When measuring funding to startups with female founders and CEOs, the perennial takeaway is that women remain underrepresented. Last year, for instance, just 3% of U.S. funding went to startups with solely female founders.
Women-led companies appeared similarly underrepresented in the funding tallies, capturing less than 5% of investment, per preliminary Crunchbase tallies. The totals dip a bit further when narrowed to companies with both a female CEO and founder or co-founder.
Nonetheless, there are some prominent startups that fit this criteria. To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to rank five of this year’s most heavily funded companies with a female CEO and founder.
Collectively, founders of the startups profiled below span sectors from biotech to transportation, and their companies have raised over $1.9 billion.
Molly He, CEO and co-founder, Element Biosciences
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: San Diego
Funding: Has raised over $680 million to date, including a $277 million Series D in July.
Business: Focused on advanced DNA sequencing and multiomics technology for biological research. Known for its AVITI DNA sequencer and soon-to-launch AVITI24 sequencing and cyto-profiling platform. It competes with Illumina, the incumbent leader in sequencing.
Background: He was previously a venture partner at Foresite Capital, focused on healthcare. Before that, she was senior director of scientific research at Illumina. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA in protein biophysics.
Katherine Kostereva, CEO and founder, Creatio
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Boston
Funding: $268 million to date, including a $200 million June financing at a $1.2 billion valuation.
Business: Develops a no-code platform to automate CRM and enterprise workflows with AI-assisted co-development capabilities.
Background: Kostereva, a Ukrainian entrepreneur, initially bootstrapped the company, formerly named Bpm’online, before rebranding as Creatio five years ago.
Kristen Fortney, CEO and co-founder, BioAge Labs
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Richmond, California
Funding: Has raised $294 million to date, including a $170 million Series D in February. Filed for an IPO last week as a pre-revenue company.
Business: Develops therapies that target aging in order to increase healthy lifespan and treat metabolic diseases including obesity.
Background: Fortney has a Ph.D. in medical biophysics from the University of Toronto, followed by a postdoc at Stanford University where she focused on the genetics of exceptional human longevity.
Christina Cacioppo, CEO and co-founder, Vanta
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding: Has raised over $350 million in known funding to date, including a $150 million Series C in July.
Business: Develops a software platform for automating compliance and risk management. Surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue in its last fiscal year.
Background: Before launching Vanta, Cacioppo was product lead for Dropbox’s Dropbox Paper offering and worked on the investment team at Union Square Ventures. She has degrees in economics and management science, and engineering from Stanford.
Ritu Narayan, CEO and founder, Zum
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Redwood City, California
Funding: Has raised over $400 million in grant and equity funding to date, including a $140 million Series E in January.
Business: App and software platform for tracking and managing student transportation, with a focus on elementary, middle and high school students.
Background: Before starting Zum, Narayan was a product manager at eBay and Oracle. She graduated from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and received a degree in computer science at the Delhi Institute of Technology.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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