Support
R ES I L I ENT F E A RL ES S D E T E RM I N ED POSITIVE D ISC I P L I N ED PRESENTED BY STE L L A L A BS A ND STE L L A A NG E L S
Did you know that less than 5% of venture capital in the United States goes to companies with female, Black, and LatinX CEOs? Let’s work together to change this! Let’s rise and shine by supporting & advocating for women on both sides of the venture table. Let’s get to even to enable equal representation for women founders and funders.
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e are so glad that you could join us and other like-minded investors, angel groups, funds and other community builders that are aligned with the investment thesis of investing in scalable impact companies led by women, notably Women of Color. As we work together to mobilize capital for these underrepresented entrepreneurs, we seek to expand our network and help build a community of aligned investors that can share investment opportunities, participate in joint due diligence, and co-invest together.
Contents The Why..................................................................................... p. 6 About Stella Labs ............................................................... p. 8 Women’s Fast Pitch (WFP) Judges ......................... p. 10 Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) Opportunity...... p. 12 WFP Founders Map .......................................................... p. 14 Meet the WFP Winners and Finalists! Northeast........................................................................... p. 16 Southeast........................................................................... p. 20 Midwest............................................................................... p. 24 Northwest.......................................................................... p. 28 Southwest.......................................................................... p. 32 San Diego........................................................................... p. 36 Legacy by Dr. Debbie Chen.......................................... p. 40
the
W HY Touring the nation highlighting some of the most creative and innovative startups founded by women, in a six-region Women’s Fast Pitch, has been a highlight of 2020, albeit through a virtual experience. COVID has created turmoil, uncertainty and disconnection through isolation, but it’s also spurred innovation and created unfathomable opportunities. The increase of people supporting each other in extraordinary ways is phenomenal! In its infancy more than 8 years ago, Stella Labs dreamed of leading a national pitch competition and creating economic development opportunities through education and resources. Access to capital was - and still is - a huge barrier for
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women founders and especially founders of color. Knowing this, we’ve worked hard for change. We aligned ourselves with the SBA’s InnovateHER competition (where our regional winners, Once Upon A Farm and Uqora, won Top 10 in the nation, and Uqora received national first-prize funding from the Sara Blakely Foundation); we support other pitch competitions like the People of Color Showcase for Next Wave Impact Fund, LGBTQ Pitch It, and university startup challenges like the Triton Innovation Challenge; and we piloted our three-city pitch competition in 2019.
Stella Labs’ alumna and InnovateHER winner Jenna Ryan of Uqora with Dr. Silvia Mah
Stella Labs’ alum Cassandra Curtis, co-founder of Once Upon A Farm with (from left to right) John Foraker, Jennifer Garner, and Ari Raz
When COVID hit, we took it as a sign to go be more mindful of the changing needs of the stakeholders we serve best - female founders. We took everything virtual, including our business intensives, our pitch competitions, weekly COVID discussions, and our signature event, Women’s Venture Summit, and have made the BEST of it all! We’ve also worked hard to bring our investor network to founders across the nation, in order to provide resources like pitch prep. We’ve incentivized diverse women, earlystage startups and later-stage startups, encouraging them to step up to pitch for an investment of $10K as the final winner of Women’s Fast Pitch 2020. Our pandemics of COVID and racism have affected everyone personally, professionally and mentally, so THIS is the time to support each other more, raise our voices collectively, invest in each other, and rise above!
(from left to right): Mysty Rusk, 2019 Women’s Fast Pitch Finals Winner, Dr. Roshawnna Novellus of EnrichHER, and Dr. Silvia Mah.
Female investment decision makers are twice as likely to invest in female founders as their male counterparts. (All In:
Women in the VC Ecosystem 2019 by Pitchbook & All Raise)
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abou t
STELLA LABS
Stella Labs solves for the entire innovation ecosystem by providing educational resources in-house. Our strong strategic partnerships help us bolster the female entrepreneurial journey at every stage. Through partnerships, collaboration, attending others’ events, mentoring, and opening our networks, we build community with the entire San Diego innovation ecosystem and beyond. Our focus is on women, so we advocate for more women on boards and panels, as leaders in the community and as recipients of funding. Female founders outperform male founders by 63%. Stella Labs organizes and communicates to a broad community. Access-tocapital events allow investors to experience, interact with, and fund female founders who are overperforming yet under-funded and under-expressing their successes.
Our Vision To get to even: equal representation of female founders and funders across the venture table. Our Mission To inspire, equip, and propel female founders to successfully launch, grow, and sustain their businesses, efficiently and effectively, thus positively impacting the local, national and global economy. 8
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Startups Stella Labs team (from left to right): Stella Labs Alumna & WVS Team Dr. Debbie Chen, Stella Labs Instructor Vanessa Elle Wilde, Program Director Shan Cureton, Executive Director Raven O’Neal, Event Director Christine Lustig, PR Director April Enriquez, and Stella Labs Instructor Rebecca Tall Brown.
Empathy, transparency, trust, and entrepreneurship are at our core. Our inclusive village approach, combined with educational rigor and championing underserved founders builds a more diverse innovation ecosystem and entrepreneurial community. We achieve this by facilitating access to education, resources/ networks, and capital.
Our Philosophy Stella Labs, with our associated partnerships, makes for a supportive family. We encourage and promote the female founder and CEO as the unique leader of their business, from the inside out. Stella Labs alumni are lifetime partners for growth. Stella Labs promotes alumni successes, events and milestones through
social media and personal connections. Women give back to the growing community as soon as they exit a program or event because they know their success will inspire others to grow the female economy.
