🎙️ EP03: How Voulez Capital is Funding Europe’s Female Founders with Anya… | InvestHer Podcast

In this episode, you will learn about Ania Nowicki, who is the founding partner at Voulez Capital, Europe's first VC fund for female founders. And you're going to learn how she became a VC, why she set up Voulez Capital, and how does she choose the companies that she invests in. The other thing we're going to talk about are what are the key trends in funding today and what needs to change. Investor Podcast is for you, the female founder who has a product, a service, or a message that you believe in and need to get funded. Or for you, the investor who wants to learn more about the huge untapped investment opportunity that gives you a higher return— women entrepreneurs. My name is Anne Ravanona. I'm an entrepreneur, TEDx speaker, and women's advocate, and I'm passionate about helping women entrepreneurs get funded. In each episode, we'll take a behind-the-scenes look into real-world funding tactics and strategies to help you get the funding you need Let's put the fun into funding. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started. So good morning, Anja. It's absolutely wonderful to have you with us today on our InvestHer podcast. And hey, you're our first investor guest, and I'm really proud and happy that it's you, by the way. So I'm so happy to have you with us. Thank you very much.

Glad to be here, and you're definitely making me blush already, so this should be an interesting one.

So we're gonna make you blush a lot more. So let's, let's start So tell us a bit about why you became a VC, Ania. What was your calling?

Well, I have to say that in some ways I still feel like I'm running around and pretending to be a VC, because I'm really underneath an entrepreneur, and that's what I've been doing for the last 10, 15, 20 years. I've been building businesses. So for me, creation of Willa Capital was very much an entrepreneurial act. I saw an opportunity that wasn't being addressed. It's a huge market, a huge, huge, huge market that people don't even realize is there. So for me, it was just, I couldn't resist. And I was lucky enough to have the right people around me that allowed me to raise some initial funding and then to raise our second fund. And it kind of one thing led to another. And before we knew it, we had a very clear strategy and idea of what was working. When we first started off, it was literally let's invest in some female founders and see what happens. And now a year, just over a year on from that point, we know exactly what does work and what does need to happen in that space. We've got, you know, an amazing array of companies in our portfolio already. There's more that we're about to announce in the next few weeks. And we have a model that works. And I'm very much hoping over time other investors will follow suit and adapt some of our— or adopt some of our— ways of working, I guess.

So I love the way you say, like, you are really an entrepreneur turned investor and that you were propelled and compelled to do this. You know, not everybody, not every entrepreneur decides to become an investor. So, you know, what was the thing that kind of made you switch over?

Well, you know, and you and I have talked about this in the past, for me it was a very personal story. So I was pregnant and looking for a breast pump, as you do. And being a working single parent, it's a pretty necessary bit of kit. And at the time, Tania Boller hasn't launched Elmi's version yet. So we were stuck with kind of the usual stuff designed in the '50s, which doesn't really work if you're out and about and is noisy and has 22 different parts you're supposed to clean every single time. So it's not something that's particularly portable. And I came across the story of one in the US. It was a company that was trying to change this, and it was one of the very few kind of modern-day breast pumps. And with it, I came across the story of the founder and how badly she was treated by venture capitalists, most of whom did not understand the market, did not even want to understand the market. They found the product disgusting because, God forbid, breasts are being used for something other than sex. And that kind of made me step back and realize that I've seen that story far too many times before over the last 10, 15 years. When I used to run the Social Impact Incubator, we had a smart cervical cancer screening tool, which probably today would have had no issues getting funded, at least to some extent. But 10 years ago, it was struggling because investors did not understand what was wrong with the Pap test. And they were not even open to the idea of what femtech was as a concept. So for me, it was one of those penny drops moments when I realized the opportunity was there. Women account for 60, 70, in some cases, in some industries, 80% of spending decisions, and we're not catering to what they actually need and want. So naturally there's a huge opportunity. So I couldn't go skiing that Christmas, so I did some homework instead, and I realized that all the data so far shows that women-run businesses do better. They do better as startups, as growth companies, as public listed companies, and it's mostly because they have a broader perspective on key decisions that are taking place. They have a better understanding of risk and how to mitigate and manage it, which is really critical for a successful entrepreneur. So for me, it was a no-brainer. It was, it was an opportunity that was right. The timing was right in Europe. There was no other VC firm doing this. So I thought, well, let's do this.

