Women’s History Month gives us an opportunity to celebrate the phenomenal achievements and leadership of women entrepreneurs in our Company Ventures community. The obstacles women face in the tech sector frustratingly remain consistent year over year. Even with increased attention in VC circles, in 2019 female founded companies received only 3% of all venture capital investment and teams with a female founder received only 20% of capital allocated.
Since the program’s launch in 2014, 42% of the startups that have participated in Grand Central Tech have had a female founder and collectively they have raised a total of $500M. We’re proud of this achievement, but there’s more to be done.
We’re honored to pause this month to lift up a few of the inspiring women in our community and portfolio who are building exceptional businesses:
1. Kate Ryder (Maven)
While telemedicine has exploded over the past year due to the onset of COVID-19, Kate Ryder founded Maven in 2014 and has pioneered virtual care specifically built around women and families. Since inception, the team at Maven has served over 8M families in over 175 countries, delivering better outcomes and lower costs for everyone.
Website: https://www.mavenclinic.com/
2. Liya Shuster-Bier (Alula)
On the cusp of her 30th birthday, six months after graduating from Wharton, Liya was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Taking the knowledge gained from her experience, Liya built Alula to support people, families, and friends through the entire lifecycle of cancer, from diagnosis and treatment to recovery and (sometimes) bereavement.
Follow: LinkedIn
Website: https://myalula.com/
3. Nina Mullen, Lily Galef, Hilary Quartner (Hilma)
Comprising of two childhood friends and a business school classmate, the team at Hilma set out to reimagine the medicines in your medicine cabinet. How? They’ve created science-backed natural remedies to replace the over-the-counter brightly colored tablets, sugary syrups, & medicines with ingredients you can’t pronounce. Welcome to the new standard for recovery.
Follow: LinkedIn (Nina), LinkedIn (Lily), LinkedIn (Hilary)
Website: https://www.hilma.co/
4. Esther Park (Nara Organics)
American parents are demanding high quality, clean, organic infant formula that is safe and registered with the FDA. Nara Organics is a new infant formula that’s made whole, smart, and simple with no comprises, no fillers, no junk, just essential ingredients babies needs in the first year of life. No more infant formula imports.
Website: https://naraorganics.com/
5. Eli Polanco (Nivelo)
$55 trillion worth of transactions take place through ACH, a “legacy” technology that hasn’t been updated fast enough for quick and safe digital transactions. Ripe for fraud, Nivelo is building a set of APIs that companies can use to understand the risk associated with a particular transaction. Simple put, the team protects digital payments in real time.
Website: https://nivelo.io/
6. Marie Kloor (Hydra Studios)
Marie Kloor is the Co-Founder & CEO of Hydra Studios, the go-to private space for fitness and physical & mental wellness. Their luxury private suites include equipment like Peloton, MIRROR, TRX, mats and light weights, and the rooms double as quiet places to recharge. Did we forget to mention the locker rooms have rainfall showers, steam rooms, infrared sauna, and curated personal care products?
Website: https://hydranewyork.com/
7. Fatma Collins & Julie Rogers (Ten Little)
Poorly fitting shoes are awful for the development of kids’ feet and movement. By age six, 60% of kids have lost some anatomical and functional health in their feet due to improper shoes.
Parenthood is challenging enough — finding the right shoes for growing feet shouldn’t be. Fatma and Julie have created a $39 perfectly fit, physician-approved solution.
Follow: LinkedIn (Julie), LinkedIn (Fatma)
Website: https://tenlittle.com/
8. Amy Divaraniya (Oova)
For too many women and couples, getting pregnant can feel like a lottery. Oova is the first fertility translator, with lab-quality readings that accurately decode your hormones and give you personalized steps to get pregnant. More measurements leads to more accuracy, which leads to more answers.
Website: https://oova.life/
9. Li Haslett Chen (Narrativ)
Consumers hate ads and the rising costs of social media platforms has made CAC unsustainable. Narrative is creating a marketplace for unbiased product recommendations by connecting brands to product recommendations from premium publishers who influence billions of dollars in sales every month.
Website: https://narrativ.com/
10. Alyssa Ruderman & Liz Eddy (Lantern)
Not only is end of life planning an unpleasant subject to deal with, it also requires a mountain of paperwork. This work is all too often left for others to handle after someone has already passed away. Lantern’s goal is to de-stigmatize and initiate conversations about death in order to give individuals and their loved ones peace of mind.
Follow: LinkedIn (Alyssa), LinkedIn (Liz)
Website: https://lantern.co/
11. Mari Joller (Snackable)
Every company today is creating content — from hosting town halls to podcasts. But getting the most out of it and extending its lifespan can be hard. Snackable uses powerful AI to unleash your content’s potential in seconds by generating shareable snippets, powerful, transcription, and rich metadata.
Website: https://www.snackable.ai/
12. Kathy Hannun (Dandelion Energy)
What if we told you that the ground you live on top of could provide all the energy you need to power your house? Geothermal energy systems are efficient and have a very small environmental footprint, yet have historically been too expensive. Until now. Spinning Dandelion Energy out of X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, Kathy Hannun has cut the cost by three-quarters and is making geothermal as simple to install as solar panels.
Website: https://dandelionenergy.com/
13. Alessandra Henderson & Jannine Versi (Elektra Health)
50 million women are currently navigating menopause in the US alone. Yet, this universal female experience is still considered taboo. Through deep expertise & science-backed solutions alongside community support & guidance, the team at Elektra Health is on a mission to smash the menopause taboo once and for all.
Follow: LinkedIn (Alessandra), LinkedIn (Jannine)
Website: https://www.elektrahealth.com/