Empowered 168 female founders to launch their startups
253 Scaled
Facilitated 253 women businesses to take their businesses to the “next level”
$7.4M Raised
Connected angel investors to female founders
167
Jobs Created Equipped female business owners with growth goals
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THANK YOU! We are eternally grateful to these brilliant WFP judges who shared their wisdom and time with us!
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ORALIA ALVAREZ
SUE BAGGOTT
Founders First Capital Partners San Diego Angel Conference
Next Wave Impact Queen City Angels
CECILIA CASTELO
RACHEL CHRISTENSEN
AMY DUNCAN
San Diego Angel Conference
The Brink SDBC
San Diego Angel Conference Goldfish Consulting, Inc.
KRISTIN FOX
KATHRYN GARDOW
XANDRA LASKOWSKI
Vantage Point Advisors, Inc. Women of SDAC
Next Wave Impact Gardow Consulting, LLC
OSEA Angel Investors
2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
CAROLYN LEONARD
BRIANNA MCDONALD
KRISTINA MONTAGUE
DyMynd Angels DyMynd
Keiretsu Forum Northwest & Rockies
The JumpFund Next Wave Impact
CARRIE PHAIR
KIM SEALS
AROOJ SHEIKH
Women of SDAC Stated Marketing
The JumpFund
Newchip & Keynote Speaker
DIONDRAYA TAYLOR
CAITLIN WEGE
JULIA WESTFALL
Women’s Founders Network
MooDoos Investments Tech Coast Angels
Hera Hub DC
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Our goal is to showcase a strong pipeline of investable companies led by fierce women founders and to mobilize investment into these companies. Stella Labs, in partnership with Stella Angels, utilizes a proven process of application, assessment, due diligence, and voting, which leverages the expertise of our entire network of investors who serve as mentors, speakers, and judges for Stella Labs and Women’s Fast Pitch, to invest in a portfolio of companies diversified across sector, stage, and geography. If there is enough investor interest for the cohort of 2020 Women’s Fast Pitch Finalists, we will put together special purpose vehicles (SPVs), in partnership with Loon Creek
Capital to invest in specific companies as well as, if interest arises, a multi-company investment vehicle to invest in a portfolio of four to five of the finalists.
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THE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
Are you interested in investing in one (or more) of the companies or participating with a group of our investor partners on due diligence?
Step 1: Fill out “Investor Interest” form to indicate interest in helping or leading due diligence on finalists, as well as to indicate interest in potentially investing.
Step 2: Join one of our three one-hour Information Sessions via Zoom. We will do Q&A on finalists, due diligence and investing. Please register below.
Friday, Sep 25 at 9:30am Tuesday, Sep 29 at 9:00am Thursday, Oct 1 at 11:00am
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Empowering Female Fo
A visual map of the 36 Women’s Fast P
Seattle, WA Asset Queens, LLC OwnTrail Rebellyous Foods Sensol Systems
Bellevue, WA Advocat Technologies Cirkled In
SEATTLE, WA
BELLEVUE, WA
Cameron Park, CA Humaxa
Los Angeles, CA SWTCH Underwear
Irvine, CA Perilla
CAMERON PARK, CA
San Diego, CA Bliss Foods, LLC Nano PharmaSolutions Prenursing Smarter Sēkr Softsonics TealHeal Mobile Medical
Tempe, AZ
KANSAS C
LOS ANGELES, CA IRVINE, CA
vCandidates.com
Frisco, TX Elite Kids
Dallas, TX Purpose Tea
Kansas City, MO Biostrandz
Columbia, MO Healium
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SAN DIEGO, CA
TEMPE, AZ FRISCO, TX
DALLAS
ounders Across America
Pitch Finalists across the United States
Lactation Innovations
New York, NY Po Campo
Brooklyn, NY Purple, Inc.
Silver Spring, MD Skin Edit
Washington, DC AGED Diagnostics The Most
NEW YORK, NY EVANSTON, IL
CANTERBURY, CT SILVER SPRING, MD
BROOKLYN, NY
CHICAGO, IL
Cincinnati, OH Peerro
Concord, NC
CITY, MO
S, TX
Canterbury, CT
WASHINGTON DC
Quirktastic
CINCINNATI, OH COLUMBIA, MO
Durham, NC
CONCORD, NC
CHATTANOOGA, TN
BIOMILQ DURHAM, NC
ALPHARETTA, GA
Chattanooga, TN CPRWrap, Inc.
ATLANTA, GA
Alpharetta, GA LuvSims Shaving
Atlanta, GA Greentop Gifts FLR-PLN
Evanston, IL Symba
Chicago, IL FaceTrace, Inc. Worthy Foods, LLC
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Northeast
The Northeast WFP recording is unavailable. Please review the finalists’ information on the following pages and visit their company’s websites.
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2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
Dawn Myers, Founder & CEO Washington, DC Category: Consumer Beauty Product
Tech-Enabled Personal Haircare Product THE MOST makes tech-enabled, renewable-based tools for natural hair care. Women with textured hair and women of color in particular - struggle to style and maintain their natural hair. It’s a time-consuming and frustrating process. There has been a marked increase & AU D IE NC E C H O IC E WIN N E R of quality liquid product availability, but hair tools and appliances are still limited to straightening devices (flat irons, curling irons, etc.). THE MOST has designed tools and appliances for easier, faster, healthier styling of textured hair. Their featured tool, THE MOST Mint, cuts the time and effort required to style textured hair by simultaneously performing the process of detangling and product application, through the use of renewable pods, like Keurig K-cups, except they distribute hair products instead of coffee. To learn more, contact dawn@themostcurls.com or visit www.themostcurls.com.
