Funder Directory Announcement Webinar

Welcome everybody from wherever you are coming in around the world. We have incredible participants with us from all around the world, so tell us where you're coming in from in the Q&A because our chat function decided not to work. So go ahead in the Q&A box, say hi. I am your host here to welcome you today. I'm Anne Ravanona, the founder and CEO of Global InvestHer. And I'm delighted that you've taken the time to come here. I bet you're curious. Are you curious from the messages you've seen on that social media? Well, I am glad you are coming. So let's see who's here. We have Regine who's saying good morning from New York. Margie's saying hi from Nevada. We have Amaka who's coming from Atlanta, and I know that we have tons and tons of people from all over the world, from from the USA to Europe to New Zealand. So welcome, everybody. Thank you all for coming, and I am so, so glad to have you with me. So let's get started. I want to share, bring you through the journey, the why, what it is we're going to unveil today to you, who we are, and show you, give you a look inside so you can see what we're talking about, because we are so excited and so proud to bring this new tool to you that I think is going to really make a difference to both women entrepreneurs who are looking for funding, who want to find the right type of investor for their business, and also for you, the investor. How do you compare with other funds and sources of funding on how well are you doing with— when it comes to funding women entrepreneurs? Are you interested? Yes? Keep telling me in the Q&A so I can see it there. And let's get started. Okay, so I'm going to share my slides with you. Here we are. Okay, so can everybody— can see this all right? Just please say yes in the Q&A. And we have Susan from France, we have Ria from London in Dubai, Yobi from Kenya. Oh my goodness, Jill from Galway, Gail from New York.

Hi, Gail.

BL from Paris. Amsterdam. Hey, you're all here. So thank you for being with us. I'm sure we tickled your fancy, as we say. I'm sure we got you curious, and I'm glad you're curious because the fact that you're curious to know what it is we're going to share with you today means that, you know, there's room for change. Things need to change when it comes to funding women entrepreneurs. So that's what we're going to do. A little bit about us to start with, if you don't know who we are. So here at Global InvestHer, we are on a mission to help get a million women entrepreneurs funded by 2030, by— for— in time for the SDG goals. Why do I have this mission? Well, my story is 10 years ago, I was just like many of you other women entrepreneurs. I was actually in an audience going to a pitch event, seeing a woman entrepreneur pitch. And from the audience, I put my hand up and I asked her, I said, what was your biggest challenge when you were as an entrepreneur? And she said to me, it was access to funding. It was finding that money. And the light bulb went off in my head. And I said, hmm, is it harder for women to raise money? And basically, I started to get curious. First of all, I got curious. And I started to read down the rabbit hole of research on, you know, what was the story when it came to funding. And I discovered in 2013 that at the time the World Bank had estimated that the global credit gap of funding between male and female entrepreneurs at the time was estimated to be $300 billion. That was enough to make my blood boil. I said, okay, I found what I want to work on. And so I decided I want to change things. And guess what? Things have not gotten better, as we're going to discover moving forward. So we're on this mission to help getting a million women entrepreneurs funding— funded. Why? Because we want to help reignite the global economy. And I truly, profoundly believe from the bottom of my soul that women, diverse women, are the greatest underrepresented, overlooked resource that can reignite our global economy. And so why is it important to invest in women entrepreneurs? Because Those women entrepreneurs, if you see in the cycle here, they're looking for funding. They can build a successful business. More of them, more of us, we can become business angels or venture capitalists. We can get— we can change the perceptions about, you know, women entrepreneurs and funding. And, you know, there's a lot of unconscious bias out there that women are risk-averse or a risky investment. All of that stuff, it's simply not true. But we can change the game by being more visible, by being more seen. And also, we want to create this virtuous cycle where more men also want to, um, invest in women entrepreneurs. Are you with me? Say yes in the Q&A so I could see with me. And I see— I love everybody going yes, yes, yes. Very exciting. Okay, so you know what our, our mission is, you know what