguard Capital (run by our friends over at Kingscrowd) has analyzed the most popular industries for female startups:
Women and VC funding
One under-discussed trend is that, during Covid, more women became entrepreneurs.
From 2019-2023, female-owned businesses increased at 2x the rate of male-owned ones.
But these businesses were mostly bootstrapped, not venture-funded. The gender disparities in VC trickle down to who gets funded, and today only 15% of tech startups have female founders.
- In Australia, just 0.7% of venture capital goes to purely female-founded startups (though interestingly, in the city of Brisbane, 72% of startups have least one female founder!)
- Even the Middle East fares better, with 1.2% of venture capital going to female founded startups.
- In the US it’s a much better situation: 25% of US venture capital goes to companies with one or more female founders..
- ..And that’s an increase from two years ago, attributed to the increase of female-founded AI startups.
While we obviously have entire industries directed mainly towards women, it’s kind of astounding that there’s a funding gap when women are literally half the population.
Just check out these enormous TAMs:
But there’s one female-focused industry in particular that’s getting very strong.
Female health tech is thriving
The big influx of successful female founders is in health tech.
Since 2018, there has been an impressive 315% increase in VC investment in women’s health startups. After all, it’s hard to solve problems like fertility, hormones, and menopause without female perspective.
- QiHealth connects women to natural health solutions for fertility, hormonal, and menstrual issues. (Currently raising — more on them below)
- Alloy is dedicated to menopause education and treatment options
- Evvy is an at-home vaginal microbiome test
Of course, there are exceptions and male-led companies that still reach female consumers.
For example, I always assumed that Flo was founded by a woman. But it turns out the unicorn fertility tracker app (which I subscribe to) was founded by Dmitry and Yuri Gurski — twin brothers from Lithuania. 🇱🇹
Five female-led startups you can invest in right now
Qi Health
We’ve seen tele-health platforms before, especially post-Covid. But all of them missed a projected $231 billion niche: Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Qi Health is an online platform that makes the oldest alternative medicine in the world accessible to women with chronic health issues like PCOS, endometriosis, infertility and (peri)menopause.
The platform boasts full relief for over 90% of users after four months of herbal medicine treatment.
Patients receive personalized herbal treatments which address the root cause of their health issues, relieving symptoms within a few months.
How it works
- Personalized consultation: Begin with an in-depth health assessment from a licensed TCM provider.
- Customized formula: Receive a herbal treatment tailored to your symptoms and body type. Treatments focus on the root causes.
- Continual support: Benefit from expert advice on lifestyle and dietary adjustments, paired with monthly consultations and progress tracking.
Investment Details
- Industry: Alternative medicine and female health
- Purpose: Platform connecting women to Chinese Medicine practitioners to relieve female-health issues with customized, natural herbal medicine.
- Minimum investment: $5,000
- Valuation: $8m
Express Interest in Qi Health →
Epi One
Epi One is leading a revolution in early cancer detection.
It uses a DNA-based diagnostic platform designed to identify cancer accurately, affordably, and in its earliest stages.
Driven by a mission to save lives, Epi One’s tests aim to improve outcomes by detecting cancer early enough for effective treatment.
Why invest in Epi One?
I lost a childhood friend to cancer and saw another family member deal with lengthy wait times for diagnosis and treatment. I’m sure cancer hits close to home for many of you as well.
- Accurate technology: Reduced false negatives; 95% accuracy in tissue biopsy and 70% in blood samples.
- High-growth market: The US cancer diagnostics market is projected to reach $70 billion by 2032.
- Fast and affordable: One-time cost of $500 for the test. Results in 6 hours.
- Leadership: CEO Michael Marquardt is the former Chair of the American Cancer Society. He leads a team of top scientists formerly with Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Details
- Minimum Investment: $495
- Valuation: $46.4m
Express Interest
Melograno Cocktails
Melograno has created a refreshing, sophisticated alternative to traditional hard seltzers, wines, and spirits.
While men can enjoy it, the drink is designed primarily for women, who want to enjoy a crisp, light alcoholic drink without getting too drunk or bloated.
Why invest in Melograno?
- Market fit. In my conversations with Robert and Reza, one thing that struck me is how well they understand the market. They know exactly who they’re targeting, and how to reach them. (Customers are 67% female, 33% male)
- Made with agave: This premium drink is made with blue agave — an underrated (and under-utilized) flavor.
- Early traction. Robert spent his career in sports marketing, and has parlayed that into big contracts with Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta — with more coming.
- Incredible design. You can judge a book by its cover. Design is a huge, terrific part of this brand.
- Little competition. There are basically no other companies with a formula like theirs.
