Finals Out, Student Founders Up
Congrats on finishing finals hustlers! Over the past two weeks, female founders collectively raised an incredible $245.15M, and fresh startup job opportunities just dropped—let’s dive in!
This is WWV Labs’ weekly newsletter: Her Hustle, a place to learn all about the new and the next in female entrepreneurship, and we’re here to help you dive into it. We highlight all the fierce women who are building startups—from those launching from dorm rooms and balancing classes to recent grads and experienced professionals turning their bold visions into reality.
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Good morning and happy Sunday! Finals are over, and graduation is officially less than two weeks away—I’m feeling bittersweet but mostly excited for what's next. Thanks for your patience during this busy senior spring—here’s what I’ve been up to:
Co-hosted Harvard WiE x Columbia x WWV Lab’s Female Founder Friday alongside the incredible Lilly Montelle, featuring an inspiring pitch competition judged by powerhouse women from Fierce Foundry (plus secured you all a special 15% discount on their iconic "INVEST IN WOMEN" shirts—just use code CORE).
Received the Harvard Women's Leadership Award, celebrating leadership through community-building and resilience, and highlighting how far I've come since last year.
Celebrated our amazing Harvard Undergraduate Women in Entrepreneurship team being named Harvard’s 2025 Student Organization of the Year, recognizing our collective commitment to creating spaces for ambitious female student founders.
Attended the Her Campus Media 22 Under 22 honoree event at e.l.f. Beauty's NYC headquarters, connecting with female visionaries and drawing inspiration from their fearless approach to redefining beauty, branding, and authenticity.
Hosted the vibrant Women in AI FMML Hackathon at MIT, spotlighting female-led innovations addressing critical women's health challenges through AI-driven solutions.
Graduation recaps and even more exciting WWV Labs news coming soon—I can't wait to continue building and growing with this incredible community post-grad!
Joy Liu, Founder of Plenful, raised a $50M Series B to scale her San Francisco-based AI-driven healthcare workflow automation platform.
Amy Gong, Co-Founder of InventWood, raised a $15M Series A to scale sustainable hybrid building materials that combine wood and advanced composites.
Andrea Auxier, Ph.D., Founder of Noma Therapy, raised $4.25M in funding from Redesign Health to expand her innovative mental health tech platform.
Roya Amini-Naieni, Co-Founder and CEO of Trilobio, raised an $8M seed round led by Initialized Capital to advance her automated robotic lab-in-a-box, revolutionizing synthetic biology research efficiency.
Samantha Alexander, CEO & Founder of FoodHealth, raised a $7.5M Series A led by Reach Capital and Ulu Ventures to scale her nutrition intelligence platform.
Julie Blanc, Co-Founder & CEO of Rentana, raised a $5M seed round to grow her AI-powered revenue optimization platform for multifamily property owners.
Meryem Arik, Co-Founder and CEO of Doubleword, raised $12M Series A led by Dawn Capital to expand her enterprise-focused, self-hosted AI inference platform.
Anya Freeman, Founder and CEO of Kind Designs, raised a $5M seed round at a $30M valuation led by Overlay Capital to scale her climate-tech startup’s innovative 3D-printed living seawalls.
Kavitha Ramachandragowda, Co-Founder of Routematic, secured a $40M Series C led by Fullerton Carbon Action Fund and Shift4Good to expand her India-based tech-driven employee transportation solutions platform.
Sara Wyman, Founder and CEO of Stackpack, raised $6.3M in funding led by Freestyle Capital to streamline third-party vendor management with her AI-driven platform.
Zoë Weil, Co-Founder & CEO of Sequen, secured $6M seed funding led by Greycroft to scale her behavior optimization technology for digital engagement.
Saasha Celestial-One and Tessa Clarke, Co-Founders of Olio, raised an $11M Series B led by Fulcrum Equity Partners to scale their community-driven care coordination app aimed at reducing waste.
Maithra Raghu, Co-Founder and CEO of Samaya AI, raised $43.5M in funding led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Eric Schmidt, Yann LeCun, David Siegel, and Marty Chavez, to scale her specialized AI solutions for the financial services industry.
Ishita Sood, Co-Founder of WakeCap, raised a $28M Series A led by UP.Partners to grow her sensor-powered project intelligence platform designed for construction safety and efficiency.
Rani Powers, Founder and CEO of Pluto Bio, secured $3.6M in funding led by Kickstart to scale her AI-driven computational biology platform.
May 29 | 🧩 VIP Lunch with Unstoppable Women of Web3 and AI & Litecoin Summit (Las Vegas)
May 30 - June 1 | 👥 Techstars Startup Weekend Boston (Boston)
Use code DANIELA for 25% off Startup Weekend Boston.
May 31 - June 1 | 👩💻 Llama 4 Hackathon NYC (NYC)
June 11 | 👩💻 Launch by Lunch: LIVE Vibe Coding with WWV Labs (Virtual)
June 11 | 🍽️ LA Female Founders Lunch (LA)
This NY Tech Week, from June 2–8, I’ll be joining a16z as a Tech Week Ambassador — come join me at Tech Week events and check out the calendar here!
