Female entrepreneurs are supporting one another in Silicon Valley.
On October 16th at FIHQ in Palo Alto, the Female Founder Initiative and FI program alumni Harmony Oswald, Founder of Legalucy, recently co-hosted this female founder pitch event, raising more than $500 for Women Who Code.
The Female Founder Initiative is an internal diversity effort led by FI’s own Rachel Sheppard and Megan Todd, with the goal of driving the Founder Institute’s annual startup portfolio towards achieving at least 40% female-founded companies in key markets by 2020.
Legalucy is an FI Silicon Valley portfolio company that has developed an interactive pre-lawyer assistance platform, empowering small business owners with the information they need to take the guesswork out of startup legal.
Our expert panel of judges for the Break the Roles pitch competition hailed from Golden Seeds, DYVVYD, Amyris, and Women Who Code, and saw pitches from nine tremendous female founders:
- Rachel Major, Founder & CEO of NuLeaf Tech
- Anitha Beberg, CEO of Seva Exchange (and another FI Silicon Valley alumni!)
- Mag Boron, Founder & CEO of Pangian
- Alex Eremia, Founder & CEO of BingeWith
- Vidya Hebbar, PhD, VP of Product Development, Lifescient
- Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock
- Soo Jung Han, Founder of BrightOn
- Marielle Ednalino, Founding Executive Director of Htm.elle
- Tara Wright, Co-Founder & CEO of PYNQ
- Meha Agrawal, Founder & CEO of Silk and Sonder
Lifescient pitch takes the top prize
Dr. Vidya Hebbar, VP of Product Development at Lifescient, delivered the winning pitch (shown 6th from left in cover image), taking home the top prize’s bragging rights. Lifescient Inc is a pet therapeutics and drug development company, focused on improving the quality of care and eliminating the challenges associated with administering medicines to pets.
Watch the entire event on Introvoke
Also joining us for Break the Roles was Introvoke, a startup digital media organization which live-streamed the event, and has the complete video recording hosted here on their website, where you can watch each of the founders pitch in full!
Thank you again to all of the dedicated female founders, generous judges, and amazing co-hosts and collaborators who helped make this special event such a success.
Keep up with all the latest from the Female Founder Initiative, including future events like this one, by subscribing to FFI’s free monthly newsletter here.
See the most recent news from our Grads at FI.co/news, or learn more about their stories at FI.co/journey.