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Rachel Zayas, Founder & CEO Washington, DC Category: Life Science/Pharma
Liver Cancer Genomics Diagnostic Active Genomes Expressed (AGED) Diagnostics is developing a non-invasive method to track changes on the genome that correlate to liver cancer to provide hepatologists a more accurate and affordable screening method; all to improve patient compliance and decrease late-stage diagnosis. Liver cancer disproportionally affects individuals of African & Latin American backgrounds with more aggressive forms and onset that presents decades earlier as compared to Caucasians. At AGED, we are developing diagnostic tools that intentionally accounts for differences between patient populations, to address these cancer health disparities and turn a deadly disease into a treatable one. AGED’s product will mean better prognosis, less invasive and expensive care for liver cancer patients; thus reduce the financial burden on stakeholders. To learn more, contact rachel@ageddiagnostics.com or visit www.ageddiagnostics.com.
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Jayme Coates Co-Founder Canterbury, CT Category: Medical Device
Postpartum Social Innovation Device Lactation Innovations is developing a medical device, Manoula, that accurately measures the quantity of breastmilk consumed by an infant to critically improve the current state of infant postpartum care. This social innovation device’s use is critical in the first days in the postpartum setting in order to support the initiation of breastfeeding, which is often the hardest time in the breastfeeding journey. Lactation Innovations is addressing the fact there is no immediate and actionable feedback to how much milk a breastfed baby has ingested. The Lactation device directly measures the amount of milk in a baby’s stomach and provides actionable data to the postpartum clinical staff, caregivers, and mothers looking to transform postpartum care. To learn more, contact jayme@lactationinnovations.com or visit www.lactationinnovations.com.
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Maria Boustead Co-Founder & CEO New York, NY Category: Consumer Product
Outdoor Recreation Bags for Urban Mobility Po Campo is reimagining urban mobility in a postpandemic world; connecting people who are united by the freedom and strength of a micro-mobile lifestyle. Po Campo is building the Lululemon of the bike lane, the brand that represents this dramatic lifestyle shift to sustainable transportation. These highly functional bags help customers integrate bikes and e-scooters seamlessly into your daily life so that you can experience the freedom, joy, and power of effortless mobility every day. Tackling a $1.5B market with a CAGR of 17%, Po Campo bags feature transitional, fashionable designs with waterproof, sustainable and reflective fabrics, making them unrivaled for ease of use. Po Campo sells omnichannel through pocampo.com, amazon.com & to wholesalers like REI. To learn more, contact maria@pocampo.com or visit www.pocampo.com.
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Hennesys Disla Founder & CEO Brooklyn, NY Category: Medical Device
Phlebotomy Kit & Healthcare App Purple, Inc, is a medical kit company focused on products to make routine blood draw procedures more efficient & easy required for standard of care treatment and disease diagnosis. ArmHug is a product & kit that makes blood collection faster, easier & mobile, using high quality convenient kits for healthcare independent contractors, mobile phlebotomists & nurses, phlebotomy small business owners, and diagnostic testing labs and hospitals. Purple, Inc is delivering pre-packaged medical supplies to reduce the time for a blood draw by 50% getting patient diagnosis faster to the lab and improving patient satisfaction to meet the demand of blood draws at home and reduce long wait times at the clinic or hospital. To learn more, contact hdisla_191@yahoo.com or visit www.purpleny.com.
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Ashley Williams Founder & CEO Silver Spring, MD Category: B2C BeautyTech
Beauty Marketplace for BIPOC Skin Edit is an online marketplace bridging the gap between BIPOC consumers and cosmetic brands. Created to disrupt the market and offer a one-stop-shop for people of color to purchase their favorite products all in one place. We bring niche products and cult favorites to women and men of color. Skin Edit bridges the gap between beauty brands that are black-owned, minority-owned or woman owned and brings them to consumers of color. Instead of asking Sephora, Ulta or any other major retailer to provide more space on their shelves for black-owned brands, Skin Edit will provide that platform ourselves; Skin Edit will be the next Sephora, but with women of color at the helm. To learn more, contact ashley@skineditco.com or visit www.skineditco.com.
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Southeast Watch the recorded Women’s Fast Pitch Southeast event! 19:39 CPRWrap, Inc 29:55 LuvSims Shaving 39:10 Greentop Gifts
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48:00 BIOMILQ 1:00:38 FLR-PLN 1:15:15 Quirktastic
Bee Law, Founder & CEO Concord, NC Category: Tech Platform
Geek Fandom Social Network Quirktastic is the social networking and group live streaming platform for geeks and hobbyists. For individuals wanting to explore anime, gaming, and geek fandom, Quirktastic is the one-stop-shop for participating and creating the geek fandom community, reflecting our diverse society, that delivers easy-to-use networking features so that they can “find their people” on and offline. With COVID-19, these types of users were left without ways to monetize online or cultivate a community around their brands. Predictions are that future generations will spend the majority of their time making and cultivating friendships online and that interest-based communities will win. Quirktastic also caters to Fandom Creators (YouTubers, streamers), Fandom Organizers (comic conventions), and Fandom Brands (Marvel, Warner Bros).