our vision is. We believe in women entrepreneurs, and that's why I am a woman entrepreneur myself, I'm in the trenches with you every single day. And not only that, I'm working really, really hard with our team together at Global InvestHer, all our team from around the world. We want to help you in as many ways that we can, both the founders and the funders. And today we're going to talk about in particular, a tool that serves both. Hey, good thing, huh? So what we do is we bring funding education to women entrepreneurs. So we want to help upscale upskill women entrepreneurs so they get investor ready. We want to change hearts and minds through our global advocacy of both investors to invest more in women, more women to become more investors, and more women entrepreneurs to go for funding. So we do a lot of work on changing mindsets through education, through tools, and through our global community. We have— I'm blessed to see some of our community members with us live as we speak. And we also give a lot of visibility to women founders. And if you check out our social media Every single week and every single day, we are showcasing incredible women founders from around the world. So check it out. So we want to change things. We're catalysts for change. And that is why we have created this new tool. I am a global advocate when it comes to funding. Here I am, I've had the incredible luck and honor to have met President Macron of France. I am part of the EU delegation to the W20, which is the global engagement group to the G20 working on public policy. So I'm not only in the trenches in my own business, creating my business, building tools and solutions for both founders and funders to help close the funding gap. I'm also out there beating the drum from a policy perspective, talking to governments, talking with other policy shapers and makers to see how can we change the rules, the ecosystem to bring about systemic change. And that's very important. So What we do, everything we do at GIH, Global InvestorHer, is to fulfill the mission and to help get those women entrepreneurs who are working on the SDGs funded. And we're also working on them ourselves. So why do we care? I think you can hear the passion in my voice. It comes from my voice, it comes from my soul. And when I saw that figure of $300 billion gap in funding in 2013, I got revolted because my biggest personal value is equality between men and women, equal opportunity between men and women. I have both a daughter and a son, adult daughter and son, who are both fantastic young people, young adults in the world, and I want them to have a better opportunity for them and for our future grandchildren and future generations to come. Because as we know, the world of funding is broken. And why do I care? Because this latest statistic, if you didn't see it, it should make your blood boil too. Only 1.9% of global venture capital funding went to women-only founded teams. 1.9%. It has been getting worse year on year on year on year for the past 15, 20 years. It hasn't really budged. I think the highest it went up to was 2.7%, I don't know, a few years ago. But we keep sliding down. COVID has impacted us. So things are getting worse. And that figure of $300 billion that I shared with you today, it's so much worse because pre-COVID, so in 2019, before the latest figures we had pre-COVID, The World Bank, IFC, they redid that study and they found, they estimated that credit gap had gone from $300 billion to $1.7 trillion. I'm not here to be hysterical. If you didn't know, you need to know this because we have to make a change. We have to make a change. So That's why anything that we do at Global Investor has to work towards this figure, right? So we need to make a change. Oh, are you ready for briefing? If you've seen my TED Talk, you'll know that I share pilot talk because my husband happens to be a captain in Air France. And when the 2 pilots are in the cockpit, to get the attention of the other pilot when they have to give them some very, very important information, They need to make sure they have their full attention. And I want to make sure I've got your full attention. So in the cockpit, one pilot says to the other, are you ready for briefing? And the— he waits, he or she waits to hear from their co-pilot before giving them important information. And that's for flight safety. So I think this is flight safety too. This is our safety. This is us creating a better world. So are you ready for briefing? Say yes in the, in the Q&A. I keep saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So it's good. Thank you for being with me. Nicoletta, she's ready for briefing. So I want to share with you the first global directory of women founder-friendly sources of funding. It didn't exist, so we've been working really hard at Global Investor to bring this To the world.