I love it. I love it. I love the way you say that, you know, you saw a problem, you wanted to fix it, because that's what a real entrepreneur is. But I love it that you took it that extra step further and you said, right, I'm gonna do it. Where did the name Volée Capital come from, Anya? I'm sure loads of people have asked you that. I'm dying to know, so tell us.

It's an interesting one. I think in the back of my mind I've always known that at some point in my life I would own a business called Volée. And for me, it just fitted the fund perfectly. It's feminine without being kind of cliché, because when I talk to people about potential name ideas, you know, they throw all, all the clichés out. out there at me. And I didn't want this to be yet another cliché. I didn't want this to be a kind of Jane Doe type of situation. I didn't want this to be, you know, a Venus type name. So Voulez suited very, very well. And obviously with the original voulez-vous kind of concept behind it, it also was a little bit of a private joke in the sense that you will invest in these amazing female founders. So it just worked and it's different. You know, there's plenty of Apexes around in the investment world. There's definitely no other Voulaic Capital in the investment universe. So that's— it worked and it stuck.

I love it. I absolutely love it. So tell us a little bit more about what type of portfolio companies you've invested in so far and what it is you look for before you invest.

So we're a generalist, so we invest across a range of industries. And for me, kind of When we invest, the first thing I look for is, is this a potentially big idea? Is it really shifting an industry and moving how we work or live or addresses kind of some of the more critical planetary issues like clean tech does or some of the circular economy ventures or zero waste type ventures? So I look for stuff that's genuinely a shift in the marketplace as opposed to a marginal change. Because marginal changes are important, but they're just not that interesting. I was also keenly aware that our first cohort of companies was going to be judged and judged quite severely, being the first VC in Europe in this space.

Mm-hmm.

The quality of my companies is going to indicate to a lot of people the quality of female founders in general. So I had to get it right. And from that point of view, you know, it was— the first few decisions were tough. But I stand by every single one that we've made. And we've invested in things, for example, our first investment was a company that was bringing transparency to skincare ingredients. Market. They've literally last week announced a partnership with Feelunique, which is the largest online retailer of skincare products, who are taking that journey together with EveryLab and are deciding that customers deserve informed choice. So not only are they providing value on the B2C side, but they're actually working with brands and retailers, which for me was exceptional because until then I've only seen businesses in that space looking at the B2C angle of it without really addressing the full value chain. And that founder, for example, has an exit to Google under her belt already. So it was a difficult first investment, but it was the right first investment. And I remember talking to my LPs about this, and they turned around and said, yeah, pretty much every woman I know seems to have some kind of a skin issue that she's trying to either avoid or address. So even for the male investors in my kind of LPs, list, they got it. They may not have understood the detail, they left that to me, but they kind of got it. And then we've got a company that we're actually helping to launch with the founding team that is going to be renting clothes for babies and eventually expanding to other areas.

Wow.

Which again is a massively needed area because kids grow out of stuff in a matter of sometimes days when they're really little. And the modern generation doesn't want to waste resources. You know, why have all these presents given to you for your baby? And I've had that experience. By the time you kind of get to them, typically the child has grown out of that size already. So there's a lot of waste in fashion and particularly in children's wear where it's unnecessary. So this company is basically going to address that, which I'm very, very happy about. And then we've invested, for example, in a women's health platform. You know, when we first came to know the company, it was a one-woman band pretty much. But she understood what health content women wanted to see and what existed globally on the web effectively. And she completely covered that niche. So single-handedly, she managed to get to 950,000 monthly unique visitors.

Wow.

