Welcome to our #109 weekly newsletter.
“For women taking control of their financial future”
-Jana Hlistova
From The Purse
In this week’s newsletter, we focus on female-founded startup called Chief which has raised $100m in Series B investment, and achieves unicorn status.
12,000 female leaders are registered on the platform and an estimated 60,000 women are on the waiting list.
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You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.
And don’t forget to listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Jordan Dargue. Jordan is a founding executive, NED, investor and talent & growth consultant.
We talk about investing in women in the UK & the north of England, female angel investors and more. Please enjoy!
I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.
Until next week,
Jana
Chief: female-led startup raises $100m and achieves unicorn status
A platform and community aimed at women leaders is growing fast
Chief, a private network for female executives, has raised $100m in Series B investment. And has become a female-led unicorn valued at $1.1bn, as reported by Crunchbase.
Founded by CEO Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan in 2019, the company has achieved significant growth during the pandemic.
12,000 female executives and C-Suite women are registered on the platform and an estimated 60,000 women are on the waiting list.
CEO Caroline Childers has said in a statement:
‘Women have always been powerful, and our goal is to magnify and cross-pollinate that influence so women executives have a global network to support them’.
Chief’s growth comes at a time when..
..in the US, just 41 of the Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs as of last year, a record at 8.1%.
In the UK, as of 2021, only 18 women were in the position of chief executive officers (CEOs) at FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies.
Women continue to be underrepresented as female angel investors, venture capitalists as well as in private equity.
This in part explains why female founders struggle to access the capital for their startups and, on average, generate less revenue than their male counterparts.
The impact on women’s purse or their net worth is also significant whether we consider this from a female investor or female founder point of view.
In 2021, 83 startups founded or co-founded by women…
… became unicorns, or private companies valued at $1bn or more.
That was also a new record, but still represented just 13% of the 595 new unicorns minted in 2021, as per Crunchbase data.
Read more:
(re) Read The Purse article about Beyond The Billion and closing the gender funding gap
Listen to The Purse Podcast with Shelly Porges about closing the gender venture gap
News in Brief
Financial news
Recently the Bank of Japan started printing money again (QE) to keep long-term interest rates low. Meanwhile, BoJ's balance sheet now equals 136% of Japan's GDP. In comparison, the ECB and the Fed look like ‘amateurs’.
IMF warns Russia sanctions threaten to chip away at dollar dominance as the dollar's share of global FX reserves has dropped to 58.8%, a fresh all-time low, at end-2021 and so even before the war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions.
US jobs market in March remains hot. Unemployment rate drops to 3.6% near pre-pandemic low. And job openings outnumber unemployed.
Eurozone inflation accelerates to another all-time high. March consumer prices jumped 7.5% year-on-year vs 6.7% expected. Overshoots in Spain and Germany have spurred rate-hike bets as even core inflation tops 2% target by 50%.
In the UK, energy costs increased 54% on Friday, 1 April, meaning providers can charge up to £1,971 a year for customers with average use who have a direct debit set up.
More firms expect to raise prices in the UK than at any time since the 1980s. Sales are stagnant and last month, data showed consumer confidence fell back to levels last seen in November 2020, just before the second national Covid-19 lockdown.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs
Bitcoin ends closely following the S&P 500. Bitcoin closed the quarter down 2%, tightening the correlation with the S&P to nearly 0.9 (1 is perfect correlation, -1 is perfectly inverted).
Bitcoin reached highs of $48,000 this week, before dropping down to $45,000. It is currently trading at circa at $46,000 (see the current price of bitcoin).
The 19th million bitcoin has been mined. With less than 2m bitcoin left to be mined, Bitcoin’s limited supply has just gotten even more limited.
Bitcoin mining revenues climb back up to $1.21 billion in March. After falling consecutively since October, bitcoin mining revenues had a month-over-month increase of 14%.
A post-merge ethereum could attract institutional investment: staked ETH could be an ideal investment vehicle for major institutions looking to dip their toes into crypto holdings. ‘The Merge’ is due to take place in June (see current price for ether).
Tesla Taps MakerDAO-Powered Lender for $7.8M real estate deal. The $7.8m loan will be used to finance a new repair and collision centre for Tesla.
Bored Ape Yacht Club drives NFT sales to $300 million over the past week. NFT sales had a breakthrough year in 2021, and over the past 12 months, volume has hit $24bn.
Shiba Inu's Metaverse will feature more than 100K land plots. Developers have decided to use ether, as a land pricing token. Land buyers will be able to generate passive income, gather in-game resources, and generate rewards, which the team said it will reveal soon. (See the announcement here).
The Purse Podcast
We cover the following in our conversation:
the startup ecosystem in the UK/north of England
how the pandemic changed investing
female founders
female angel investors
how female founders can raise seed investing
Please enjoy! Listen on (including) iTunes and Spotify+
Coffee Break? Read This
We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and @janicka.
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