Tech for good, virtual communities and series A fundraising
A weekly newsletter that profiles women in start-ups and technology
Welcome to Heroa, a weekly newsletter that profiles women in start-ups and ventures. If you enjoy what you read, please do share this newsletter with friends and like it above!
This has been a thought-provoking week. However, to quote Jacinda Ardern, “People are being entrenched in their opinions and view of the world. I do think there’s a solution to that, though, and that’s coming back to the humanity that we all share.” I believe we can use technology responsibly to bring people and communities back together, its part of why I write this newsletter and why this week there’s a slight focus on Tech for Good.
This week we’ve got content on
The flourishing of virtual communities
How to pick and approach a mentor
An interview with Julia Salasky, founder of Legl and former founder of CrowdJustice, who has just raised a Series A round with Octopus Ventures
Round-up of the news this week
Passion Capital opens up its latest fund on Seedrs to crowdfund investors who can invest a minimum of £1,000. Goldman Sachs invests $10B in the new 'One Million Black Women' initiative👏 . Brianne Kimmel at Work Life Ventures is raising a second fund of $60M. The European Innovation Council (EIC) launches a Women Leadership Programme for female entrepreneurs. Apply to be a mentor here.
From the investors
“Digital technologies are a critical enabler for attaining the sustainability goals … in many different sectors.”- The EU Green Deal via Ines Streimelweger of Creandum.
Europes Leadership in Climate Tech 🌎. Until the 31st of March, Ines Streimelweger of Creandum is crowd-sourcing a list of European Climate Tech ventures across Europe in collaboration with SpeedInvest. The final result will be the most comprehensive market map of the sector. You can look at the current list of 800 start-ups and contribute to the database here.
Sourdough bread, ASMR, and subreddits: virtual communities are here to stay. Cecilia Manduca of Talis Capital writes about how it’s inevitable that elements of this shift to virtual social lives will be permanent (Strava seems to be here to stay). She explores the different places where people socialise online, looking at vertical and horizontal communities and the new social networks. Read more here.
The Disruptive Decade and the rise of the modern economy. The decade ahead is ushering in a period of economic transformation unprecedented in speed, scale and scope—yet not everyone views this moment in the same way. Hannah Tucker of Balance Point Ventures explores this decade, and you can explore it too here.
From the operators
“Most people ask hard, annoying questions of people they admire; instead, start a dialogue and don’t outsource your thinking.” Linda Zhang of Faire
How to find (good) mentors. Easy and satisfying questions are also more likely to start a dialogue than open a can of worms. That’s how a college student connected with Randy Komisar and Eric Schmidt. Linda Zhang of Faire writes about how you can effectively approach mentors. Read more here.
Learnings from remote onboarding by Deborah Liu, the new CEO of Ancestry. She shares six simple lessons to help you get started. One of her main lessons is to have a plan, and she has also put together a framework for a 30-60-90 day plan. You can read her onboarding guide here, and here is her 30-60-90 day plan.
Eight lessons from design. Last year Cee Cee Biddlecombe of Beamery spoke with 59 senior UX practitioners and asked them how people can improve their design craft. She distilled the advice she received into eight key lessons. One of the pieces of advice she received was to read broadly (which you are doing already if you are here, so well done!👏 ). Read the full article here.
Interview with Julia Salasky, Founder of Legl. Before Legl, Julia founded CrowdJustice, the world’s crowdfunding platform for legal action. In this interview, she speaks about her recent series A fundraise and her plans.
Hi Julia, first would you be able to tell us about your company Legl?
Our vision is to digitise how law firms run their businesses, and in doing that, give clients a better experience. We do now digitally all of the manual touchpoints that lawyers typically have both internally within the law firm and externally, with their clients from onboarding to compliance to collecting payment.
You recently closed a £7m fundraising round led by Octopus Ventures, Congratulations! How did you find the process of fundraising, and what lessons did you learn?
Perversely I enjoy fundraising. Because I love talking about the business, I love being challenged on the business; I love understanding other people's external perceptions of the business. And I think because I founded a venture-backed company before called CrowdJustice, I have a reasonable idea of the types of fundraising. I felt like I had a perfect opportunity to hone in on what kind of partner we as a business want to work with over the coming years.
With lessons learned, I tend to run fundraising as a tight sales process. I think that works well in general. Having a clear idea of who to talk to and then really hone it down to having the right partner is key. I’m excited about where we've landed there.
The next question is a bit left-field, but what or who do you turn to for inspiration?
I have a lot of kind of crazy ideas. Some of them turned out to be good, and some of them don't. They often come to me in the middle of the night, which isn't scalable and replicable. I try and have many conversations with people in the market and people in adjacent markets. I process this, and it computes and then spits itself out in a way at random times of the day. There's also a couple of people that I rely on as mentors.
What's next for you and Legl?
The biggest thing for me is scaling myself up as a leader and scaling my team up as leaders. I also want to keep our laser focus on our core mission and growing and scaling the team in a way that retains the brilliant culture that I think we've built.
Events
Pre-seed funding - how, when and how much to raise? Speakers include Deepali Nangia, Venture Partner at Speedinvest and Elizabeth Davis, Investor at Anthemis. Thursday, 18 March 2021 at 6 pm CET. Sign up here.
HERmesa is hosting a fireside chat with Matt Pennycard from Ada Ventures. Thursday, 18 March, 17:30 – 18:30 GMT. Sign up here.
Sifted in discussion with start-up founders on the future of digital identification. Explore which identity verification software solutions are out there to keep your startup secure. Thursday, March 18, 16:00 GMT. Reserve your spot here.
Job opportunities
Earwig is hiring for a full-stack developer.
Giant Ventures is hiring for a Senior Associate.
Backed is hiring for Venture Fellow - 3 months (20h/w)
SEE YOU NEXT MONDAY!
If you have any comments, questions, or want to chat about start-ups and venturing, then do drop me a comment.
Written by Alexandra Wyatt, based in London but a global traveller. You can also reach me on Twitter and Instagram.