To learn more, contact bryanda@quirktastic.co or visit www.quirktastic.co. WIL D CA RD WI NNE R
Jacquelyn Rodgers, Founder Atlanta, GA Category: Consumer Product
Diverse Gift Wrap Options Greentop Gifts provides diverse gift wrap for every celebration. Representation Matters. The options for holiday gift wrap for Black Americans were limited. Gift wrap and stationary lacked diversity and representation for many families. Especially for families with children of color, Greentop Gifts provides gift wrap that delivers diversity to each celebration, so they can see images that look like them because we understood the importance for all children to see diversity in everyday moments and celebrations too. People should see themselves in every celebration! The annual wrapping paper sales in the USA are $8.5B. Greentop Gifts started as a passion project, but now has garnered the interest of Target, Oprah Network, People, and NBC News, to name a few. To learn more, contact Jacquelyn@greentopgifts.com or visit www.greentopgifts.com.
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F INALI AUDIENCE CHOIST C E WI NNE R
Adia Dightman Co-Founder & CEO Atlanta, GA Category: Economic & Urban Development
Re-inventing Thematic Retail FLR-PLN is a retail concept that adopts the imagery of Instagram, reinvents periodically and sells as a curated store; while providing an opportunity that allows unique brands to collaborate and co-activate in mixed-used brick and mortar spaces. FLR-PLN brings companies together thematically, mindfully and ethically. FLR-PLN is positioned for scalable success because it fulfills the need for the incubation of emerging, minority-owned brands by providing a cost-effective retail opportunity; whether in person or not. Although unforeseen, we are pivoting into an untapped opportunity to market and sell curated boxes that adapt to trends, holidays, celebrations and more while providing a communal occasion for product owners to make sales, scale & excel as small businesses. To learn more, contact info@flr-pln.com or visit www.flr-pln.com.
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Michelle Egger Co-Founder & CEO Durham, NC Category: Life Science/Pharma
Human Milk from Stem Cells BIOMILQ produces nutritionally equivalent breastmilk from cultured human mammary cells. With BIOMILQ, families can achieve the recommended six months of exclusive breastfeeding while alleviating the climate impacts of bovine-based infant formula. Today, we know that 8 in 10 moms have to stop breastfeeding before the recommended six months. BIOMILQ is creating a better infant nutrition alternative so moms can feel confident providing whole nutrition for their babies with less adverse effects on the environment. Using our patent-pending technology and proprietary bioreactor design, we cultivate the entire constellation of 2,500 components of breastmilk from a single mammary cell through 3D production; successfully producing nutritionally equivalent breastmilk outside of the human body. Nutrition of breastmilk Practicality of formula. To learn more, contact Michelle.egger@biomilq.com or visit www.biomilq.com.
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Felicia Jackson CEO Chattanooga, TN Category: Consumer Products
First Aid CPR Product CPRWrap is a first-aid tool that is used for performing CPR in a matter of seconds with a disposable, translucent overlay that guides you through the four American Heart Association recommended steps. CPRWrap also has an attached one-way valve mouth barrier and visual hand placements for proper compression. CRPWrap is available in three different sizes for infants, children, and adults. It is a simple-to-use product that addresses the problem of decreased intervention from the non-medical responder with its small size, portability, and instructive features that allow ANYONE, trained or untrained, to perform CPR without fear of contamination from fluid or drug residue, until EMS arrives. A life-saving product in its simplest form. To learn more, contact felicia@cprwrap.com or visit www.cprwrap.com.
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Roshunda Dixon Founder & CEO Alpharetta, GA Category: Consumer Products
Shaving & Skincare Products LuvSims is a shaving & skincare product platform on a mission to create reliable tools in your personal arsenal; to help you maximize those few minutes you have each day, to prepare to take on whatever lies ahead of you. It’s no secret that taking care of our hair goes beyond what’s on our head. What’s great is it’s your choice — whether hairy or smooth, creating the look you want can be bothersome and time-consuming. From shaving oils, lotions, soaps to scrubs are mineral-rich, cruelty-free, petroleum-free, silicone-free, and packed with organic ingredients. LuvSims is introducing a foldable razor that decreases with razor bumps, rashes &skin inflammation. LuvSims’ products are designed to enhance your unique body beauty. To learn more, contact roshundasdixon@gmail.com or visit www.linkedin.com/in/roshundadixon.
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Midwest
Watch the recorded Women’s Fast Pitch Midwest event! 20:30 PEERRO 30:00 Worthy Foods LLC 39:32 FaceTrace, Inc.
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2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
53:40 BioStrandz 1:03:30 Symba 1:12:00 Healium
Sarah Hill, CEO Columbia, MO Category: Consumer Medical Device
Digiceutical AR & VR Product Healium is a “digiceutical” which is akin to a low-risk “digital drug” for the self-management of anxiety. It is not a replacement for psychotropic medication. Healium is a drugless, immersive media product for stress management powered by the body’s electricity; the world’s first digiceutical for anxiety controlled via an EEG headband or smartwatch. Healium has been shown to significantly reduce anxiety by a third in as little as four minutes and boost frontal gamma asymmetry, a brain pattern associated with positivity. Healium is a subscription-based model to the 157 million stress consumers. Consumers purchase our products on the IOS, Android, and Oculus stores or via their enterprise where they work, live, or play. To learn more, contact sarah@tryhealium.com or visit www.tryhealium.com.
