Women’s History Month Is Ending—But We’re Just Getting Started
Alani Nutrition’s $1.8B CELSIUS acquisition, Whitney Wolfe Herd returns as Bumble CEO, 6 Femtech startups take their censorship case to the EU, plus summer opportunities below.
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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After a 3-week hiatus (and 113 pages later—hello, senior thesis!), we’re back in action and better than ever. My thesis fully took over my life—days blurred into nights, and my Google Doc became my home—but it’s finally submitted, and I couldn't be more excited to shift back into builder mode.
Here’s a TLDR of what my team and I have been up to behind the scenes:
We hosted a Women’s History Month dinner for Harvard students, founders, and investors.
WWV Labs matched two bada$$ engineers with an impact assessment startup.
I co-organized a Women in AI Hackathon with C10Labs + Springboard Enterprises at Amazon’s office.
I was named to the Her Campus Media 22 Under 22 list (!!).
And… the Female Founder Circle is almost here. After months of planning, we’re welcoming 40 of the top female student founders from across the country—from Harvard to Stanford—for a full day of connection, programming, and power.
We’re keeping the momentum going—because every month is Women’s History Month around here!!
Kelsie Zhao (San Francisco, CA) – Co-founder of Causal Labs, an AI startup reimagining weather prediction with physics-based models, raised $6M in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures.
Katy Schneider – Co-founder of Alani Nutrition, a female-focused wellness brand, led the company to a $1.8B acquisition by CELSIUS to expand its reach in the functional beverage market.
Patty Pytlik (Boston, MA) – Founder of SMILI, a digital platform supporting children's emotional resilience through personalized stories and caregiver tools, secured $11K in funding after winning the Babson Acceleration Club Pitch Competition.
Ashia Lewis-Livaudais (Austin, TX) – Co-founder of SymbyAI, an AI-powered platform streamlining scientific research and peer review, raised $2.1M in seed funding from Drive Capital, Character VC, and Antler.
Katrina Van Gasse (Denver, CO) – Co-founder of AidKit, a cloud-based platform streamlining aid distribution for governments and nonprofits, secured $8.5M in Series A funding led by Blueprint Equity.
Shelly Sun Berkowitz (Chicago, IL) – Founder of BrightStar Care, a nationwide at-home senior care network, led the company through its acquisition by Peak Rock Capital while launching BrightStar Care Homes to redefine long-term care.
Anna Patterson (San Francisco, CA) – Co-founder of Ceramic.ai, a platform accelerating enterprise AI training with 100x efficiency, secured $12M in seed funding from NEA, IBM, Samsung Next, and Earthshot Ventures.
Elena Churilova and Lina Saleh (London, UK) – Co-founders of Cino, a real-time shared payment app eliminating IOUs and Venmo requests, raised $3.7M in seed funding led by Balderton Capital.
Brianna Clark (Nashville, TN) – Co-founder of Unvale, a platform empowering long-form storytellers to grow and publish their work, secured $1.8M in pre-seed funding from Antler, Graham & Walker, Ganas Ventures, and others.
Heather Terry (Greenwich, CT) – Founder of GoodSAM, PBC, a B-Corp food brand supporting smallholder and Indigenous farmers through regenerative agriculture, raised $9M in Series A funding led by ALIVE Ventures and Desert Bloom.
Aya Kantorovich (New York, NY) – Co-founder of August Digital, a prime brokerage platform simplifying institutional access to DeFi, raised $10M in Series A funding led by Dragonfly Ventures.
April 3 | 👩💻 Women & Nonbinary Founders' Demo Day – Startup Innovation & Networking (SF)
April 5 | 👩💻 She's in Tech Social no. 2 (Washington D.C.)
April 6 | 🌎 Women in Cleantech: Hike and Network (LA)
April 9 | 🍽️ LA Female Founders Lunch (LA)
April 9 | 🔗 Miami Women in Web3 & Tech | Networking Mixer | Miami Tech Week (Miami)
April 11 | 🎬 Show Her the Money Screening & Panel (Boston)
April 17 | 👩⚕️ Navigating AI in Women's Healthcare: Insights from VC & Founders (NYC)
April 18 | 🤝 Austin Female Founders & Friends (Austin)
April 23 | 💰 Fintech Is Femme Leadership Summit (NYC)
April 23 | 🌎 Female Founders & Funders Gathering @ SF Climate Week (SF)
April 25 | 🚀 Go-To-Market in the Age of AI: Fireside Chat with Katy Nelson, Partner at a16z (Boston)
April 26 | 🔗 HBC25: Blockchain in Action (Boston)
Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship?