Let me catch my breath.

I'm excited to share. So let me come out of the slides and take you live. Would you like to see it? Let me share my screen. So basically, what is this directory? We have created the first global directory of sources of funding from around the world, and we have ranked them by how women founder-friendly they are. And you're like, wow, what is that? So first of all, let's break— we'll take this piece by piece. Sources of funding. It's— that's why we call it the Funder Directory. The Funder Directory, because we want to talk about all the different sources of funder. Who's a funder? A funder is any entity or person that gives funding to women entrepreneurs. And they're very different sources of funding. So that can be a grant organization, an accelerator, an angel, angel network, venture capital, private equity, corporate venture capital, etc. Okay, so we wanted to make available to the world a global database of sources of funding from around the world. And the thing that's very different about it is that we rank them independently. It's us who does the ranking. We rank them by how women founder friendly they are. How does that sound? I mean, what do you think? Let me know. Brilliant, says Jen. So what is it? So in this global database, as we go live, so it is going to— I'm going to show you what, what is in here. We currently cover 119 countries, 615 different funders who are in this database as we speak, as we go live, and that is going to be added to every single week. So we didn't want to just start with a small number. We said, okay, let's bring you as many as we can. And from 164 sectors. Now I know here on this webinar live with me, we have a lot of investors from different sectors, and this tool is gonna be so helpful to both founders and funders, and I'm gonna show you this and walk you through. So what it's gonna help you to do is it's going to help— let's talk about founders. It is the new best funding friend. It is gonna help both founders and funders save time. How? Because we are doing the curation and the collation of the information, we're finding the information, but giving you the meaty information you need in order to if you're a founder, to decide who is the best source of funding for you. And if you're a funder, compare yourself against the other sources of funding. Just see how you're doing, you know, versus your competitors, whether they're direct or indirect, because that's a useful thing. So this new funding friend, I want to share, first of all, to tell you a little bit more what it does. So we share different sources of funding. I've explained that. We also share how female founder friendly or women founder friendly it is. from all over the world, and you can filter and it's updated. So let's tell you a little bit more. What is this? Let's zoom in here to the filter. What are the criteria that we use to measure each of these sources of funding? Well, first of all, we check, have they actually invested in a woman entrepreneur? Now, that is, it can be, it's a woman-founded or co-founded company. So it can be, the woman can be the founder or the co-founder. Have they already invested in a company that has a woman entrepreneur? So one of the— at the top of the organization who is a founder, who has co-founded, have they done it? Yes or no? So we want to see the ones who are walking the talk. Okay. We also check to see, do they have women investors who are writing the checks? We check to see. So we'll go, we'll check online, we'll see, What is the role of that woman investor? If it's in a fund, if it's an accelerator program, etc., do they actually have the power to make that check-writing decision? So if they do, they get another tick. The third criterion that we check against is, do they publicly support women entrepreneurs? Now, this can take different shapes and forms. So basically what we're looking for is we will check on their website, Do they actually feature women entrepreneurs anywhere? Like, do they showcase them in their photos? Do they mention them in case studies from their portfolios? Do they— have they signed a charter on diversity in venture capital or in funding? Do they have an ESG policy where they mention gender diversity? We go and check. So we want to see, are they doing these things? Then If they are, we also check to see, is this source of funding only focused entirely on women entrepreneurs? So they get a tick if they are, because thankfully we're getting more and more of these sources of funding that are entirely focused on women entrepreneurs. And then if they have satisfied all of those other 4, they get an extra tick because we say, yes, do they invest with a gender lens? Meaning, are they counting? Are they counting the percentage of women in their portfolio. So sometimes it's easy for us to check and see, are they doing that? Because we can see they will mention the statistics of women founders in their portfolios. Very few do, by the way. Some of them who have signed charters with Diversity VC and other international charters around diversity in funding and venture capital, they will say it, but most sources of funding don't. And we really hope that this funder directory is going to help change things by making things more transparent. And so who does the ranking, you may ask? We do the ranking. So this is Build Invest Hear Who Ranked It, we check. So we have 2 ways of funders getting onto the directory, 2 different ways. One is curation, where we go and find them. So we are scouring the press, we are scouring our networks, we are finding out who— what are those sources of funding that are actually walking the walk, talking the talk, and walking the walk when it comes to funding women entrepreneurs. And the other way that we have inputs into the funder directory are for funders to sign up themselves. So if you are a source of funding, if you're an investor, a fund, or business angel, any type of source of funding, stay tuned because in the Q&A box I'm going to give you a link to the links for you to sign up if you haven't already signed up. So we already have over 40 out of those 650 have signed up. And you will ask, I'm sure, preempting your question to me is, do the people who sign up, do those funders self-rank how women founder friendly they are? The answer is no, we do the ranking. And so even when a funder fills in the form and tells us about themselves, we will go back and we'll add to the information, because you're going to see that this is not a simple list. This goes beyond a list, a simple list, because we want to make this information actionable and strategic and to help you save time, whether you're a founder or a funder. Okay, does that make sense? So basically, now I've given you the The overview of what the Funder Directory is. Let's go inside. Are you ready for a briefing? So in we go. So when you come inside the Funder Directory, this is what you're going to see. You're going to see different views. So we're going to have first this view of list. So we have, I think it is 20 per page of all the sources of funding. Now, when you look at it like this, let me just— what are the things that we are actually sharing? What you're going to get, the information. Let's kind of— we're going to cross, we're gonna go across. I'm gonna show you all the information that you get on this directory. You see what I mean by this is no ordinary directory? This goes way beyond, oh, here is the website, here is the LinkedIn, and here's the investment thesis and the sector and the stage. That's all very relevant and important information. Well, we go further. So we first, first things first, this whole, this whole directory— oh, my watch is talking to me. He didn't get it. Well, of course he doesn't. He's a man. He's listening. He's a man on my watch. He's not live. You know, it's live. So here you'll see, here is the list of investors. And we've already pre-filtered it for you to make it so easy for you to get through. So at the top you can see you can already search by how female founder friendly, how women founder friendly, sorry, these sources of funding are. Do they tick 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 of those boxes? So they're already ranked. So watch what happens. So here you can see they're actually ranked, um, each source of funding is by alphabetical order. And if I click here, you will see Now I see all the top, the top ones, the ones who are getting it right, the ones who've got the 5 out of 5s, right? So you can filter—