Which is phenomenal. So when I see that kind of traction and we can help her with commercialization, we can help her with some of the other aspects. She's a first-time founder, so she does need a bit more support. But actually, when I see those kinds of results with people, I'm willing to put money and my time and my dedication behind them because I know that with those resources they can achieve so much more. And then there's a few more that we're about to announce in the next few weeks, which again are in very, very diverse sectors, but with huge growth potential and a lot of traction to date. So we're looking to have about 7 companies in our portfolio in the next 2 weeks. There's another one that we're currently in due diligence with, so hopefully there'll be 8 before the end of the year. We have led every single one of those rounds. It includes other pretty prominent investors as co-investors alongside us, including London Co-Investment Fund. And they have been pretty much these beacons of what women are able to do. And by the way, so do their male co-founders, because about half of our companies are a single female founder. And about half of our companies are male and female founding teams. And it's amazing seeing the diversity within those groups. When we had a dinner together with all 15 founders in the room, you've had age groups from 20s to 50s. You've had about 12 different nationalities around the table. And that's what I want to see. I want to see broad perspectives and businesses that are built on foundations of inclusiveness.

I was just going to say that that is the true meaning of diversity and inclusion. I mean, and as you say, inclusiveness, and it's representing the real people out there, you know. So it looks like, you know, yes, you want to support the companies that are bringing very needed products and services into the world that maybe wouldn't have been taken as seriously elsewhere, or would have been asked to go through loads of different hoops of more and more traction and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, Thankfully, you're here to kind of get them up on that step much faster. And so tell us more about the kind of ticket size and the stage that you tend to invest in.

So we've kind of thought long and hard in terms of where can we create the most value for our companies and for our investors. So we've now made it clear that we typically invest at a late seed stage. So there'll be a little bit of traction from companies, maybe some angel money, so at least that they can demonstrate what they keep of on the execution side, but without having to go all the way kind of much further down the road. And then the idea is that we then lead them through the Series A round, which allows us to set the terms of that round. So, and that's really important for us. So we've launched Fair Venture Principles a few months ago. We're about to launch it as a pledge because a number of other investors wanted to join us in this kind of way of doing business, shall we say. And being a lead investor allows us to set the terms for the round. So it's kind of enabled us to say to others, you know, this is how this is going to run. These companies are showing great traction. If you want to be on this round, you have to compete and you have to match the terms. So for us, for example, ordinary shares has been an incredibly important issue.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not a believer in prefs. I'm not a believer in ratchets. I'm very much a believer in being a real genuine partner to our companies. And I think that creates the right alignment of incentives going forward. So that we don't have those issues where an investor wants to sell and the founders don't, and they have different payment outcomes as a result. So it's created some tension with some of my colleagues in the marketplace, because for the last 20 years, they've been very fond of a lot of those instruments. Unless you're a very rich founder building something like WeWork, in which case, for some reason—

We're gonna have a whole episode dedicated to that one, because that needs it. Don't worry. Don't worry, that's coming.

Yeah. 2 times voting rights per share, it's certainly not something most founders can get away with. But for me, it was important to set the level playing field and make sure that we're on the same page with our founders.

So tell us a bit more about your fair venture principles, because I think that's one of the key defining differences between you and other funds, and also because you're the first European-wide VC fund to invest in female founders. What are those principles? Tell us more.

So it's interesting because for me those principles were a natural way of working, and then at some point I realized that we had to kind of spell that out to people so that they understood the difference between how we work and how others work. And they really boil down to 3 categories. One is alignment, and that's alignment in terms of financial but also other interests between ourselves and our founders. But also other early investors. So it is about taking ordinary shares. It is about having the right checks and balances within the business, but at the same time, the flexibility for the founders to run the business on a day-to-day basis. And finding that right balance that works, as opposed to coming in and handcuffing our founders and basically insisting that we have to approve everything, and then giving us too much power to take the business in the wrong direction that we perhaps thought founders might consider. So that was a really important one for us and critical in terms of how we do kind of— how we build relationships, because for me, investment is a long-term relationship. And then that takes us to the second category of items, and that's long-term value.

Hmm.

There's a lot of short-termism in the industry where kind of people want to get rich quick or flip something and sell it fast. That doesn't build great businesses. And it facilitates a culture of inflated valuations, as opposed to value-driven approach to investment. So for me, it was taking things back to where the industry used to be when it was first founded. And basically George Doriot's way of doing investments, his very first investment fund, ADR, had that long-term view. He's often quoted as saying, if you build great businesses, returns will come.

Mm-hmm.

And I very much agree with him on that. So that's what we try and do. So that means looking at our businesses on a longer timeframe. It means making sure our investors understand that it's a long-term timeframe, that we have instruments put in place that does not— that don't force us to sell when we don't have to, and certainly don't force us to sell our businesses when they're not quite ready for it.

