Summer Heat, Startup Hustle: Female Founders Are Not Slowing Down
Nancy Xu’s Moonhub gets acquihired by Salesforce, Tyler Haney raises $11M for her latest venture, Caitlin Colgrove lands $70M for Hex, and sister duo Misbah & Farah Uraizee raise $10.6M
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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Great to be back in NYC for the summer! I’m so excited to hear all the incredible progress my fellow female student founders are making with their ventures.
If you're a female student founder, don’t be shy about bragging—your accomplishments deserve to be seen!
If you want to amplify your work and get featured in this newsletter and on LinkedIn, fill out this form! We need more women owning their wins.
Nancy Xu, Founder and CEO of Moonhub, raised $14.4M to build an AI-powered hiring platform, leading to a team acqui-hire by Salesforce to accelerate its AI strategy.
Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi, Co-Founders of Ankar, raised $4.1M in seed funding led by Index Ventures to build an AI-powered IP platform.
Lily Clifford and Brooke Larson, Co-Founders of Rime, raised $5.5M in seed funding led by Unusual Ventures to build enterprise-grade voice AI tools.
Esha Joshi, Co-Founder of Yoodli, raised $14M in Series A funding to scale the company’s AI-powered roleplay platform.
Rachel Lea Fishman, Co-Founder and CEO of Arketa, raised $15M in Series A funding led by Inspired Capital to scale her AI-powered software platform helping boutique fitness studios modernize operations.
Tyler Haney, Founder of Outdoor Voices, raised $11M in Series A funding co-led by Offline Ventures and Strobe Ventures for her Web3 loyalty startup TYB.
Hailey Bieber, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Rhode, secured a $1B acquisition deal with e.l.f. Beauty—one of the largest celebrity beauty exits to date.
Claire DeRoberts, Co-Founder of Mura, raised $6M in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau to streamline back-office operations in commercial field service.
Caitlin Colgrove, Co-Founder and CTO of Hex, raised $70M in Series C funding to scale Hex’s AI-powered analytics workspace.
Rosa Shores, Co-Founder and CEO of BlockSpaces, raised $2M in funding to launch ARCC, the first Bitcoin-native collateral and risk management platform for institutional finance.
Misbah and Farah Uraizee, sisters and Co-Founders of Nectar Social, raised $10.6M in seed funding led by GV and True Ventures to power their AI-native platform transforming DMs and social engagement into real-time revenue.
Dr. Emilia McLaughlin, Founder and CEO of kyron.bio, raised €5.5M in seed funding led by HCVC to pioneer precision glycan engineering and transform antibody drug design.
Eleonora Cavani, Co-Founder and CEO of Alba Health, raised $2.5M in seed funding to expand her pediatric gut health platform.
Helen Fang, Co-Founder and CEO of Acclaro Medical, raised $23M in Series B funding to scale UltraClear, an FDA-cleared fiber laser platform revolutionizing aesthetic skin treatments with cold-beam technology for all skin types.
Maya Said, Co-Founder and CEO of Outcomes4Me, raised $21M to scale her AI-powered platform transforming cancer care.
June 22 | 🏃♀️ Women in Sports & Tech (Toronto)
June 23 | 💸 Female Invest: Coffee, Matcha & Money Moves (NYC)
June 24 | 🧘♀️ Breathe into Your Power with Female Invest (NYC)
June 25 | 👩💻 Women in AI Meet-up (Boston)
June 30 | 🧬 Summer BioSocial in Women’s Health (SF)
June 30 | 🤝 Chicago Female Founders & Friends (Chicago)
July 9 | 👩💻 ReDo Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit (Chicago)
Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship?
Share the details with WWV Labs Her Hustle’s community by filling out this form!
Incora Health, founded by Lindsey Calcutt, PhD and Theresa Gevaert, is shaking up femtech with smart earrings that track stress, sleep, and cycles.
Mariam Ahmed, YC S23 alum and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, is celebrating 2 years of building Menza—now boasting 95%+ demo-to-onboarding conversion and rapid growth as she redefines data access for consumer brands.
Just days before graduating, Eve Idusuyi announced the acquisition of CreditCliq—a startup she co-founded in college to make credit access global and inclusive.
At just 22, Luana Lopes Lara co-founded Kalshi—the first fully regulated U.S. prediction market—now valued at $787M with $1.97B traded in 2024 and 1,221% revenue growth.
Allie Egan, Founder & CEO of Veracity, raised $6M to scale her biology-first wellness brand—after 30x growth in 18 months.
Only 10 women made Forbes’ 2025 Midas List of the top 100 VCs—just 10%.
These are the female VCs who are rewriting the rules, raising billions, and funding the future—on their terms.
💁♀️ 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!
💸 Applications are now open for the Onuoha Fellowship—offering $10K in scholarships, elite mentorship, and hands-on AI training to 10 standout freshmen and sophomores ready to build startups from day one.
🚀 a16z partner Kimberly Tan just dropped a hiring blast: dozens of AI startups in their portfolio are hiring across engineering, product, design, and ops—SF, NYC, and London.
📚 Maven’s VP of Growth, Mallory Contois, is hiring across product, design, content, and engineering—offering a front-row seat to reshape the future of education.
🚀 Denielle Sachs is hiring a Director of Programs & Partnerships to help launch The Conduit’s NYC presence—$90–120K for a bold operator ready to build a social impact platform from the ground up.
🚀 Alli Pope is hiring a Startups Partner Manager at Vercel—calling all startup-obsessed operators with VC, accelerator, or early-stage chops to join a high-growth team shaping the future of dev tools.
🚨 Four newly minted unicorns are hiring interns across AI, fashion tech, robotics, and streaming.
🚀 Ben Lang just dropped a hot list of 30+ fastest-growing startups hiring now.
🚀 Erika Mahterian, Forbes 30 Under 30 and Co-Founder of Leland, is hiring a Strategy & Ops lead to scale their 1,000+ annual events—driving growth at one of the fastest-growing platforms in career coaching.
📊 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
🧘♀️ Fempower Health just dropped The Health of Women Playbook—a data-packed resource decoding women’s health trends and insights to help founders, operators, and investors build smarter in femtech.
🚀 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