whoops—

you can filter by how women founder friendly they are. So you can go from the top down to the bottom. Okay, so, and the ones who get 5, remember, are the ones who are doing everything right, and mainly they are 100% focused on funding women entrepreneurs. The ones who are 4s and 3s are really good. And why do we do this ranking? If you're a funder watching this, we really hope that this is going to be a catalyst for change so that you will say, okay, I'm only 1 now, I have a way to go on my journey, what can I do to improve my score year on year? And that's what we want to do. We want to start the conversation, create the conversation, and ignite change and, you know, inspire you to change and show you how you, you can by seeing other people. Okay, so Nicolette is going, wow. I love this. Going, it's a dream come true, so needed. We are raising now and need this information ASAP. Yes, Barbara, so it's great to have. Keep your comments coming in the Q&A, please. So here you are, filtered by how women founder friendly they are. Here, you can click, with a click of the button, you can click on all of these different filters at the same time, so you can go very granular. Now, let me show you, first of all, the information that you see on each one. So each funder, you will see their first name, last name, how women founder friendly they are, their website, and it's a URL click, you don't have to copy paste, go straight in, their role, the type of funder they are, and sometimes they have different types of funding. So I'll show you this. They're the general email. We want to save your— save you time so you don't have to go looking on their website, where is the main email if I want to contact them? We've already done it for you. Do they have a LinkedIn or a Twitter? Because it's really good for the funders and the founders to be able to get that information quickly. So we've already short-circuited you know, done the work for you by filling that in for you. So you have their, their socials. But then we also give you the personal LinkedIn of the funder. Now notice, you don't see a bunch of logos here, do you? You see people because we are showcasing real people. These are real investors. Okay, it's not a logo. And what we do is, you'll see sometimes, so for example, here, 200 Billion Club, our friends from the UK, we showcase 2 funders from them. So we like to, when it's a big fund or there's several people in it, we like to showcase several investors, sometimes men, sometimes women, different investors who look after different geographies or verticals so that you can have a choice of investor to start looking through. Okay, we've done the work to make it easy. So if the type of funding their LinkedIn so that you can immediately go to their LinkedIn and see, are you connected or what's your degree of connection? Then the stage they invest in, the sector. Now I would encourage you when you go searching, always type in sector agnostic because that brings everybody in, the ones who are sector agnostic and/or multi-sector. And then otherwise we will go really into the nitty-gritty of all the sectors that they invest in. And how do we know? So they will tell us, for the ones who've who filled it in, they tell us what the sectors are. And otherwise, they will— and if not, basically, we go and we check, we look at their portfolio companies and which sector they're for, and we fill it in. Okay. Now, sometimes they will, they will add new companies to their portfolio. So we are constantly updating. That's the next round of iteration that's happening. But this information is already live and fresh for you. So then you will know what region they invest in, because you can search by region. We're going to filter this here. You can know which countries they invest in, which city they're based in, their investment thesis. Yes, we actually go down to that level. So we're not just giving you, here's their LinkedIn, here's their website. Thank you very much. Goodbye. We actually pull out the investment thesis. Why? Because you can actually search it, you can search with keywords. And we will show you, I'm going to show you very soon, how one of our women founder members of our community uses the funder directory to do her investor research. So we can search by investor thesis. We also have the assets under management. Now, funders will know we don't always have that information. It's not always public. So we will scour several sources of information. We cross-reference. We don't just go to Crunchbase, copy paste, 'cause it's not always up to date. Same with PitchBook. amazing resources, but we also cross-reference. We're gonna check different websites, their, the funder's website, and also articles to make sure we have the latest information. So you'll see the assets under management, what's the maximum cheque size that they will pay, they will do, their minimum cheque size, and their diversity interests. And this is cool because this is how we differ from other directories. We actually will examine What are the different types of diversity that they invest in? And you're gonna see the different types of diversity. It can be Black, Latina, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, Indigenous founders, veterans, et cetera. So if they have invested in founders with that diversity, they get labeled here. Have— and very important, this one, I love this one— have they invested in women entrepreneurs? This is so important, look at this. So we'd say, yes, not yet, and I want to now, 'cause we want to make it positive. So if you're a funder watching this and you're like, well, we're not yet investing, that's okay. We want you to start. We want to encourage you to start investing in women entrepreneurs, not because they're women, let's get it clear, it's 'cause they have fantastic businesses that in huge growth markets that sometimes you are not looking at and seeing because they're being overlooked. So you will find out, have they already invested in women entrepreneurs? We've checked. The links to the portfolio companies— this is super for a founder. You can go and check. You say, okay, they've already invested in a company, great. Now I can go boom, right to their portfolio, have a look, because I want to see, have they already invested in a competitor of mine? I want to do that homework. So this is going to help speed up your time as a founder. to be able to go straight to the portfolio. Is it an emerging fund or not? Yes, this is an important addition that we've been asked to add, because of course, if it's an emerging fund, they're early on in their fund deployment. So it's a good time for you, if you're a founder, to go knocking on the door. They have the money, they have the money, they need to spend it. So you want to know if it's an emerging fund. And if you're a funder, if you're a fund of funds, If there are any LPs watching, this is also going to be great because you're— we're identifying what are the funds of funds— sorry, which are the emerging funds that you need to know and the emerging fund managers. So that's also why we have that item. Then the other thing is, when do they plan to invest in women entrepreneurs? So most of them will be now or, you know, in the next year. So we're looking at different criteria, not just have they invested, if it's not now, but when are they going to start? So we will add it in, or they will self-do it. And now this is how it's also very different in this funder directory. Founders, look at this. Wouldn't it be great to know what's the best way they want to be contacted? Wouldn't you love to know that? So we've done this for you. So the majority of funders have a real preference of you filling in their, their application form. Right, to send in your pitch deck, etc. So we tell you, there you go, I want you to fill in my application form. And by the way, here it is, you don't have to go looking, we've done it for you. Isn't this cool? This is why I'm so passionate to share this with you. And then also, we also have a section that is very unique, which is, what is your message to women founders? So some of the funders have specific message to women founders, and then the majority have just messages to founders, just key information that they want founders to know about. So it can be a personal message when it is a funder who has applied themselves, or they have given an interview, and we'll grab a quote that they are addressing women entrepreneurs. That's what you're gonna find in this criterion. So this is the list view that you can see. And here you can search. Watch how it's going to change. This is all live. So if I say I want to see precede in Europe by sector, let's do one that's a bit more— let's do AI. You see how they're changing live? And you can, you can choose several sectors. Look at this at the same time. Okay, if the more sectors that I add— big data, biotech— boom. And then also, if you want to know by diversity, the different types of diversity, look at all the different types of diversity that we measure. And then by country, you can get down granular. And I want to know all of these in, let's say, USA. You can either type it or scroll it in because there's a lot of countries in the world. So let's say I'm looking for all of the— I've put in Europe, so it's not going to find any in the US. That's not a good example. But if I put in, for example, France. Here we go. Here we have one that says it's— they invest in women entrepreneurs, and they particularly invest in the different sectors. So they— we know they invest in apps, AI, autonomous mobility, big data, biotech. So here we go. That's how granular it goes. Isn't that great? What do you think? I want to hear comments in the Q&A. Incredible tool you've created, it's impressive. Thank you, Malika. Redetta is saying, I'm starting our seed round in 2 weeks and this is perfect tool for my startup at FoodHub.

Yes.

Okay, and Jill is saying she has to dash, but hey, this is an incredible—

great.

