Meet the fund investing exclusively in women-led startups
As regular readers of Bazaar At Work will, sadly, know, less than 2 per cent of venture funding goes to female entrepreneurs. Thankfully, there is HearstLab, one of the world’s most active venture funds investing exclusively in women-led startups. This October, Bazaar is partnering with the fund for its first live event in the UK.
HearstLab is proudly working to close the gender funding gap by helping female founders build sustainable and highly scalable businesses across fintech, data analytics, health, transportation, enterprise technology, and media. They have thus far invested more than $100m in over 70 women-led, technology companies globally.
Pitch HearstLab is the pitch event series aimed at finding and funding the best high-growth, B2B/B2B2C, women-led new companies. Since its inception in 2015, more than $3 million has been invested in 14 early-stage women-led startups through the series alone. Now the event is coming to the UK for the first time.
After a long evaluation process of hundreds of applications from early stage women-led companies across the UK and Europe, six finalists have been chosen. On 16 October, they will present live in London to see who goes home with a £100,000 investment from HearstLab.
The event, hosted at Ciné Lumière in South Kensington, will be moderated by Bazaar At Work editor Marie-Claire Chappet and will feature a fireside chat between Hannah Bernard, the Head of Business Banking at Barclays UK and co-chair of the UK's Invest in Women Taskforce, and Lydia Slater, Bazaar's editor-in-chief.
The afternoon will see each applicant pitch live to a panel of judges including Eve Burton (Hearst EVP and HearstLab chairwoman), Katie Vanneck-Smith (CEO, Hearst UK Magazines), David Fogel (founder of Alma Angels), and Maren Bannon (co-founder and managing partner of January Ventures). One successful participant will also be the inaugural recipient of the Harper's Bazaar award, which will include exclusive coverage in a forthcoming issue of Bazaar and an invitation to the next Bazaar At Work Summit.
The event will culminate in a drinks reception at the stunning Art Deco cinema.
Join us to see this inspiring fund in action and see what incredible female talent is operating in the market. As HearstLab founder Eve Burton says: “It’s time for the women of the world to be part of something that makes them as wealthy as their male counterparts.”
To learn more about HearstLab, visit HearstLab.com and reserve your (free) ticket to the event here.
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