Hmm.

The other aspect of it is looking at things like ESG and diversity and inclusiveness within our businesses, flexibility of working hours, because again, for me, that builds long-term value. It builds the right relationships. not just with our founders, but also within their own management teams and the rest of their kind of bigger teams as they grow and develop. So that was really important for us as well. And the last one is naturally falling out of that is inclusiveness.

Mm-hmm.

Because it deserved its own place. And it is inclusiveness in terms of where we source investments from. So we have a very, very broad pipeline, and it took a long time and a lot of effort for me to establish that. And it's an ongoing, growing piece of work that we do on a regular basis. 'Cause I didn't want to be yet another VC with a very narrow deal pipeline from a bunch of my business school friends. You know, I do leverage my business school network extensively, but I do it for the benefit of my companies in the portfolio when they need access to certain things, as opposed to purely sourcing from that very narrow avenue. And I think that's really paid off, because our companies in the portfolio, they've come from very different places. And, you know, if we do 10, 15, 20 investments per fund, each one has to be exceptional.

Hmm.

I can't afford to do 100 investments of tiny ticket sizes and hope that one of them eventually makes it and becomes a unicorn and pays off the fund. I need to make sure that each one of my companies grows into a sizable business, and that means sourcing from a very wide source. And also, you know, trickling that down all the way through to how we treat our employees and kind of members of the firm, how we treat our founding founders when they do become part of our portfolio, and how they look at inclusiveness and diversity as they grow and develop. That's been a really interesting exercise, because I've had my founders come to me and say, look, I want to hire a female CTO, or at least I want to have one on the shortlist. Where do I go? How do I make that work? In one case, we asked one of our CEOs, who happens to be a man, to increase the shareholding of his female co-founder. I give him a lot of credit. In this case, the person in question, within 30 seconds, emailed back and said, I will reallocate my shares.

Wow.

A tax-efficient way to make that work because he understood the value of that in the longer term. So for us, it's, you know, we don't have a single person responsible for diversity and inclusiveness. Every person within the firm and within our portfolio firms is responsible for that. It's part of the culture, it's part of the DNA. And I think that's really, really important because you can't shove it into an HR function and just say, hey, you're now also responsible for women's issues. or minority ethnic minorities issues. It needs to be part of the fabric of the fund and of our portfolio companies to really create value in the long term.

And I love it because I think you really are starting the first new wave of funding and investing and saying this is the way it should be done and can be done. We're going to prove to you it can be done and it will make you money and it'll be long-term and we're going to build sustainable businesses that, you know, help society at large and have that inclusiveness. So You really are a fund for the times, aren't you?

I hope so. You know, it's funny because I don't— I'm not inventing anything new. I'm in some ways going back to the very roots of what the industry was supposed to do. So I do feel that in the last 20 years things have deviated from that and have been skewed, and especially in the last few years when there's been far too much cash thrown into the industry from SoftBank and others. It's created a very different environment, and I don't think it's been helpful. And, you know, we kind of ended up with a whole bunch of IPOs going through which are massively loss-making, and that wouldn't have happened 20, 30 years ago.

Yeah.

Microsoft's IPO documentation, they were a profitable company when they listed.

Yeah.

Profitable company with a clear business proposition. There was none of this, oh, we'll figure it out as we go. There was a real business generating real value. And when you think about pension funds and individuals' money going into those companies once they are listed, you certainly have a responsibility to create a business that is creating value for its shareholders and its customers. And I think the whole current approach of let's just list anything loss-making that's large enough is skewing that. And I'm hoping the regulators will eventually step in, but in the meantime, I'm sure there's going So tell us a bit more about your—

the trends that you're seeing in the funding marketplace. And I'd like you also kind of to kind of build on the previous point that you were talking about the portfolio. Like, first of all, let's start with, is there a problem finding great women-led companies? Can you answer that for us once and for all?

I can definitely say there isn't a problem.

problem.