So do we contact them directly with our project, Malika? Yes, you do, and that's why That's why we want you to go contact them directly with the application form and/or with, with the application form and also with email. Sometimes they will say direct email. Now there are, for the next phase of what's going to happen, because we are cooking many more things coming at Global Investor, this is just the first exciting thing. That's coming this year. This is number one. There's many more, a bit like Steve Jobs. There's one more thing. We have many more things coming. So this is number one. So this is how it looks. You can then scroll down here, come through, go through the list and say, okay, and this is lovely. It's brilliant. I can search and then I want to be able to go and see the results in detail. So what does that look like? So this is what it's going to look like. Here we are, detail of the profile view. Now I have a question from Sebastian. He's asking, can we integrate it or export the data into an Excel sheet? At the moment, not, Sebastian. It may come very soon. It's just a question I need to— I need to— it's— we can do it, but I need to see, okay? Because this is also for confidentiality and so on, because if you can export it, then it's just share the list and then Why bother coming in here? You know what I mean? So, Maine said she can't wait to get her hands on this, or cursor. Oh, I love it. So look, when you sign in, what's the detailed profile view? You saw the big picture view, and here you have all the information in one space. So you can see their name, their hyperlinks are all hyper, so you can go to their LinkedIn, their website directly. You can see the minimum maximum checks, the diversity interests, Their portfolio, how best to contact me, the founder application form if there is one. In this case, there isn't, and their investment pieces. So here we've gone and we've gotten their investment pieces, and then if there's any message. So Sarah is quite, is quite special. I'm sorry the text is quite big here. It shouldn't be, but there you will. It will be fixed very soon. But Sarah is fantastic. Sarah, if you're watching. I love Fem Street, love your newsletter, and Global Investor, we have a weekly newsletter as well, prepared every week with love and curation by Madeline. So yeah, I love this. So Nishita is saying, this is amazing to be able to filter in this way. Love the focus on diversity and inclusion, DEI. Thank you, Nishita. It is so important to us at Global Investor. It is part of our DNA. We really care about this, and this is how we move the needle forward by showing this. So here you can have the detailed view of, um, of the investor. So impressive, amazing, and so on. So now, um, I want to show— does it cover the MENA? I wanna— there's a couple of, um, questions coming in. Yes, it does. Let me go back and show you here. I did this here. This is by country, but let me show you by— I'm gonna undo the— here we go, filter by region. So here are all the regions that it can filter by: Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, Southeast Asia, Oceania, global. It's always good to click global because then you're gonna hit some of those funds or funders who invest across the globe. So you want to search by your region, by your country, plus global, and you make sure you get them all. And then if you want to narrow it down, just go by country. So here we go, MENA. There's your answer, Iman. So we have MENA and also Middle East. I know that it's in here as well. So there we go, Middle East and MENA. So it's mixed with North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, because some of the African funders are specific in sub-Saharan, some are South Africa. So yeah, there you go. You can see we can search it through all those things. So now what I'd like to do is share with you the experience of a woman entrepreneur who has used the directory now, the funder directory, for her funding search. So I'd like to introduce you to Jessica Mendoza, who is one of our community members at Global InvestHER. And she has been using the funder directory as a power user, as a beta user for us for, for, I would say, 6 months, because we've been, we've been working hard to set, set this all up. And so I'm going to share with you a short video where she shows how she uses it. Now, caveat, she will be— when you see her video, she's going to show— you're going to see the Airtable view, which is what is fueling all of this. It's the same information, so it looks slightly different. I hope you're going to see it. It's Much nicer like this than it is in the older version. So, because the older version was like this, ooh, not so nice, is it? So it's like, oh, it's nice to look at it like this. So you're gonna see her, just hear from her, her experience of using the Funder Directory for her search for funding. You— I just wanna put up her photo here so you can see, and her contact information. Welcome, welcome, welcome. So, Jeff, how are you?

Good. I'm doing well. Thank you for inviting me to this.

Oh, thank you for being here because I know you're super busy. I really appreciate it, and I know you're doing exciting things. So first of all, we want to know a little bit more about you. So who are you, and what is Monarch? Tell us.

Yeah, so I am a founder. So I am based out of the United Kingdom, but I am an American, and I also am originally from Venezuela. So I have— I'm from many, many places. And my business focuses on helping people migrate their admin via, say, it is anything from a gym membership to a council tax subscription. to wherever they go. So we are helping people identify all of the services linked to their household and allow them to manage them wherever they go. So the tool that you have just seen has been helpful for me as I'm still using it on my fundraising journey, and I'm not sure if I can share my screen as to like how—

You can please go ahead. Okay. I will put that up for you.

So yeah, so I'll show you just a little bit of like how I'm using it at the moment. So we have over here again, like the list of everything that Anne has shown you. My view at the moment is the gallery view. And there, of course, there's different types of views. But what I do the most is use the filter functionality to drill down to what I need. So say, for example, if I'm looking only for pre-seed and seed, so that often is up to like 1 million or, or above, a little bit beyond 1 million, um, then you can start adding more conditions. And what I like to do here is, uh, one of the Interesting thing is that there's a description or investment thesis. And when I type the sector in the investment thesis or keywords that may appear in the investment thesis, I know that these investors are paying attention to it because it's so important to them that they put it on their thesis. So I then drill down here. So put investment thesis and I put a keyword. So my sector, it will be PropTech. So I already have a good drill down. And then I have another condition. So say, for example, if I am geographically located in different areas, I think it's the region continent. Here it is. Um, so I am only interested in European and North American investors. Let's put US, UA, Canada, and those are global. Yeah, so you can go down the list and just select, you know, like the ones that are interesting for you, and you get then a very particular and specialized view that helps you target and helps you see the investors that might be a very, very good fit. And the reason why is because you've already drilled down by keyword you've already drilled down by the geographical location and also, uh, the stage that they invest in. So I know, for example, that these investors will be target investors for me. And then of course, say if I want to make it a little bit broader, um, then I can reduce the, the list and I'll get more, uh, the conditions that I've put, and I'll get more detail. But for me, what is in particular is not every investor will invest in everything. So you really want to do your research. So there's also like a field here called sector. And then you can select the types of sectors that you can— your company has. So for mine, I also have AI. So I want to make sure that it's included in our B2B and B2C. And this comes in also really handy. So whereas like in some parts I'm drilling by keywords, sometimes drilling by the generic or like more broader sector does give you like a view as to who might be a potential target. I'm just going to see if there's anything else that may appeal here. So usually I go to— yes, I'll do some real estate and property tech for my, for my business. Um, and there we go. And then we have a couple more, um, target, um, investors that I can dig in. And again, it's all about looking at the details. So you go into one and you're going to see what is the detail that they have, what is their focus. So Right now this is hitting all of my targets, um, and I can see the details. So like, what's their minimum ticket size, what's the maximum ticket size, and I can see that they focus on diversity, which is important to me. Um, and then when I feel that I have enough information about this, I can click around. Of course, for the particular investor, I would go into the form directly and then I am brought onto that company's website, that investment website. So yeah, so I, I hope this is, um, instrumental. I think like for me it has been instrumental in drilling down and doing research because there's all— like there's so much out there that is often not organized and that you don't know where to even start. And this has provided me more of a focused view as to where I need to look at, where can I start, where can I find investors that are speaking the same language that I am speaking, and maybe there'll be mutual synergies there. Hope this helps. I don't know, Anne, if you have any other suggestions or questions.