Ahva Sadeghi, Co-Founder & CEO Evanston, IL Category: B2B SaaS Platform
Remote Internship Workforce Development Tech Platform Symba is the leading remote internship all-in-one enterprise management platform. Symba is dedicated to inclusion, diversity, and removing barriers of entry to the workforce. Symba is a B2B SaaS platform helping companies streamline their internship program, saving them time and money. Symba connects companies with the best talent and helping them manage the entire remote internship experience —onboarding, training, engagement, program management, feedback loops, performance tracking & build meaningful relationships. In this way, Symba provides oversight and transparency into internship programs and supports companies with real data to track their recruitment processes. Symba’s all-female founding team is diverse and brings together software, marketing, and business expertise. Symba is creating valuable learning experiences, one internship at a time. To learn more, contact ahva@symba.io or visit symba.io. 2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
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Kaila Wilson Founder & CEO Kansas City, MO Category: Life Science/Pharma
Personalized Hair Science Platform BioStrandz aims to improve quality of life through client-specific solutions to make hair science, simplified, by approaching hair care with hair science from three unique vantage points: (1) Customization (personalized products), (2) Simplification (in regards to its application), (3) Education (making hair science, simplified for our customers). We provide our customers with personalized hair care solutions tailored to your specific hair, scalp, & beard deficiencies using our AI-integrated technology. BioStrandz focuses on the science of hair, hair care ingredients, health factors & heredity, and provides customers with information from research databases to not only understand their hair and what is in their products, but also how it pertains and affects their health. To learn more, contact kaila@biostrandz.com or visit www.biostrandz.com.
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Jennifer Christenson Founder & CEO Chicago, IL Category: BeautyTech
Face Recognition & AR App FaceTrace is a mobile app that uses Augmented Reality and facial recognition technology to help women properly apply cosmetics and achieve the makeup looks they desire- conveniently at home without having to visit an in-store beauty counter or hire a professional makeup artist. Our goal is to empower women to feel confident and beautiful, and to transform the beauty industry with cutting edge technology that provides a beauty solution for diverse women, and promotes inclusivity. By placing the power to perfect their look in the hands of consumers and with viral activity within our platform that extends to social media, the everyday consumer becomes just as influential as the beauty vloggers. To learn more, contact jennifer@facetracemakeup.com or visit facetracemakeup.com.
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Rachel Angel PharmD, Founder & CEO Cincinnati, OH Category: B2B SaaS Platform
Career Pathway Management Platform Peerro is a free, revolutionary human resources SaaS platform that helps employers identify, hire, and retain qualified candidates by reducing employee hiring time, increasing employee morale, and reducing employee turnover. Peerro was created out of a need for employers to save money and time on recruitment & to hire more qualified employees. The system also serves as a career pathway management system for job-seekers that facilitates training, recruitment and employment. Peerro not only provides them with information on jobs in their local area, but also highlights pathways for better employment by displaying the education, training, and certification information necessary to get them to a higher paying position. In some cases, job seekers are able to get immediate interviews. To learn more, contact rachel@peerro.com or visit peerro.com.
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Nydia Shipman Co-Founder & CCO Chicago, IL Category: Natural Food Consumer Product
Plant-based Nourishment Products Worthy Foods, LLC worthy is a company, a brand, a promise and a movement; created to ensure that plantbased nourishment is accessible to all and to inspire a global wave of self-worth. We value protecting mother earth and all her inhabitants starting with our first to market product: worthy bowls. The Worthy Blendie Bowl is an entirely new category to emerge in the plant-based eating explosion; combining vegetables, fruits, beans & chia to create a ready-to-eat, spoonable, portable snack or mini-meal. Available in 4 delicious flavors, Worthy Blendie Bowls are vegan, non-GMO and free of dairy, gluten, nuts & soy; offering 3 plant servings, 8g vegan Protein, 8g Fiber, 8g Sugar, 150 Cal, 2500 Omega 3s & 6s & 6 month shelf life. To learn more, contact nydia@theworthycompany.com or visit www.theworthycompany.com.
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Northwest
Watch the recorded Women’s Fast Pitch Northwest event! 13:00 Rebellyous Foods 44:10 Asset Queens 22:30 Advocat Technologies 55:10 Sensol Systems 32:40 OwnTrail 1:05:10 Cirkled In
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2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
Reetu Gupta, Founder & CEO Bellevue, WA Category: Tech/SaaS Platform
The ‘LinkedIn’ for Students & Colleges Cirkled In is “LinkedIn for students and colleges –Only Better!” - matching best-fit students and colleges, creating win-win while leveling the playing fields for all students. Every year, to meet their enrollment quota, colleges recruit high schools students on mass scale. They buy name lists from SAT/ACT test agencies, spend & AUDIE NCE CHOICE W I N N ER over $10B on insanely inefficient and antiquated marketing techniques, costing $2,500 per student who eventually join college classroom. CirkledIn is disrupting this market, modernizing this recruitment process. For students, Cirkled-In is an award-winning, secure, online holistic portfolio platform where they compile their entire K-12 accomplishments, both inside & outside school, highlighting their strengths and talents. By sharing this portfolio, students increase their success rate for all applications. To learn more, contact reetu@cirkledin.com or visit www.cirkledin.com.
