Clue’s community fundraise is dominated by female investors

Clue, the period tracker and reproductive health companion, has set a new record for female investor participation via crowdfunding.

Jana Hlistova

May 14, 2023

Welcome to our #179 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Clue, the female-founded, female-led, period tracker and reproductive health companion and their community fundraise.

Although the crowdfunding campaign is now closed, by 3 May Clue had set a new record for female investor participation and 86% of its investors were female.

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You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Clue’s community fundraise is dominated by female investors

Clue, the period tracker and reproductive health companion, has set a new record for female investor participation via crowdfunding campaign.

Clue, the first female-founded, female-led period tracker and reproductive health companion, has set a new record for female investor participation in its crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, as reported by Tech Funding News.

Clue's period tracker app pioneered the 'femtech' movement, and now they are building a leading female health platform, while helping to close the gender data gap.

The femtech had already raised €7m…

… in its latest institutional round last month led by London-based Balderton Capital which is one of the Revolut backers, and New York-based Union Square Ventures.

By 3 May, Clue had raised €1m via crowdfunding. And crucially, the Clue community of investors is dominated by women:

86% of investors being female – a significant increase compared to the 20% average for campaigns on Crowdcube.
And 84% of these investors are under 40 years of age, indicating a strong interest in Clue’s offerings among younger generations.

Why is this important?

Women’s health is underinvested.

Women only receive 4% of the healthcare R&D budget. And 80% of healthcare VCs have never invested in women’s health.

Men continue to dominate VC investing and have often labelled women’s health as ‘niche’, meaning that they have overlooked or underestimated the sector.

This is despite the women’s health market being estimated at $3.5tn+. And women:

spend approximately $500bn a year on medical expenses
and control 80%+ of all healthcare buying and usage decisions.

Although the crowdfunding campaign has now closed (and raised 106% of its target), investors could:

Invest from as little as €10 (or as much as €100,000)
Invest on the same terms as their latest investors (including Balderton Capital)
Contribute to an innovative business whose investors have also backed Revolut)
Have equity in a company with 11m users and 100m app downloads globally.
Get closer to their product development process with exclusive Investor Product Perks
Have a say in Investor Forum product feature polls and get invited to webinars and AMAs with the Clue Team.

As well as being an investment opportunity for female investors, Clue rewards its community of female customers (with equity) and engages them in product development (very early).

For female investors who may be new to the world of startups, this may be a very good way to learn by doing.

Audrey Tsang, co-CEO of Clue, has said:

The record-breaking female participation in our crowdfunding shows the impact Clue has made to date, and how our users – and the wider female population – see the company’s potential.
This campaign brings our most important stakeholders – our community – even closer to our product development. And given female investors often have less access to investment opportunities, we’re excited to attract more female investors to share in Clue’s future success.

What next? (Re) listen to The Purse Podcast:

Financial news

The value of global bonds drop another $340bn+ this week and thus no relief for the balance sheets of private banks.
One month US Treasury yield jumps as US at ‘significant risk’ of default in first two weeks of June if Congress doesn’t address the debt ceiling, CBO said. But, the US can avoid default in July if Treasury can make it through June cash crunch.
Bill Gross says buy T-Bills amid ‘ridiculous’ debt ceiling issue. Says debt ceiling standoffs like this are ‘always resolved.’ US 1 month yield has jumped to 5.36%, highest level since 2001.
The initial US jobless claims saw a very large spike, jumping to 264k, up from 242K the prior week & compares to ~205k in early January. This is the highest level of claims since Oct 30, 2021.
Consumer expectations for Eurozone inflation rose ‘significantly’ in March — bolstering case of ECB officials who say rate hikes may need to persist beyond the summer. Inflation 3 years ahead seen at 2.9%, further above 2% goal.
Bank of England raises UK interest rates to 4.5% (by 0.25%). The central bank’s key base rate is now at its highest level since 2008, when the global economy was in the grip of the financial crisis.
BoE's Pill says ‘there may be more work to do’ on inflation. Bank of England chief economist Huw Pill has said that the UK central bank might have to do more to contain the risks from the surge in inflation.
UK 'bottom of G7 growth league table' despite avoiding winter recession. This week’s GDP report shows that the UK economy was still 0.5% smaller in the first quarter of this year than in the last quarter of 2019.
Google is catching up to Microsoft in the race for AI. Google will start experimenting w/a more conversational search engine & has made its AI-powered chatbot available more broadly, comp said at its annual developer conference on Wed. The share price gained 11% this week.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs

Bitcoin has plunged more than 10% over the past 7 days to a two-month low just above $26,000 (currently trading at $26,800+)
Bitcoin briefly sheds $8 billion in market cap after Binance quits Canada. Binance leaving Canada, citing regulatory guidance making business untenable for the trading platform.
Ether was also lower for the week, though it did outperform bitcoin (by a bit). It’s currently at $1,800 versus its weekly high of $2,020 touched last Saturday.
Pepecoin (PEPE) is now lower by more than 60% over the past week of trade. The new token based on ‘pepe the frog’ debuted on April and quickly rose to more than a $1bn valuation. That’s now been trimmed to roughly $560 million.
Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), each of which lost about 11% over the last 7days.
Altcoins were not spared in the selloff, with Aptos’ (APT), shedding 20%, and Filecoin (FIL) and Aribitrum’s (ARB) each off about 17%.
New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Follows Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. However, she has not yet commented publicly on the role Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies may play on Twitter under her leadership.
Crypto VC Paradigm buys Coinbase shares worth $50 million. The crypto VC firm bought 810,000 shares of Coinbase at an average price of $61 earlier this week.

Coffee Break? Read This

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