Also, I'm so, so happy, and thank you so much. I mean, my key questions would be like, how, like, what are the key benefits What are the benefits that you have had from using this tool, from using the Funder Directory? Because you've been our kind of alpha beta tester, like this has not been available to anybody else. So Jessica's been one of the few people who've been a power user. So how has it helped you most, would you say?

So I, for me, it's understanding who is out there first, and then when I'm reaching out to them, sometimes there is not a form. So the use case that I've just provided has a form. But sometimes there's an email, and when I have the email and an email that companies say, I'm like emailing this investment company, I would put, I have found you via the Global Investor Directory. So they have a point of reference as to where I have found them, and if they know the Global Investor Directory, which oftentimes they do. They would recognize as like, oh, okay, yes, of course, yeah, let's set up some time to connect or tell me more about your business. So I think like for me is a couple of things. Like first is identifying who is in the— who is out there, you know, like that is aligned with my business and just drilling down. I, again, I use the filters a lot. And the other part is the method of contact, like contacting them. And even if I go via a form or if I don't go via form, then I can always reference where Thanks to it, and that it has helped you be really precise in your—

and focused in your search. And just, I mean, how much time do you think it's taken you to find the book? Well, it has saved you time.

Yeah, absolutely. It is. So they say that fundraising is a full-time job. It is. And it is just incredibly difficult to set your time into, okay, I'm going to dedicate and do this. But having like a reliable place that you can go to and you know that you have access to it and you know that you can tap into it anytime. It is so much useful because on its own, like doing this research for myself, yeah, good luck. I mean, I just don't have the time, you know, so, and I don't even know where to start. So there's a really good— it's a really good tool to drill down to identify who might be in your target and then dig a little bit deeper. And the beauty of it is that you have even the contact information or contact forms in it. So it's like, go ahead. It's like, you know, open field. But I would recommend definitely like doing the research first instead of just, you know, like cold emailing and being like, oh, you know, like, here's my pitch. But rather being like, oh, hey, I've read about, you know, I've studied, you know, I've read about your investment thesis. I've read about your fund and your portfolio companies. I dig down into portfolio companies too. And yeah, and we have a current investment proposition. We wonder if you might be interested. We have done X, Y, and Z, you know, like what your milestones have been. And yeah, and then send your pitch deck and then they'll reply back.

I love it. Okay, so you can stop sharing your screen.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you so much, Jessica. Hold on, let me put the view on. So we can see both of each other. Here we go. Yeah, so I would just love you to kind of say, how can— like, you're currently closing your raise, aren't you? So tell everybody here who's on the call, because we do have investors on this call, and they may also be part of your target. So tell us a bit more about how much you're raising, when you're closing, and, you know, what type of investors you're looking for.

So we are closing in 2 tranches now. So we're raising at the moment $1 million. We are closing our first tranche of $500K very soon, and we're opening our second tranche in January, most likely, because we know that there's no activity much in the, in the virtual world November, December, and also like January. But we want to make sure that we get the first money in as soon as possible because we are ramping up our business activity, um, with a lot of contracts that we have recently closed. So yeah, so I— we are— we have split our, our fundraise, and I think it's, it's going well. We have, uh, venture funds already invested in our firm, in our company. And, uh, yeah, we're looking, um, for investors that again understand the global mobility markets, uh, the future of living, market, and that are also open to exploring new propositions in the consumer tech space.

I think, I mean, it's really important to kind of reiterate what you just said, because actually you're closing so many contracts, you need the funding to keep up with it.

Exactly.

That is exactly the type of fundable, scalable company that investors want to invest in. Plus, you're an awesome— we had this conversation— an awesome immigrant Latina, you know, diverse woman founder. And so you hit all the boxes. So, you know, for those who are serious about investing in talented, hardworking women entrepreneurs who are working to solve an important problem, Jess is your poster child. I mean, you need to talk to her. You need to be talking to her.

Yeah, well, thank you so much for providing this opportunity. And yeah, the funder directory is being used. Yeah, and I really like everything that you've done and all the support that you've provided to us.

Thank you so much, Jessica. And I will be making sure you get the other access, the link to view the database. I promise you.