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Pradnya Desh, CEO Bellevue, WA Category: LegalTech
AI-guided Legal Research and Drafting Platform Advocat is artificial intelligence-guided legal research and drafting for enterprise legal departments. Advocat applies Natural Language Processing & a semantic knowledge graph to the process that attorneys use to research, analyze & write complex legal documents. Fortune 500 companies are urgently trying to reduce their legal spend, ~ 2% of their total revenue, but they cannot afford major legal mistakes, inconsistency or uneven work product. Advocat’s software understands attorney conversations, conducts legal research and then delivers completed documents ready for review, saving legal departments 2 - 3 attorney hours per day of research & drafting, while improving quality & consistency across large legal departments. Customers say, “I have been searching for something like this for fifteen years.”
To learn more, contact pradnya@advocattechnologies. com or visit www.advocattechnologies.com.
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Meridith Fishkin Founder & CEO Seattle, WA Category: EdTech
Asset Management SaaS Platform Asset Queens is the first asset data collection and predictive analytics software to help customers reduce the cost of planning, purchasing, deploying, maintaining, and disposing of large assets across all relevant decision makers, administrators, and teams. Customers use Asset Queens’ easy-to-build custom forms to enable field teams to gather precise GPS asset location information, enhanced by GIS & CAD points, lines, and polygons. At the core, Asset Queens includes: a field investigation tool, an asset management database, and a real-time system monitoring tool. Asset Queens software can automatically add information from multiple departments to develop full scope, cradle-to-grave information on large quantities of assets of all sizes; the digital transformation of asset management, made simple. To learn more, contact killiandrake@gmail.com.
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Life & Career Platform for Women
Rebekah Bastian Co-Founder & CEO Seattle, WA
OwnTrail is reimagining and scaling mentorship to serve all women. Through micro acts of mentorship, we are creating a powerful tool for understanding the many paths to and from the major milestones in our lives, helping a diverse range of women see people that look like them in places they aspire to, and creating a bridge from inspiration to action. Self-improvement is a $10B industry, with women making up 70% of consumers. This market is increasingly made up of millennials, who are willing to spend $300/ month on self-improvement. OwnTrail is the first platform to leverage data and technology to empower women in a way that is scalable, inspirational & sticky.
Category: FemTech
To learn more, contact rebekah@owntrail.com or visit www.owntrail.com.
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Christie Lagally Founder & CEO Seattle, WA Category: Chicken FoodTech
Plant-based Food Production Methods and Equipment Rebellyous is an early stage Y Combinator (S’18) funded company based in Seattle. Seattle Food Tech, Rebellyous Foods, is an innovative food production technology company building a novel manufacturing stack to create delicious, juicy and affordable plant-based meats for the foodservice and CPG market. They have designed new production methods and equipment for making plantbased meat that are more cost effective, provide a higher quality of product, and are more capable of scaling than conventional plant-based meat production methods & equipment. Their IP is centered around innovative new methods & equipment while optimized facilities for large-scale, yet cost effective production of plant-based meat that can out-compete in the $65B US wholesale chicken market. To learn more, contact christie.lagally@ seattlefoodtech.com or visit www.rebellyous.com.
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Janie Bube Founder & CEO Seattle, WA Category: City PlanningTech
Smart City Enabled Pedestrian Crosswalk Sensol Systems is redefining the crosswalk industry. Over 300,000 pedestrians die crossing the street globally each year, and over 75% of these deaths occurred during low visibility conditions. The Sensol crosswalk reliably detects pedestrians before and while they cross the road by illuminating their exact location from below to increase visibility and save lives. On average nationally, a pedestrian is killed every 88 minutes in traffic crashes. In 2018 alone, 6,227 pedestrians died in vehicle accidents — the highest number in nearly 30 years. Illumination visually alerts drivers of crossing pedestrians, and signals are sent to autonomous vehicles as an additional safety precaution. Furthermore, Sensol Systems’ crosswalk tracks pedestrian and vehicle movement, to inform future city planning. To learn more, contact bubej@uw.edu or visit www.sensolsystems.com.
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Southwest
Watch the recorded Women’s Fast Pitch Southwest event! 19:30 Purpose Tea 33:10 LuvSims Shaving 43:55 Elite Kids
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2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
53:40 Humaxa 1:06:45 SWTCH Underwear 1:17:00 Perilla
Carolyn Peer, Co-Founder & CEO Cameron Park, CA Category: SaaS Future of Work
AI-driven SaaS Workforce Platform “Max” - from Humaxa - is the AI Assistant for distributed workforce engagement, culture creation & performance. It chats with the workforce, predicts what will improve employee engagement & performance, and offers to initiate those actions for you. Humaxa’s technology is based on thousands of conversations with clients and employees trying to solve employee performance and engagement issues. Imagine a fun, interactive AI Assistant that chats with employees anonymously about all sorts of work topics; from introducing a person to a mentor or to a group of people discussing leadership development, to encouraging an employee to talk & find others to help peers from diverse backgrounds feel more included at work.
To learn more, contact carolyn.peer@humaxa.com or visit www.humaxa.com.
AUDIENCE CHOI C E WI NNE R
Isabel Muller, Founder & CEO Los Angeles, CA Category: Consumer Apparel Product
Womxn’s Health & Underwear Brand Swtch Underwear is an LA-based underwear brand prioritizing sustainability, inclusivity, and womxn’s health. This revolutionary underwear for the versatile, active womxn, is a patent-pending sporty & sustainable tearaway underwear that fastens at the hip, making it super quick and easy to change without having to undress. It’s as versatile as our wardrobe. Existing underwear brands have addressed absorbency, odor control, moisture-wicking, and seamless design. These are all excellent features, but these products are designed to keep customers in their underwear, confined. Swtch undies are a low-commitment, built to sync with your favorite workout leggings for a seamless, snug fit; a sustainable option designed for the active lifestyle, but that give women the choice to “swtch!” To learn more, contact isabel@swtchunderwear.com or visit www.swtchunderwear.com.
