Funding > Mentoring: Kicking Off Women’s History Month
$187.4M Raised by Female Founders, Sheikha Al-Otaibi Takes the Top Prize at Babson’s Pitch Competition, Femtech is Growing—But Where’s the Funding for Female Femtech Founders
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Happy Women’s History Month!
To kick off this incredible Women’s History Month, Harvard Undergraduate Women in Entrepreneurship is excited to announce our second major sponsor—Gunderson Dettmer—to support this year’s Female Founder Circle!
Pitch Competition presenters will receive a complimentary legal consultation, while the first-place winner will receive discounted legal rates, deferred billing until financing, and a non-dilutive grant to support their startup.
Applications close Friday, March 7 @ 11:59 PM EST—apply here!
Kat Miroshnikova (London, UK) – Co-founder of Unit Network, a decentralized financial ecosystem enabling the tokenization of real-world and digital assets, raised $18M in funding led by Blockchain Founders Fund and Outlier Ventures.
Helen Hastings (San Francisco, CA) – Founder of Quanta, an AI-powered accounting automation platform, raised $4.7M in seed funding led by Accel.
Celine Halioua (San Francisco, CA) – Founder of Loyal, a biotech company developing longevity drugs for dogs, secured $22M in Series B-2 funding led by Valor Equity Partners and Collaborative Fund.
Bessie Schwarz & Dr. Beth Tellman, PhD (New York, NY) – Co-founders of Floodbase, a climate adaptation platform providing parametric flood risk insurance, raised $5M in funding led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund.
Natalie J. Galant, PhD, Ph.D. (Toronto, Canada) – Founder of Paradox Immunotherapeutics, a biotech startup advancing antibody therapies for protein misfolding diseases, raised $10M in funding from SymBiosis.
Sheikha Al-Otaibi, co-founder of Interlix Staffing, just won the top award at Babson College’s pitch competition.
Adina Simu (San Jose, CA) – Co-founder of Auditoria.AI, an AI-powered automation platform for CFO offices, secured $38M in funding led by Innovius Capital and Dell Technologies Capital.
Farida Abdelmoneum, co-founder and CEO of Epoch Labs, just secured a spot in HatchW25—one of only 8 teams selected from 700+ applicants.
Brooke M. (San Francisco, CA) – Founder of RAD Security, an AI-driven cybersecurity platform protecting cloud infrastructure, secured $14M in Series A funding led by Cheyenne Ventures.
Layla Hosseini-Gerami (Cambridge, UK) – Co-founder of Ignota Labs, an AI-driven company rescuing failed drug development projects, secured $6.9M in seed funding led by Montage Ventures and AIX Ventures.
Prof. Romana Schirhagl (Groningen, Netherlands) – Co-founder of QT Sense, a quantum disease detection startup developing nano-MRI diagnostics for sepsis and cancer, raised $6.3M in funding led by QDNL Participations.
Alex Zenla, Emily Long, and Ariadne Conill (Seattle, WA) – Co-founders of Edera, a startup revolutionizing workload isolation technology for cloud security, raised $15M in Series A funding led by Microsoft’s M12.
Hailey Swartz (Miami, FL) – Co-founder of Actual Veggies, a plant-based food company creating clean-label veggie burgers, secured $7M in Series A funding led by Relentless Consumer Partners.
Columbia SIPA student Sara Gomez Horta launched Tesoro, a wealth management platform helping young Latinas build financial futures. After winning Columbia’s Global Policy Challenge in 2024, Tesoro is now scaling with university support.
Nicole Mazza (London, UK) – Co-founder of Relay Technologies, an AI-powered parcel delivery logistics startup, secured $35M in Series A funding led by Plural.
Camille van Horne (New York, NY) – Co-founder of Highstock, a platform connecting brands with wholesale buyers for unsold inventory, raised $5.5M in seed funding led by Greylock.
March 3 | 🎬 Show Her the Money Screening & Panel (Atlanta)
March 4 | 💰 Brex Social Club: Women’s History Month with Fintech Mavericks (NYC)
March 6 | 👸 Female Leaders of Austin (Austin)
March 6 | 🧘♀️ SH x DailyBasis present a Wellness Morning for Women Founders (NYC)
March 6 | 👩💻 Women in Tech: Data Science and AI Trailblazers (San Diego)
March 6 | 💰 Women Innovation Summit: Pitch Competition (Toronto)
March 6 | 🌟 Redefine Possible | International Women’s Day Summit (SF)
March 7 | ☕ Coffee Meet Up: AI in Women’s Fertility Wellness (SF)
March 7 | ✨ BFN Be Her Summit (Toronto)
March 9 | 👩💻 She's in Tech Social (Washington D.C.)
