Welcome to our #79 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 Kindbody (US) and the largest femtech raise of 2021. Its Series C was joined by high profile female investors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Sophia Amoruso and Yael Cohen.
And the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign (WASPI) had a significant victory. On Tuesday, the Ombudsman confirmed their initial finding that the government failed to adequately communicate the change in state pension age for women born after 1950.
You can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.
Stay safe everyone & look after yourselves.
I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.
Until next week,
Jana
Kindbody: the largest femtech investment in 2021, joined by female investors
High profile female investors invest in female-led innovation
In 2020, the femtech market broke through.
Female-focused digital health startups which cover: (including) maternal health, fertility, menstruation and sexual wellness surged in investments last year.
According to Rock Health, funding rose (for US startups raising $2m+):
across 22 companies
almost 2x compared to 2019.
However femtech startups still only account for 3% of overall digital-health funding in 2020 (even though women make 80% of healthcare decisions).
Female-focused startups are often undervalued and underfunded because they are considered ‘niche’ (or simply misunderstood) by mostly male investors.
We know that 80% of health VCs have not invested in women’s health.
Kindbody is the largest femtech raise in 2021: $62m Series C
Founded in 2018 by CEO Gina Bartasi, the startup’s ‘mission is to create global access to high-quality women’s health and fertility care’, by leveraging proprietary technology.
Kindbody has raised a total of $123m in funding from leading investors including Claritas Capital and Perceptive Advisors.
And its recent Series C round was joined by mission-driven female investors…
…including Gwyneth Paltrow, Sophia Amoruso and Yael Cohen. The press release says:
‘The strategic investments…will be used to accelerate the company’s already rapid growth and further its mission of increasing access to fertility and family-building services worldwide’.
Yael Cohen is also quoted talking about her decision to invest:
‘Why do women get asked to donate and men get asked to invest? Why is it presumed we only think with our hearts and men think with their wallets? I’m committed to female funded, not just female founded.’
High-profile female investors are key…
…to generating attention, validation and more capital in underserved markets. And we know (based on research) that women are three times more likely to invest in female-led startups than men.
High-profile female investors are therefore very high signal. And not just because they are shifting capital to female founders. But because this is validating the market, business and female-led innovation for other investors.
And this sends a clear message that women do invest. Which is changing the outdated narrative about women being risk-averse and not interested in money.
And of course, institutional money is paying attention. Which can only be a good thing for women raising money.
Read more here:
News in Brief
Financial news
Euro business activity grew at the fastest rate for 21 years in July as the economy continued to reopen.
FTSE wiped £44bn in value on Monday, as investors sold shares on fears over the Covid-19 pandemic (the biggest fall in 2 months). Another £9.6bn was knocked off the value of the smaller FTSE 250 index. On Wednesday, the FTSE 100 had the best day since February.
Retail sales in the UK rose 0.5% in June from the previous month, when sales fell 1.4%.
UK borrowing debt servicing costs hit record but borrowing falls as the economy reopens.
Bank of England (BoE) expert warns that tightening monetary policy is not right to limit inflation.
BoE to link director pay to progress on diversity target.
Jeff Bezos reaches space on the Blue Origin first crewed launch. the trip marked its entry into the private spaceflight.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum & DeFi
Bitcoin fell below $30,000 on Tuesday (erased $90bn in market cap) but rebound again Wednesday after Elon Musk confirmed that he still owns Bitcoin. Bitcoin is currently trading at circa $34,400+. And ether is trading at circa $2,170+.
Cryptocurrency boom has further to run, according to professional investors, with nearly 1 in 3 expecting trading to increase over the next 12 months.
Rothchild Investment Corp more than tripled Bitcoin exposure in Q2.
Coinbase reports global cryptocurrency transactions rose 32%. UK daily transaction volumes rose 30% q-o-q to £468m (from £325m in Q1). The figures show the ongoing interest in Ethereum, with its average daily trading volume rising 53% to $3.2bn in Q2.
Bitcoin is a ‘key trend’ for Twitter says CEO Jack Dorsey. And that it is ‘hugely important’ to both Twitter and the shareholders to ‘continue to look at the [crypto] space and invest aggressively in it.’
Elon Musk says he owns Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. Tesla and SpaceX also own Bitcoin. In Elon’s words: ‘I might pump, but I don’t dump’.
Tesla likely to start accepting Bitcoin as payment again once it conducts due diligence on the amount of renewable energy used to mine the currency, according to Elon Musk. Bitcoin jumped 8% to $32,160.16 and ether rose by 11.6% to $1,993.36.
OpenSea secures $100m in Series B round at $1.5bn valuation. The plan is to grow the team and expand globally.
Damien Hirst’s ‘currency’ NFT drop more than 6x oversubscribed. The NFT drop consists of 10,000 unique colourful dot pattern artworks with a corresponding NFT for each piece.
Women’s state pension fight
The Ombudsman’s initial finding of maladministration by the DWP
The 1995 Pensions Act changed the law:
women born after 1950 could no longer claim a state pension at the age of 60. The state pension age increased for women (to match men, incrementally) to 65 from 2010- 2018. (The state pension age will rise to 66 from 2026, for those born after 1960).
As a result, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) received many complaints from women about how this change was communicated.
What did this mean for women?
Many were unprepared financially. They were unaware of how these changes would affect them personally and led to emotional distress. Many have been short of funds.
According to the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign (WASPI), 3.8m women have been affected.
The Ombudsman’s finding
Last Tuesday, the ombudsman found that from 2005 onwards, the Department of Work and Pension (DWP) had failed in the action taken to communicate the State Pension age.
Amanda Amroliwala, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman CEO, said:
‘After a detailed investigation, we have found that DWP failed to act quickly enough once it knew a significant proportion of women were not aware of changes to their State Pension age. It should have written to the women affected at least 28 months earlier than it did.
‘We will now consider the impact of these failings, and what action should be taken to address them.’
Although this is a big victory for the WASPI campaign…
…because thousands of women could be compensated (for DWP’s failing to adequately communicate); the ombudsman has no ‘power’ to refund lost pensions.
However the WASPI campaign is:
‘…calling on the Government to agree fair and adequate compensation for WASPI women rather than allow what has become a vicious cycle of Government in-action to continue’.
WASPI are engaging legal advisers to decide the next steps in the campaign.
Read the full report here.
Read more about Women and the State Pension.
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.
The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2021 & All Rights Reserved.
The Purse provides content for informational purposes only, we do not recommend products or services or provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor.
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