Welcome to our #105 weekly newsletter.
“For women taking control of their financial future”
-Jana Hlistova
Join us for our online event. We hope to see you Tuesday, 8 March at 630pm (GMT).
From The Purse
In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Serena Ventures raising $111m for its inaugural fund. Led by founding general partners, Serena Williams, the tennis champion and investor and Alison Rapaport Stillman, the team is mostly women who come from diverse backgrounds and lived experience.
76% of their investments are in solo female founders and/or Black founders in an ecosystem which chronically underestimates and underfunds women and founders of colour.
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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 Ella Chase Hyland. She is the co-founder of Wellth Works, which cultivates and develops authentic feminine leaders, showing women that they create success while integrating balance and fun. We talk about female inheritors and their relationship to money.
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And we hope you can join us for our first live online event on Tuesday, 8th March at 630pm (UK) on International Women’s Day.
Dr Kate Levinson and I will be talking about how women can change their relationship with money.
Please register for the event here.
Until next week,
Jana
Serena Ventures raises $111m for inaugural fund
Investing in underestimated and underfunded founders is integral to Fund I’s strategy
Serena Williams is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time. But her talents extend beyond sports to the world of business, entrepreneurship and investing.
Serena launched her early-stage venture capital (VC) firm, Serena Ventures, in 2014 with the mission to champion diverse, creative founders who are changing the world with their ideas and products across a wide array of industries.
This week, Serena Ventures confirmed they have raised their inaugural fund of $111m to continue their mission, as per their blog.
Today, Serena’s VC firm has:
9 years of angel investing under their belt
invested in 60+ portfolio companies
their successes include 13 unicorns and 6 exits
and their investments include fintech disruptors Propel and Cointracker, edtech giants Masterclass, and consumer product innovators Billie and Daily Harvest.
76% of their investments are in solo female founders and/or black founders…
…in an ecosystem which chronically underestimates and underfunds women and Black founders. Women receive 2% in venture capital funding versus 1.2% for Black founders (US).
And their Fund I strategy is based on the following premise, as per their blog:
We bet on founders who are not only obsessed with what they’re building, but whose passion is informed by their lived experience
We invest in overlooked, underestimated, and fledgling markets - we are a non traditional investment team and our perspectives give us an edge
Our network is unmatched and we are uniquely positioned to add value in ways other firms simply cannot
We have skin in the game for our founders, and we’ll answer every call and make every effort to help them succeed
Their conviction in overlooked markets extends beyond demographics to legacy industries.
Serena Ventures team is made up of…
…mostly women who come from diverse backgrounds and lived experience, (are) used to looking at problems differently than most in their industry.
The data shows that women invest in female founders at 2-3x the rate of men. And if they share a similar background or lived experience to the founder, gender and racial bias is often reduced, if not altogether eliminated.
They are led by their founding general partners, Serena Williams and Alison Rapaport Stillman, who’ve built an impressive team of operators, marketers, and investors.
As per their blog, Serena Williams knows what it takes to win, and personally understands the founder journey in a way that few people in the world can.
Alison Rapaport Stillman has over a decade of experience, having previously worked at J.P .Morgan, Wasserman, and Melo7 Tech Ventures. She’s a seasoned venture capitalist with deep expertise in and passion for healthcare, consumer, e-commerce, and fintech investing.
The social impact of investing in female founders and Black founders..
… is vast because the markets they address have been ignored or marginalised by investors for so long. And these underinvested markets are also underserving their customers.
It follows that the startup valuations for female founders and Black founders are often below market value. Therefore traditional investors can buy in at a huge discount.
This is despite female founders having a higher return on investment than their male peers. Why? They often have to bootstap their startup for longer and become better money managers in the process.
Simply put: they do more with less. And generate a higher return on investment.
News in Brief
Financial news
The US Federal Reserve is prepared to push ahead with a series of interest rate hikes from March, despite the economic uncertainty surrounding Russia invading Ukraine.
The Euro drops <$1.10 for the first time since 2020 as global investors flee Europe.
Stoxx Europe 600 fell to 52 week low, a sharp contrast with US peers, which have a more limited exposure to Russia and Ukraine. This is a major shift from expectations at beginning of the year when strategists said that European stocks would outperform the US in 2022, according to Bloomberg.
Oil rose to its highest level on Thursday since 2008 ($118 per barrel) as Russia invasion upends the market. A decision by OPEC+ to continue its plan to gradually increase output on Wednesday also did little to calm investor's nerves.
Wheat spikes to fresh 14 year high on deepening supply fears. Russia and Ukraine are major suppliers.
Gold climbed (to $1944) after reports show that Russian troops are shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power station in Ukraine. Risk aversion back on after report of fire at this nuclear plant.
Eurozone inflation hits yet another all-time high. Inflation unexpectedly accelerates to 5.8% year-on-year in February.
According to Bank of America: the Ukraine war means a bigger inflation shock, smaller rates shock and a bigger recession shock. The US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB) trapped between deflation on Wall Street and inflation on Main Street.
Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi & NFTs
Crypto is set to get a big boost from the rubles’s collapse and the growing market share in stablecoins, according to JP Morgan. A potential further surge in bitcoin lines up with improving technicals. (See the current bitcoin price).
2022 global inflationary pressure drives up demand for bitcoin in countries like Brazil, Argentina and Russia. Bitcoin has gained over 13% in the last one month and inflationary pressures seem to have spiked this demand.
Bitcoin hodlers unfazed by macro and geopolitical risks as they continue to accumulate, according to blockchain data from Glassnode.
Ukraine DAO’s flag NFT sells for $6.75m. The auction of the non-fungible token depicting the Ukraine flag raised 2,258 ETH.
NFT market cools as trading on ethereum and solana dips. Overall NFT trading volume fell after January’s record-breaking month, but some networks are seeing gains amid the wider slump.
The Purse Podcast
We cover the following in our conversation:
the definition of wealth
female inheritors and their relationship with money
key dynamics and challenges in families
ownership vs control
investing in female founders
being agents of change
Please enjoy! Listen here on 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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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 adviser.
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