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Kewanta Brooks Founder & CEO Frisco, TX Category: Consumer Product and Platform
Media & Education Kid Products Elite Kids is an education and lifestyle brand for kids 0 to 10 that features four black kid characters who teach academic content and life skills. The CEO, Kewanta Brooks, merged her experiences as a teacher and parent to create Elite Kids. Elite Kids sell flashcards, books, apparel, and room decor and provide free video content that teaches academics and life skills. Elite Kids stands out as one of the only brands for babies, tots, and elementary school children that center around African American characters. Elite Kids is not only creating diversity in the animated early childhood development space, but it also supplements the curriculum taught in traditional schools, bringing inclusion into the classroom. To learn more, contact hello@elitekids.xyz or visit elitekids.xyz.
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Jenny Beeghly Co-Founder & CEO Irvine, CA Category: Medical Apparel Product
Fashionable & Functional Scrubs Perilla is a premium fashion scrub company that wants to give back to the communities that have helped us; changing the way medical professionals thinks about workwear. Perilla manufactures fashionable and functional scrubs designed by a Leukemia survivor designer and an ER doctor. Perilla scrubs were designed to be the most comfortable scrubs you’ll ever put on. Period. Partnering with A3M and Be The Match, Perilla will commit a portion of its profits towards the fight against cancer. Perilla is where fashion meets function with fashionable styling that is slim fitting, having thoughtful features like shoulderheight badge holders to yoga waistbands. Perilla is the Lululemon of Scrubs, with tons of stretch. To learn more, contact jenny@feelperilla.com or visit feelperilla.com.
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Chi Nguyen Founder & CEO Dallas, TX Category: Consumer Beverage Product
Social Impact RTD Tea Beverage Purpose Purple Tea is a mission-driven beverage company innovating a high growth category with the newest innovation in tea--a brewed beverage made from the purple tea leaf. Purple tea has superior health benefits as compared to other teas and is a heartier plant that withstands climate change disturbances and provides stability to millions. With these unique qualities combined with the brand’s mission of lifting female tea workers from poverty, Purpose Purple Tea is poised to disrupt a fast-moving category. Purpose Purple Tea has 500+ points of distribution and seeing strong traction in Whole Foods stores in the Dallas Fort Worth region selling 7.5 units per SKU of weekly velocity on a limited marketing budget. To learn more, contact cnguyen@purposetea.com or visit purposetea.com.
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Le Tia Ladino Bryson Founder & CEO Tempe, AZ Category: Tech/SaaS Solution
SaaS Human Capital Platform vCandidates.com, poised to disrupt the human capital industry, is a subscription-based SaaS platform, which is a private, confidential, exclusive and alternative career advancement platform that connects job candidates with vetted recruiters and staffing agencies. vCandidates is the brainchild of LT Ladino Bryson who is fondly known as The Employment Therapist™. vCandidates’ all-in-one platform supports small and medium-sized recruiting business’ diversity and inclusion initiatives which help broaden their candidate pool. Whether a candidate is searching for a new career or an individual recruiter is looking for a candidate they will discover vCandidates. com is a refreshing alternative to traditional online job search activities including uploading a resume and repeating submission information each time a candidate submits an application. To learn more, contact ladinobryson@vcandidates.com or visit vcandidates.com.
2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
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San Diego
Watch the recorded Women’s Fast Pitch San Diego event! 14:15 Bliss Foods 23:45 Prenursing Smarter 32:55 Softsonics
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41:40 Sekr 53:20 Nano PharmaSolutions 1:06:15 TealHeal Mobile Medical
Breanne Acio, Founder & CEO San Diego, CA Category: ConsumerTech
RV & Camping Marketplace and Platform Sēkr is a marketplace and subscription platform for RV & Camping destinations. Sēkr is making outdoor travel & recreation easier, safer & more connected. Whether you are camping for the weekend, going on an epic road trip, or living full-time in your RV, Sēkr helps you find your way to campsites, amenities, & community in the outdoors. Disrupting the fragmented outdoor travel market of 145M+ people seeking solutions, Sēkr is like Trip Advisor meets AirBnB meets All Trails, but for outdoor travel destinations. The Sēkr team are thought leaders in the outdoor industry, experiencing first hand their customers’ challenges. When helping people connect with nature, it’s not just good for the soul, it’s good for the environment; greatly impacting our world. To learn more, contact Breanne@thevanlifeapp.com or visit www.thevanlifeapp.com.
AUDIENCE CHOI C E WI NNE R
Jessica Tishue, Founder & CEO San Diego, CA Category: Sustainable Consumer Product
Edible Superfood Tableware Bliss Foods is a food innovation that stops single-use plastic waste, while boosting your health. Bliss Foods is the world’s 1st edible superfood tableware (cups, bowls, cutlery) that’s delicious, nutrient-dense, 100% organic, vegan, gluten-free, grain-free, and compostable in any environment! Cities across the globe are banning singleuse plastic tableware and to-go containers, leaving the food service industry searching for solutions. Bliss Foods come in a variety of sweet and savory flavors, such as mocha-flavored coffee cups. These products can also keep their form for approximately 14 to 15 hours. Bliss Foods makes it easy for you to do something good for YOU and the planet, simply by indulging in something delicious. To learn more, contact jessica.tishue@gmail.com or visit www.instagram.com/eatblissfoods.