There's a huge pool of women-led businesses that are absolutely outstanding, and my colleagues that keep saying that the deal flow is not there are absolutely wrong. Kind of takes you to the next question of, well, why aren't they accessing venture capital? And obviously a lot of us have seen the recent British Business Bank report that looked at the state of the UK venture capital industry, and one of the pieces of data that came out of that was that about 5% of decks seen by investors are from female-led businesses.

Yeah.

Their conclusion was that women are struggling to access VCs. The problem is they've never actually asked female founders why that's the case.

Yeah.

It's not that difficult to send in a deck. Most VCs accept them over the internet. So that number would not have been impacted by their inability to, to send a deck in. So it raises the question, well, what is stopping them?

Hmm.

I keep having female founders come to me because I mentor quite a few here through Google Startups, for example. They come to me and say, oh, so-and-so, and they would name a top European VC firm, reached out. They were keen to talk, and I didn't really want to follow up. And I'm like, well, why? Oh, I don't really trust it. So there's a complete lack of trust in the ecosystem. And I'm not surprised, you know, I'm actually seeing women take constructive, strong decisions about the kind of investment partner they want to have on board, because it is a partner. Investors are there for quite a few years. So having the strength to say, okay, this might make me grow faster, but it's not the right partner for me, is actually phenomenal.

Yeah.

And having, you know, VCs then turn around and say that women don't have confidence to apply is ridiculous. When a department store shuts down because it doesn't have sales, we don't say customers don't have confidence to shop there. We say the management was wrong.

Yeah.

Their products were wrong, their services were wrong. So why are we not doing the same with the VC industry? So for me, it's, it's been a no-brainer. If you create the right culture within the fund, women will come. And more than half of our applications are straight applications through the website.

And I think that's super important. I think that's the— so it's the culture within the fund and the external communication towards the female founders, because it's the same with all the women entrepreneurs that I've spoken to and interviewed. You know, there isn't a lack of ambition. There isn't. There is not a question of confidence. It's just that women entrepreneurs will demonstrate that confidence differently to the way that a man does, and that gets read by male investors a certain way. And so this is where all the unconscious and conscious biases come in. And so that's where we need to kind of really shatter some of those stereotypes and educate the investors to say, hey, you're actually reading the situation wrong. You do not have all the answers. And, you know, a lot of the women investors such as yourself that I've spoken to in the past, they've said to me, Anne, you know, often when I'm in a pitch with a female founder who's pitching to us, the guys will read her completely differently. And I would have picked up on many different things that were both verbal and nonverbal, that they will not have picked on, like how she reacted to a certain question, or, you know, how passionate she was about a certain topic, or how she came across. And it's like in the debrief, the guys are like, did you get— where did you get all that? Like, you know, so there are, you know, there are gender differences in the way we process information and the way we make decisions. And I think the more people know about that, become aware, and then act on it and use that to make more informed investment decisions, the better.

I think the information is there. There's also a huge element of laziness, and this pitching thing is ridiculous. Yeah, it doesn't work for women. No, it works for alpha wannabe men who are in many cases overconfident and who are great at public speaking, but there is zero evidence that shows that public speaking is correlated positively with how well you can run a business. If you look at people like Richard Branson, he's a complete introvert. He hates public speaking, avoids it like a plague, yet has built a major empire. So I think we need to stop with pitching days, and it's laziness on behalf of accelerators and all these other programs which, instead of building up a clear picture of which investors are looking for what type of a deal, decide to just have pitching days and have all these investors show up and spend a few hours basically listening to them to make this work. So we don't go to pitching days at all.

Hmm.

I do not show up for any of them because I don't think it's a representative way of assessing a venture. I look at a deal summary first, and I mean literally a paragraph that kind of gives me an idea what is this about. It's that first slide that you quite often get with the founders, which basically says we're building X, Y, and Z. It gives me an idea, is this something that's interesting for me? Does this fit within my investment criteria? Does it fit within my current kind of portfolio allocation? And is this something that I might find exciting? Because if I don't find it exciting, I'm not going to work on it. Because at the end of the day, I need to be able to get up in the morning and really want to work with my companies and really put my heart and soul into them.