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Whitney Wolfe Herd is officially back as Bumble’s CEO with a bold new mission: transform the $4.29 dating app into a self-love platform—and this time, she’s leading without fear, ego, or apology.
According to Victoria Tollossa, in today’s attention economy, 92% of people trust individuals over brands—meaning if you’re not actively building your personal brand, you're already falling behind.
Women-led health brands are calling out a double standard after a 2023 study revealed 36% of women’s health ads were rejected by Meta—compared to just 5% for men’s, highlighting the urgent need to end algorithmic censorship of women’s health content.
Six Femtech startups—including Béa Fertility, HANX, and Daye—have filed formal complaints with the European Commission after revealing that women’s health content is up to 7x more likely to be censored than men’s, demanding transparency and equity in digital health access.
Sallie Krawcheck—former Wall Street exec turned founder of Ellevest—steps down as CEO after scaling the women-focused investing platform to $2.4B in assets, proving once and for all: nothing bad happens when women have more money.
Michelle Naa Odarley Lawson built Future U, an AI-powered career strategy app using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)—and she’s giving the first 1,500 users free access.
At just 19, Eve Idusuyi—founder of fintech startup CreditCliq and three-time community builder—was named to the Her Campus x E.L.F. Beauty 22 Under 22 list, spotlighting young women making real impact across finance, tech, and education.
After serving as CTO of OpenAI, Mira Murati is back—launching Thinking Machine Labs, a $9B AI challenger that’s already raised $100M and recruited 30+ top researchers to build the future of human-AI collaboration.
The Spice Girls built an $800M brand empire in just 4 years—selling 37M+ albums, 11M dolls, and turning a $6M movie into $151M—all while redefining what women-led global marketing could look like.
Women now make up 46% of senior VC associates, but only 19% at the Managing General Partner level—so Chai Ventures and Project W are teaming up with Carta, Diversity VC, and NextGen Partners to change that, starting with a power breakfast focused on real talk and rising to the top.
Name: Zahava Weissbuch
School: NYU Graduate School of Public Health
Major: Social Behavioral Sciences
Startup: Minx
Sector: Health Tech
Description of Startup: Minx is a curated platform designed to empower young women ages 18-28 with resources on sexual health, confidence, and self-discovery. Offering expert insights and tools, Minx fosters a safe, supportive space to explore relationships and personal growth with clarity and confidence.
Biggest Startup Achievement: Minx was accepted into NYU’s Startup Accelerator and we received our first grant.
Biggest Startup Learning Moment: We decided to pivot from our first iteration of sex workers for one of our experts for now, we realize it would be very difficult regarding regulations.
Advice for Female Students Interested in Entrepreneurship: Start with a clear vision and stay resilient. Seek mentors, embrace learning from setbacks, and network with others in your field. Focus on solving real problems, trust your instincts, and don’t fear taking risks. Remember: persistence and adaptability are key to turning ideas into impactful ventures.
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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!
🗽Hatch House, a new NYC-based hacker house launching in June 2025, is now accepting applications for its first cohort of founders—with a 50/50 gender split and an April 7 deadline to apply.
👩💼 Foundess is hiring a part-time Community Lead to help run retreats, hacker houses, and high-impact founder events—ideal for someone NYC- or SF-based with a strong startup network; applications are open now.
🚀 EMD Serono and M Ventures are inviting startups tackling infertility, PCOS, endometriosis, and more to apply for their exclusive corporate accelerator—with private pitch sessions, investor access, and partnership opportunities up for grabs; deadline is April 17.
👩💻 Fintech female founder Shivangi Khanna (Harvard MBA) is hiring a founding engineer to help build an AI-powered small business lending platform.
👩💻 MetaProp is hiring a full-time, paid summer intern ($15–$20/hr) in NYC to support marketing, events, and portfolio ops across its 150+ startup investments—applications are open until April 15.
🚀 The Sengo Sprint Grant is awarding $3,000 cash grants to five women-led startups—no pitch deck, no equity, no strings attached; applications are open now for Sengo subscribers.
👩💻 Voya Technologies, a female founded startup is hiring 3 remote contractors—including a Social Media Manager, Brand + PR Manager, and Aesthetic Advisor—with roles paying up to $2,000/month; applications close April 29.
👩💻 Want to be first in line for top roles? Use this LinkedIn URL hack to filter jobs posted in the past hour—plus, grab a free autofill tool to speed through applications (Workday included).
📊 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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Love,
Daniela