Pro tip: Easily find female-focused events by filtering your search with keywords like 'Women' or 'Female'!
HSBC's latest survey proves midlife female entrepreneurs are an economic powerhouse, with 85% launching successful businesses after 40 and 84% planning rapid growth within two years, showing age is a superpower in entrepreneurship.
Carolyn Rodz, Co-Founder of Hello Alice, successfully defended her platform's mission to democratize entrepreneurship—overcoming a major lawsuit, saving $50M+ in grants distributed to underrepresented founders, and sharing the defense strategy publicly to empower other women entrepreneurs.
Eunice Lai, CMO at Series, is driving massive engagement and brand trust by transparently launching Series' latest AI-powered social network event through a "build in public" strategy.
Nandini Mullaji, Co-Founder of Sitch, took over NASDAQ's iconic Times Square billboard to tackle America's dating crisis head-on, responding to the 13 million increase in singles since the pandemic.
Arlan Hamilton went from homelessness to launching a $30M VC fund that backed 200+ underestimated founders—and now she's on a mission to create 1,000 Black millionaires within the next decade.
Daniela Palacios, Founder of Para KIDS and rising senior at Columbia University, launched a modern bilingual education startup to bridge a critical gap in children's publishing, driven by her mission to reflect today’s multicultural world and empower young bilingual learners.
💁♀️ Are you a female student or recent graduate who wants to work at a startup? Apply to WWV Labs Fellowship Program to find ad hoc projects, term-time internships, summer internships, or full-time employment opportunities at startups!
Join our community of 850+ fellows from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, UPenn, UC Berkeley, and other top universities today!
🚀 Walnut Ventures, one of Boston's longest-running angel groups, is actively scouting exceptional early-stage founders to pitch at their monthly meetings—reach out to mzuniga1@babson.edu for details.
🚀 Alumni Ventures' Deep Tech Fund is hiring interns for summer 2025 to dive into cutting-edge tech investing—apply now for a hands-on VC experience.
👩💻 Lea Sims is hiring a Marketing Operations Manager and Conferences & Events Manager to drive global marketing and events strategy—both full-time, mostly remote roles based in the Northeast.
👩💻 Mercor is hiring Strategic Project Leads from the class of 2025, offering $245-275K cash + equity first-year compensation to drive multi-million-dollar revenue projects.
🏥 Eli Health, led by Marina Pavlovic Rivas, is hiring product designers, growth marketers, writers, and creatives to scale the first-ever instant hormone monitoring system.
👠 Forerunner's rapidly scaling Series A fashion-tech company is hiring key roles—including CRM & Lifecycle Marketing Lead, Customer Support, Social Media Lead, and Graphic Designer—for their NYC HQ.
👩💻 The Texas Venture Gala & Forum is recruiting student volunteers for their premier VC event on May 29 in Austin, offering exclusive networking with top founders, investors, and industry leaders.
👩💻 Seven Starling's CEO Tina Keshani is hiring a Chief of Staff—a high-impact role reporting directly to her, perfect for an ambitious leader with consulting or startup experience ready to drive strategic growth in women's health.
✨ Sephira, the first AI-powered spirituality startup, is redefining belief for the digital age in the $1.2T spirituality industry—join now as an early user or team member to shape this judgment-free space and help build the next generation of spiritual community.
🌎 The Watson Institute and JPMorganChase Foundation are offering a fully-funded 16-week Environmental Sustainability Entrepreneurship Fellowship, including expert training, mentorship, and a $1,000 stipend, specifically for impact-driven women founders tackling critical environmental challenges.
👩💻 32 Sequoia-backed startups including Maven Clinic, Zapier, and Gather are hiring now for fully remote roles across tech, healthcare, and consumer—apply directly through their career pages.
📊 Accountalent, the leading tax and accounting firms for over 5,000 startups, has offered to file 2024 taxes for any undergraduate female-founded and managed startup corporation totally free of charge. This includes filing the Federal and State corporate tax returns, DE Franchise tax return, Form 1099s, consulting on tax matters, etc. It also includes preparing 2024 financial statements.
Joe Faris, CPA, founder of Accountalent has conducted Office Hours for many years at Harvard, MIT and UChicago and has worked with hundreds of female founders, including many foreign founders. Feel free to email him or make an appointment on his online calendar to redeem this perk or if you have any tax questions:
Joe Faris, CPA, jfaris@accountalent.com, Online Calendar: https://calendly.com/joefaris
🚀 Unify grew inbound demos from nearly zero to 63 per month using these 25 proven LinkedIn content strategies, driving up to 500K impressions weekly and 27% of their March pipeline.
🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.
💁♀️ Connect with me on LinkedIn for daily insights on women in entrepreneurship.
📈 Partner with WWV Labs if you are a startup interested in hiring top female talent.
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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!
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Love,
Daniela