I do give feedback because I use the directory quite some. Yeah, um, in my research, like, yeah. And I sometimes I'm like, this view will be better.

That's our user. That's us listening to you, the user. It's so super important. And I loved it because when we talked about it, you said you have it pinned on your tab. It's on your tab.

It is open all the time.

It has been open all week. And I don't know if you noticed, because we are adding new investors every single day. Actually, every single day there are new investors coming. So, you know, that's why it's very valuable. It just keeps getting better and better. So Jessica, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. And, you know, we wish you the very best on closing your fundraise. You don't need wishes because, you know, I think if there's some great investors listening to us or watching this replay, contact Jessica. I'll be showing the slide again with her contact information in a second so that you can do that. And yeah. Just keep on hustling. You're gonna do it. We have your back all the way. So thank you for being with us, and of course you're welcome to stay with us if you want. And if you need to go, I know you're super busy too, you're welcome to go too. But thank you for taking the time out of your busy time. Great. So there you go. You heard from Jess. That was a prerecorded interview that we did. You heard from her directly how it has been so useful to her to use the Funder Directory in this raise. And I think what's super important, I think now in the last few minutes that we have on this webinar, is to say, first of all, get your questions in, hands up. I can see there's quite a few questions coming through, so please keep them coming. I think let's have a look at what are the benefits for both founders and funders. So let's start, first of all, for the founders, you've heard She's the best person to hear from. She's told you exactly how she uses this every day in her fundraise. When it comes to funders, why should you be on this? Well, for the exact reason that you've seen. You've seen how Jessica uses the tool to actually drill down to target her, the right funders for her. Because guess what? The more power and information we put into the hands of the founders, the better. better they are going to do targeting you to make sure that, you know, they're not going to waste your time so that you're going to have a better flow of diverse women founders coming to you who are more targeted. So that's one reason why you should be on it. Another reason why you should be on it is because more— the more funders that are on it, the more you're going to be compared to your colleagues who are already on it. If you're not on it, you should be on it. So let's, let's talk about that and how it's going to work. Amaka is saying it was an awesome interview with Jess. Thank you, Amaka. It really, it really was. And she, she is just phenomenal. And I meant every single word that I said about, you know, if you are still looking for a fabulous prop tech, reg tech founder, got her.

There you go.

So let me go back to sharing my slides, just a couple of things to, to go over for the last The last few minutes now. Okay, so just this is a reminder. So of what's on it, it is independently ranked. Okay, that's why you should do it. We are doing the ranking. It's not the funders who self-rank. It's not the founders who do it, because there's no objectivity on either side. We're here to help both parties find each other in a more effective way. Okay. So So that is a key differentiator in this tool. The other thing is, again, I shared these are the 5 key criteria that we rank your fund or your source of funding against. So it's brilliant because it can help you if you haven't already. If you've got 4 or 2 or 1 of those faces, and if you'll note, we showed them by diverse women face emojis. It wasn't just all all white women or all Black women because diversity is built into absolutely everything that we do. So this tool can help you if you're a funder to diversify your portfolio, of course. And don't tell me you have no problem with deal flow. Okay, then tell me what percentage of deal flow coming through your door are diverse women founders? What percentage of those diverse women founders or how many make it through to the investment committee and how many get funded? Because that 1.9% figure didn't come out of the sky. Okay, so you may think it's diverse, but until you have those figures to back and show me and us, there's still work to be done. And I say that not like, you gotta do the work. It's more, there's a huge opportunity. Okay, so if you're a funder, The opportunity is there for you to be found more easily by great founders, to rank, to see how you rank against those other funders in the directory, and to improve your ranking year on year. Okay, so that's for the founders. For the funders, sorry, for the funders, for the founders, it's very important, as we've just said, you can do all this filtering, you can do all this homework, very, very easily. Okay, so it just makes it much easier to find the right investors. So I have loads of questions coming in and I want to capture some of them now before we close. Here is the information for Jess. I did promise you'd have it, so take a screenshot if you're a funder. If you're a founder as well, reach out to her and say, hey, I loved you on the webinar, the announcement webinar from Global Investor on the Funder Director, you're awesome, and thanks for sharing your story because it made it come alive, and I've got great feedback already.

There you go.

So want access? If you want access to this, just type I'm in. So people are asking me, so how much does this cost? So the good news is that we are making this very affordable. We want to make this affordable for everybody. Let me start by saying, if you're a funder, You don't pay to get on it. I will send you a link. You can self-sign up to be added to it. However, you need to pay to see if you're on it, and not if you're on it, you can to compare yourself and to use the tool versus everybody else. Okay, so basically this launch, special launch price for the Funder Directory, it's only $199 for an annual subscription. Subscription for 1 year. It's nothing. It's never— no, now I know it's not nothing, okay? Of course there are expenses for the founders, but let's just say $199 to help you save so much time and effort, it's worth it. $199 out of funder to see how you're doing and to keep an eye on your competitors, I really think it's a no-brainer. So please do consider this. And it goes live tomorrow, February 1st. So you have seen it first. This is the announcement webinar. It goes live tomorrow. So if you are watching live, I want you to type in the Q&A. I'm in. I can see loads of I'm in. This is so cool. Keep going.

I'm in.