But it sounds like you're going at it though with a real open mind, Ania, and I think that's That's the difference. That is the difference, because you are, you know, instinctively inclusive and instinctively curious. I'm not saying that other investors aren't, I'm just saying that with you it's very, very visible that that's part of who you are, and therefore, you know, you will want to, you know, make sure that you're scanning that document in as fair a way as possible and that you're not bringing in those lenses.

Yeah.

That's very clear from what you're saying.

Natural response to me, and it's You know, maybe because I came into the space without a VC background, it allowed me to start fresh and just consciously and logically figure out what do I want to do and how do I want to do it, what works for us. And a pitching day doesn't. I'd much rather look at the idea. If I like it and I like the deck afterwards, sit down with the founder and have a conversation.

Mm-hmm.

Because you find so much more about them and about the business and about their story just by talking to Yes. Do it just by listening to a rehearsed pitch that has been kind of stylized. And so for me, it's about real people building real businesses.

I love it. Real people building real businesses. So on that point, I mean, how can we put the fun back into funding? Anja, I want us, you know, our listeners to kind of say yay! I mean, I can, I can hear them, I can see them all going yay, she's awesome, and that they love what you're doing. How can we kind of make this a bit more fun and less tedious and less awful?

Because, you know, we can change things. We definitely can. And things are starting to change, which is why we're having to launch Fair Venture Pledge, because some investors, especially a number of new investors, are coming out which are focused on maybe ethnic minorities or women or impact investments and who have a more inclusive lens. are basically saying this resonates with what we want to do. So there's definitely change, but I think the fun comes from knowing what you want in your investor and then narrowing down that pool of potential investors to a handful of those that you think will be a real genuine fit. Because I find people waste a lot of time going to see investors that are just wasting their time.

Yeah.

It just creates yet more kind of nos and it hits our confidence. confidence in some ways, because it's hard when you keep getting no after no after no. So if you narrow it down to a list of investors where there's a genuine sector fit, stage of development of your business fit, if you look at their portfolio, there's a genuine fit in terms of what they've done and what they're maybe saying they're going to do. You know, look at— most investors have Twitter accounts these days and Medium accounts. Look at what they've written. What are they talking about? Quite often we talk about specific metrics and our reactions to it. Sometimes we talk about kind of what is the big trend that we're currently seeing, what are the types of ventures we're trying to reach out to. If that, having reviewed that, you think is a good fit, then go for it. Do a lot of events. All of us are out there all the time trying to create our own personal brand. So there's plenty of opportunities to get in front of And at that point, be clear in terms of what it is that you're doing, because quite often you have about 2 minutes. In those first 2 minutes is your chance to grab their attention and make them want to find out more and have that coffee or arrange that meeting or kind of dismiss you. So have that 2-minute, 30-second, 2-minute pitch, but do it softly. Don't do it like you're in front of a panel. Have a conversation with the investor. Kind of draw them into your world of what you're trying to build.

I love it, because I was going to ask you what are your key tips. You just— they just came flowing out of you so naturally. So just to kind of recap on what you were saying there, it's like do your investor homework, make sure that they could be a really good fit, you know, go seek them out in the different places that they go to, and, you know, be ready and be very clear and concise in your elevator pitch. And, you know, be clear about what it is that you offer them and treat it as a conversation. And I love the way you say that because I truly believe that it is, you know, funding— and for me, putting the fun back into funding is about, you know, thinking this is a relationship business. It's not a figures business only. I mean, at the end of the day, it comes down to relationships. And guess what? Women are fantastic at building relationships. So I think the sooner we kind of take away that That maybe negative connotation of funding equals spreadsheets equals being with, you know, less than desirable people and having to write reports for them all the time. No, you're clearly saying you get to choose. You get to choose who it is that you want to partner with, and I think that's super, super important. So, as we wrap up then, what would you say would be like What's your favourite funding resource that you'd love to share with female founders and say, go and check this out?