- High acquisition potential. This is turning into an obvious acquisition play from a major company. Why wouldn’t Coca-Cola come knocking?
Express Interest
Melograno is currently raising a round of funding to expand the brand further.
Express Interest in Melograno →
AptDeco
AptDeco is an online marketplace where you can buy and sell furniture across the US. and even have it delivered to your home.
The platform earned over $5 million in revenue last month and has over 600,000 users.
Personally, I love finding unique pieces on Facebook Marketplace, but don’t always follow through because of the time it takes to arrange a pickup. Apt Deco takes away those inconveniences while saving over 33 million pounds of furniture from land fills.
Kingscrowd has invested in Apt Deco through Kingsguard Capital.
Details
- Industry: Consumer Goods
- Purpose: Resale platform for furniture
- Minimum investment: $100
- Valuation: $40m
Invest in Apt Deco on Wefunder →
Just Her Rideshare
Just Her Rideshare is a ridesharing platform exclusively for female passengers and drivers for a safer experience.
In 2020, Uber reported over 1,000 sexual assault and rape incidents — and that was during Covid. (I’d be curious to know what those numbers look like now..)
In any event, founder Kimberly Evans saw a pain point for female riders and sought to provide a more empowering rideshare alternative.
Kimberly brings over twenty years of entrepreneurial experience that eventually led to her finding her female ride-share platform, which now has 10,000+ signups.
- Industry: Transportation
- Purpose: Female rideshare platform
- Minimum Investment: $100
- Valuation: $3.6m
Invest in Just Her Rideshare →
Women fill gaps in unexpected industries
The companies below aren’t raising, but I wanted to share some of the great stuff they’re doing.
Industries like female health, ridesharing and dating seem like obvious examples for women-founded startups.
The most famous, successful example may be the dating app Bumble. Letting women make the first move turned Bumble into the world’s second-most popular dating app, now worth over $2 billion. (Bumble recently removed that rule.)
Things like mechanics and construction might appear more gender-neutral, if not masculine-leaning industries. Yet women’s issues exist in these spaces, ripe for female startup founders to create solutions for.
Cars and auto body shops
Another industry that needed a female touch? Cars and auto shops.
Perhaps a stereotype (but true to my experience), I always feel ripped off by mechanics.
Once I was quoted over $800 for a simple water pump replacement. My partner returned the next day and was quoted $200 for the same job.
Mechanical engineer Stephanie Bruinsma estimates overcharging happens almost 30% of the time in the automotive industry.
So she created a subscription-based app called AutoCate, where women (anyone, really) can consult with experts on auto issues and pricing before paying for a service.
While overcharging happens to both men and women, much of AutoCate’s subscribers are women, as well as people for whom English isn’t their first language.
She tells Global News:
“It’s like you get a mechanic best friend, right? The core of it is like, everybody can have an expert in their back pocket that they can call that works for them, so that they can get information to make a better decision on their car repair.”
She was funded an undisclosed amount by Ontario’s Accelerator Centre and her company charges users USD $178 annually for the service.
Food waste
Waste management is another example of a male-dominated industry without many women’s perspectives. Right now, the US workforce in waste management is made up of only 17% women.
It took the fashion-forward drive of female co-founders Myra Arshad and Avneet Ghotra, to envision food waste transformed into clothing. (And we’re not talking about Lady Gaga’s meat dress.)
Their company, ALT TEX, transforms food waste into a biodegradable and durable polymer that can be used for clothing and textiles.
So far, they’ve raised $1.3 million in funding and another $1 million in rewards, including $200,000 from fashion retailer giant H&M.
ALT TEX projects an estimated 150,000 tons of converted food waste and 750,000 tons of greenhouse gases prevented each year.
Closing thoughts
I love discovering cool, new businesses, and so many of them are founded by women — I could have kept writing indefinitely.
But despite all the successful female-founded startups out there, the seemingly endless discrepancy in VC funding compared to male-founded companies is a bit hard to believe.
I hope this exposure brings more interest and funding to the five companies I mentioned in growth stages.
And I say that not just to close the gender gap in VC funding for startups — I say that because these companies are innovative, solve real issues, show profound growth potential, and have seriously kick-ass founders.
That’s all for today!
Are there any other female startup founders that should be on our radar?
Reply with comments — we read everything.
Until next time,
Chrissy
Disclosures
- This issue was written and researched by Chrissy Kapralos, with editing done by Stefan von Imhof
- This issue was sponsored by Melograno Cocktails, with support from Qi Health and Epi One
- Neither Alts nor Altea has any current holdings in any companies mentioned in this issue
- Kingscrowd is an Alts partner. No money exchanged hands between Kingscrowd and Alts.
- This issue contains no affiliate links.