So for those of you who have signed up or watching me live or I'm in, in any case, tomorrow watch your email. Watch it probably towards the end of the day. I've wherever you are in the world, you will get your email with the link to go to the funder directory when it is live. And you can sign up and you have it for a year. And as I said, it's a super deal because it gets updated every single week. So the numbers are going to keep it going up and up and up and up. It's going to get better and better and better. And one thing I want to say is I will also share in that email, you'll get a link to the funder directory to sign up. You will get If you're a funder and you want to, if you want to be featured in the funder directory, I will share the link here to sign up. So there we are. And Renata is saying, happy to help with the membership fees for founders to help you get lots of founders to sign up. Thank you so much, Renata. Yes, please. And Margie is saying, I'm watching live. I'll be signed up as soon as I get off the webinar. Whoa, thank you, Margie. So it goes live. It's a bit like Apple. We make you wait one more day. It's like, you know, it's gonna be available then. Ah, good old Steve. I loved his formula. Goes live tomorrow. So keep an eye out for your email. If you can, founder or funder, you can sign up for $199. If you are a corporate and you would like to sponsor access to this funder directory to A lot of women entrepreneurs, you will see there's a special section in the pricing section for you to, um, to join, uh, and we will discuss the special rate for you, of course. Um, loads of I'm in, I'm doing this. Um, and let me stop sharing so we can come back to me and see, right? So it goes live tomorrow, $199, 1-year access. Getting updated every day. Cool, cool, cool. Plus, plus, plus. Also, if you are a funder and you want to be featured, you will have a button that will take you to the form to sign up and you get on it. And again, we do the ranking, not you. So we'll be checking, we check every single one. I am going to see now, I'm going to add in the, let me see, and apologies, this functionality wasn't working, but hey, we are pros, we will We'll get it done. Now let me give you the link to— here we go. This is the information. I'm going to say answer live in the last question. Okay, answer live. So, yeah, type answer. Let me just— I'm typing in the link to funders if you're a funder. I've just put it in. I'm typed in the link, but don't worry because it's not working. Is this secure? Yes, this is secure. So I love that question. Let me see. I had a question there is like, what's the security of this? So this is behind secure paywall every time. So basically you have to be a logged-in user. You have to have paid your fee to get in. And not everybody can access this. You can't just share your URL and somebody else can get in. No, that's not how it works. This is, you know, a tool that has its security built in. For the funders, you will find also in the form that we send, we do ask for your email, that we hide your personal email. That's just for us to be able to contact because we're gonna have more opportunities to collaborate together and get you contact with these great founders. And if you're a corporate, contact me, we will have great opportunities for you to support women founders or support funders. If you're a corporate with a VC, or you're a business angel, whatever, and you want to help spread the news, go. So, and the last thing I want to say is also in the email, there's lots of emails, you probably have I don't want to get it all in one email tomorrow. I will also be sharing out a form, a link to a form. If you know of a source of funding that you think we should add, because we do the curation as well as funders signing up. If you know of a really good source of funding that should be added, you can fill in this form and just let us know so that we will have a look. All right. Any last questions? And I'll be sharing the recording if you're watching this recording. we will be live already, so that's super exciting. And please, if I could say one thing, share, share, share the link to the Funder Directory when it goes live. Share it. We can create ripple effects. We can help change those horrible statistics of 1.9%. We can help connect founders and funders in a more effective, efficient, proactive, diversity-focused way. Are you in with me? Are you ready for briefing? You want to do this with me? Because I feel that you are, and I would really love to see it. Is there a different price for investees? So meaning for founders and funders? At the moment, I have the same price for founders and funders, $199. Okay, it's a low, low price, guys. I could have charged more to funders, but I said, let's start with one price and keep it easy. It will probably change, Nina. So just to say, That's, that's the model at the moment. I can help a few female founder communities that would love it, says Renata. Thank you. Margie says, thank you. Nicolette says, thank you so much. And Nishita says, thank you for what you've built to connect founders and funders. And thank you guys for being flexible in the, in the Q&A and giving me your love in there. Any last questions that you would like me to answer? We have gone over a few minutes. Thank you so much, says Nicolette. So yeah, any last, last things that you want to share, just put it in the Q&A while we go live. Thank you for being with us tonight. Thank you for bringing us tonight and today, wherever you are around the world. We have people signed up from over 30 countries. So exciting. And thank you for being with us right to the end. Thanks for what you've built to connect founders and funders, says Nishita. I'm so glad. Thank you. Thank you all. So watch, stay tuned for your email tomorrow. And if you're watching the recording, you will get it. If you couldn't attend today, you'll still be getting an email tomorrow with a link to the recording and the links, all the links that I've mentioned. And when you get it, share it. Tell the world about this because we can build an incredible directory. That's why we want the Scout form for you. You have your say. You can tell us great founders— or sorry, great funders. If you're a founder and you have great investors that should be included on it, either you fill it in for them, send them the link. It takes them 5 minutes to fill in the form, really. We've made it as simple as possible for them. So share the link with great sources of funding you think we need to add. It is the beginning. We're starting with 619. We will be thousands and thousands of sources of funding by the end of this, of this year, and you can help make it happen. So I want you to come with us. Okay, so come with us. Thank you all for being with us. And Margie is saying, absolutely, women supporting women will change the world faster than we can think or imagine. Oh, Margie, look at that! You've totally said it, and we can't do it without the funders. Funders, you have the opportunity to change this game. Come on this journey with us. Help us fund a million women entrepreneurs by 2030. We need you. We want you. Everybody's invited to this table and we're making it a bigger table. And on that note, thank you very much for being with us right to the very end. Check your email for tomorrow. Can't wait to see how you think, what you think, how you use it, how useful it is. I'd be back to hear more from you and enjoy. Thank you so much.

Bye now. Bye-bye.