I would definitely say check out our pitch clinics. We run them on a monthly basis. They're not a Dragon's Den thing. We're not doing this for our own portfolio. We've launched this as a giving back to the community process. And yes, we have made a couple of investments on the back of it because inevitably you see businesses that you really connect with. We've also roped in over 30 other investors just to do them with us, who rotate. So each time we have about 5 investors in the room, a couple of advisors like lawyers and accountants who have seen a lot of startups and dealt with a lot of the issues that they're facing. And the idea is for it to be an informal opportunity to present your business, to get feedback in terms of what investors are looking for, what their initial take on this would be, what other areas they might want to be able to focus on in the pitch or in the Q&A afterwards. So it's proven to be very successful. We're next year taking it to other parts of Europe. We've been doing it in London so far. So stay tuned for a few events in Warsaw, in Paris, in Berlin, and Dublin. So I'm very much looking forward to that. But I would say that's kind of an easy way to get that first experience of a friendly pitch where you can get that confidence and realize that actually you're just in front of people. But also be able to see how we view your particular business, so that you can then adapt and evolve, hopefully, when you do get in front of another panel.

I love it. So you give, you know, real-life advice in a non-pitchy environment. And like, yes, they'll— they— but you have to walk you through, you know, the key information that you need to know, and you go and give them the real, you know, qualitative advice from a range of investors. I think that's absolutely Precious, and I'm so glad that you do those pitch clinics. So we'll put the link to the information about the pitch clinics in the show notes. And then where's the best place to contact or follow you on, Anja? Where would you send our listeners to find out more about you and about Voulez?

So we do have a Medium account. If you just search on Medium for Voulez Capital, it comes up. And I do try and have a blog every once in a while about some of the issues that I find are important to highlight, such as, for example, being pregnant and telling a board. And some of the other quite important topics that are often difficult to cover for founders themselves, which is why I try and take on that mantle. And the other thing, obviously, we're on Twitter, Anya Nevitsky or Goulet Capital. We're easy to find. We make it as straightforward as possible. And again, through that, you can see what we're liking, what we're commenting on. which gives people a flavour for what we're like day to day as a firm, but also me personally as a founding partner.

I love it. So give us just one last thing I would ask you, one cool fact about you. You were saying, I don't want to have a fun fact, so give us a cool fact about you, Anu, that maybe people wouldn't know about you.

You know, I think from a personal point of view, the fact that I've launched Willa Capital while being very heavily pregnant as a single parent and a single founder within the fund. And it's been an amazing and cool journey. It's hard to juggle, as we all know. You're a mother yourself, Anne, so you know the difficulties. But it's made it very real for me, and it's opened up a whole new understanding of what some of our founders are dealing with, men and women, you know, as they are trying to build businesses and raise kids. And it proves that it's doable. It's completely doable. So anytime an investor comes to me now with like, oh, but she's 30-something and she just got married and she's probably going to have a kid, I turn around and say, look, I've done it. Are you trying to tell me that she's not as good as me? And it's challenging that in the industry. That's why I talk about it quite often, because I think it's important for people to see it and to understand it. Because if we hide those aspects of our lives, then they're always going to be discounted and undervalued. You know, I spent 6 weeks over the summer with no childcare with a 1-year-old.

Oh my goodness.

I had to close on a couple of our investments. It was a nightmare, but we've survived. Everyone survived. I told, you know—

Your fund didn't crash. Your portfolio companies kept getting your great help and advice. Yeah, the world kept turning. Wow.

My daughter played on the floor during a couple of board meetings, you know, we made it work. But it's important for people to see that it's workable, that there is that flexibility, because until we make it visible, people don't appreciate it.

Oh, and I think that's just an incredible note to end this episode on. Thank you so much, Ania, for being who you are, for doing what you do, for getting out there and to helping change the world of funding. And we're So, so honored to have you with us. So, um, everybody check out the show notes for all the links and information to Anya's information, to the Pitch Clinic and other resources, and also to the Fair Venture Principles. I want to put that link in as well to make sure people check it out. Thank you so much, Anya. Take care. Thank you for listening to InvestHer Podcast. Don't miss more great funding tips and insights by subscribing to the podcast on Apple Or your favorite podcast host. And while you're there, I'd love you to rate and review the show. We'd love to hear from you. So if you'd like to send in some questions, interact with our guests, or suggest other great people we should feature, join our community on the Flick InvestHer group or send us a message on investherpodcast.com. Want more great resources for female founders about funding? Check out our InvestHer Academy. at academy.globalinvestor.com. I'm Anne Ravanona and look forward to having you with us again for our next episode. Let's put the fun into funding and get more women entrepreneurs funded.