March 10 | 💆♀️ Happy Hour: A Conversation on Women’s Health & Sexual Wellness (SF)
March 11 | 🏃♀️ Stride, Thrive, Lead: A Walk with Women in Fintech (Las Vegas)
March 11 | 💁♀️ SXSW She Means Business: Ask Her Anything Hot Seat (Austin)
March 11 | 🤝 Founders & Funders Happy Hour (NYC)
March 12 | 👩💻 Women of SaaS New York – Making Bold Moves in 2025 (NYC)
March 12 | 🛍️ Women Sellers in Amazon's Store and Enthuse Foundation NYC Meetup (NYC)
March 12 | 👩💻 ComfyUI Official NYC March Meet-Up: Celebrating Women in AI 💟 (NYC)
March 13 | 🤝 Gen Z NYC Founder & Creator Mixer (NYC)
March 14 | 🍽️ LA Female Founders Lunch (LA)
March 18 | 👩💻 Women in AI Meet-up (Boston)
March 21 | 👩💻 Go Beyond 2% - Women's Leadership Conference (SF)
March 27 | 👩💻 C10 Labs and Springboard Enterprises Presents: International Women's Month AI Hackathon (Boston)
March 28 | 👩⚕️ IWH: March Monthly Women's Health Careers Networking (Virtual)
March 29 | 🤝 Women’s Interdisciplinary Society of Entrepreneurship Summit (Boston)
April 11 | 🎬 Show Her the Money Screening & Panel (Boston)
April 23 | 💰 Fintech Is Femme Leadership Summit (NYC)
Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship?
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This Women’s History Month, the message is clear: women don’t need more mentoring—we need funding. As Debbie Wosskow puts it, “No female founder has ever said, ‘I need more mentoring.’” It’s time to shift the focus from empowerment to investment.
Femtech is booming, but the funding isn’t going to women—new data shows men-only teams are raising the majority of Femtech capital. Ida Tin, who coined the term Femtech, is calling on VCs to require gender-balanced teams to ensure women—who know these problems best—are leading the solutions.
Female Invest is making its boldest move yet—expanding to the U.S. with a launch event featuring Barbara Corcoran. With 80,000+ signups already, the Denmark-founded platform is set to redefine how women invest globally.
Dr. Ayesha Khanna, now at 140,000 AI newsletter subscribers, proved that confidence isn’t about being flawless—it’s about learning from criticism, adapting, and improving. Growth comes from challenge, not comfort.
Girls Just Wanna Have Funds! This must-read champions FU funds as a tool for women to invest, take control, and walk away on their terms.
After five years of research, the Center for Intimacy Justice reveals how Meta, TikTok, Amazon, and Google censor vital women’s sexual and reproductive health content, blocking access to information on abortion, pelvic pain, and more.
A viral LinkedIn post just exposed the gender health gap—a post on sperm quality racked up 85K+ impressions, while an equally informative post on egg quality got crickets. The takeaway? Women’s health remains understudied, underfunded, and undervalued, despite its $1T+ potential impact on the global economy.
Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen just flew to DC with her 4-week-old infant to cast her vote—because Congress still doesn’t allow new parents to vote remotely. Now, she’s fighting to change that with a bipartisan bill for parental leave in Congress.
Name: Hannah Hale
School: University of Kentucky ‘26
Major: Computer Science
Startup: AFO Cyber LLC
Sector: Cybersecurity
Description of Startup: A subscription based service where people can submit emails, mail, or text messages that they think are scams and our team reviews it and sends a risk assessment.
Biggest Startup Achievement: Becoming an LLC, applying to YC
Biggest Startup Learning Moment: it takes a whole team to get a company up and running.
Advice for Female Students Interested in Entrepreneurship: Never give up!
Know a bada$$ female student founder?
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💁♀️ 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 800+ fellows from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, UPenn, UC Berkeley, and other top universities today!
💁♀️ Applications are open for the Harvard Undergraduate Women in Entrepreneurship (WiE) 2025 Female Founder Circle, an invite-only event on April 12 bringing together 30 top female student founders for workshops, panels, networking, and a pitch competition with funding—apply by March 7 to secure your spot!
🚀 VC-backed startup hiring! Rift is looking for a Chief of Staff with any background and experience level—just hustle, adaptability, and ambition. This off-market role won’t be found elsewhere, and top 15 applicants get a personal referral. Apply now!
💰Underscore VC's Pearce Summer Fellows Program is offering $50K+ in flexible funding, top-tier mentorship, and access to Boston’s thriving tech ecosystem—applications close March 31st!
🏨 A 54-room hotel turned hacker house, startup incubator, and research lab—fully funded. FR8 is covering flights, food, and housing for 3 months so ambitious builders can go all-in on their boldest ideas. Zero equity, no strings attached—apply now!
💰 Break into VC with impact. The Sorenson Impact Institute is hiring student analysts to help deploy $1M+ in early-stage investments across fintech, health-tech, ed-tech, and more. Part-time, paid, and hands-on—apply by March 17!
🤝 AI-powered networking is here. Series, the first AI-driven social network, is now live for .edu users, helping you connect with the right people to achieve your next 5-year goal. Sign up now at www.series.so.
🚀 ElevateA, a free virtual pre-accelerator for underserved tech founders, is accepting 100 founders for expert mentorship, masterclasses, and a powerful founder network—supported by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Apply now!
💰 These top 11 accelerators are accepting applications now, offering up to $500K in funding to help you scale—because big ideas need big backing.
📊 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
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📈 Partner with WWV Labs if you are a startup interested in hiring top female talent.
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Love,
Daniela