2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
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Kate Raiford Founder & CEO San Diego, CA Category: EdTech
Consumer Tech Prenursing Test Prep Platform Prenursing Smarter is an edtech platform, an online test prep for a nursing school admissions exam. Prenursing Smarter helps busy students study smarter so they can score higher and get into nursing school. With the platform, students show an average increase of 25% from starting to ending assessments. In 2019, more than 700 students purchased at least one Prenursing Smarter product; from quizlet flash cards, study materials to test prep practice exams. Since Q1 of 2020, Prenursing Smarter has experienced considerable growth with +62% YTD revenue, +11% Average spend per customer, and +43% Customers. Prenursing Smarter believes that a quality education should be within everyone’s reach; especially if you are busy. To learn more, contact kate@prenursingsmarter.com or visit www.prenursingsmarter.com.
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Shu Xiang Co-Founder & President San Diego, CA Category: Medical Device
Wearable Ultrasound Blood Pressure Monitor Softsonics is a digital health spin-off from UC San Diego that develops wearable ultrasound technology for digital health solutions for blood pressure screening, diagnosis, and treatment evaluation. Continuous blood pressure monitoring is a grand challenge in the multibillion-dollar healthcare industry, because blood pressure fluctuates constantly, creating difficulties in diagnostics and health management. Softsonics builds small, soft wearable patches with ultrasound transducers and associated data storage, transmission, and analytics on the cloud, for cardiac patients which stick on the skin, sensing blood pressure continuously, and then sending the data directly to doctors and appropriate electronic health record systems. Unlike traditional cuff-based monitors, Softsonics’ technology offers a cuff-less solution that is easy for patients and time-saving for doctors. To learn more, contact shuxiang@curescendo.com or visit www.linkedin.com/in/xiangshu.
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Gelena Lifchitz Founder & CEO San Diego, CA Category: HealthTech
SaaS Home-based Healthcare Platform TealHeal is a technology platform enabling doctors and nurses to perform advanced medical care in the comfort of patients’ homes. Due to COVID-19, TealHeal is having increased interest in their much-needed solution that enhances telemedicine with a clinical lab and mini-imaging center. TealHeal’s Product = Hardware + Software. Hardware (TealBag) is a set of point-of-care diagnostic devices connected to a laptop - a mobile clinical lab and mini-imaging center in a bag. This bag is used by visiting nurses to perform rapid testing and patient examination at home. Software (TealPlatform) is enabling over-the -screen doctor’s supervision, on-line consultations, house calls scheduling, patient triage and integration of the medical data collected during the visit with any Electronic Healthcare Record system. To learn more, contact gelena@tealheal.com or visit www.tealheal.com.
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Kay Olmstead Co-Founder & CEO San Diego, CA Category: Life Science/Pharma
Nano Drug Delivery Life Sci Platform Nano PharmaSolutions makes good drugs great by enhancing bioavailability using their proprietary nanoformulations. Since >80% of New Small Molecule Drug Candidates are Poorly Soluble Drugs, there is a huge opportunity for nano formulation to solve this challenge. For new drugs, rapid and cost-effective firstin-man formulation development is quicker & more costefficient by partnering with Nano PharmaSolutions and for generic drugs, nanotechnology makes these drugs safer and have better delivery; like being easily used as injectable, pills, creams, eye drops, or inhalers. With the Nano PharmaSolutions platform technology that uses physical nanosizing for faster development, they can make any disease drug at any stage better by enhancing bioavailability & safety of the drug. To learn more, contact kay@nanopharmasolutions.com or visit nanopharmasolutions.com.
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For too long, we have listened to someone else’s voice, telling us where the lines are drawn, which box to sit in, why we’re not good enough, and why we don’t belong. For too long, we have nodded and agreed. Tiptoed around. For fear of conflict, fear of rejection, fear of judgment. For too long. For too long. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. It is through a lifetime of longing, years of self-doubt, infinite excuses that we’ve arrived in this place. You have been called to this difficult journey, to create a path. Sure, there were those that came before. But your boots are a little muddier, your feet a bit smaller. Once you’ve stepped deep into the jungle, there is no way back. You’ve seen too much, learned too much, met too many good people to go back to the person you were: so scared, so uncertain. Now you march forward with uncertainty, marching through the night, determination as your torch.
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2020 WOMEN’S FAST PITCH
You don’t know how you’re going to get there, but you don’t know what else you can do. You’ve answered the call, tasted the freedom, filled the air with possibility, opportunity, vision, and dreams. To create is a privilege. To dream for others, is an honor. You do it not in spite of the fact that you’re an immigrant, a mother, a daughter. You do it because you are PROUD of where you came from, the challenges you’ve faced, and the demons you’ve conquered. You do it because you care. You do it to repay what your mother, and her mother, and her mother have done for you. You do it because you believe in a better tomorrow. You, my dear sister, will change the world.
Dr. Debbie Chen
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We are #StrongerTogether and when Women Support Women, structures of power and influence crumble and are reimagined to create more solid, inclusive, intersectional, more diverse & incrementally innovative new models & methods; thus a new village paradigm emerges. Thank you for being part of our vision to “get to even�, equal representation of women on both sides of the venture table through investing, amplifying, advocating, accelerating and truly championing the startup journeys of tenacious womxn.
