Renata Black, Co-Founder of EBY, joins ChedHER to discuss the story behind this female-lead brand, why they donate a portion of proceeds to the Seven Bar Foundation, and what it's like raising capital as a female founder. 

Renata Black, Co-Founder of EBY, joins ChedHER to discuss the story behind this female-lead brand, why they donate a portion of proceeds to the Seven Bar Foundation, and what it's like raising capital as a female founder.&nbsp;

chedHER

How This Female-Lead, Hispanic-Founded Intimates Brand is Shaking Up The Industry

and joining us now is Renata Black, co founder of Abby Renata. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to talk to you about this. What's the background story of Abby? Hi, thank you so much for having me. So yeah. Um maybe is a solution based women's intimate apparel company. And it all started when I was volunteering in India and a woman asked me if I could teach her how to how to, you know, make money. I was like, I have no idea. Anyways fast forward. I got into microfinance and I had a group of 800 women in India and while I was living in India women, what would say to me, oh, it must be horrible living in the States, you have to show your cleavage and your legs to get a man. And I was like, that's crazy, that's just not how it is. Um fast forward. I moved back to the States and I realized I said, wow, maybe she's right. Maybe we do use seduction to objectify women and what if we could use seduction to empower women. And that really set me on this on this trajectory where later on the writer Deepak chopper wrote a chapter about me in one of his books called The Soul of Leadership. And when he read, when he wrote that book about me, the former Ceo victoria's secret read this chapter and um she actually connected with me and became my mentor and help me on this path of using intimacy, which is now a B which stands for empowered by you and directing a portion of those proceeds to empower women out of poverty into business? We're not out, don't know where to begin. There's so much in this backstory, empowering on so many levels. And I do want to circle back to the victoria's secret story in a minute. But first let's talk about Abby's profits, striving profits with a purpose by donating a portion of its proceeds to the Seven Bar Foundation. What can you tell us about that foundation? Yeah, So basically, you know, poverty is away, there's different ways of skinning that cat, but the most transformative way to have an impact is to enable women to start her own business. And microfinance is the strongest poverty alleviation tool today. So when you put money in the hands of women, the first thing they do is they send their kids to school and it cuts the cycle of poverty for their Children. So maybe is a business that feels business. And the Foundation basically finds invests the top microfinance institutions in the world. And the Foundation then deploys the funds that he makes to these women who are these small business owners who, you know, with just alone about 70 or 100 and $50 can start their own little business to come out of poverty, Wow, really incredible mission there. Uh, now you've raised over $13 million Venus Williams is one of them. Can you walk us through your experience raising capital as a female founder? Yeah, it's not, I mean we would need a martini and a lot of hours to go through this process. But if you want me to keep it short, you know, it's interesting because women only get 2% of VC funding and, and, and obviously if you're hispanic women is a little bit more difficult than that. So I'm very fortunate to have my B. C. Which is Azure capital as more investors. Also the former chairman of Ulta Beauty, former CFO of yahoo, former Ceo of the new york Stock Exchange, rosario Dawson just an amazing roster. But what I will say is that, that didn't easy. It's getting a note for breakfast, getting a note for lunch, getting a note for dinner and just getting back up with the same amount of enthusiasm and knowing that you have something very unique in the market that doesn't exist and that you're going to be able to win and you and you do it every single day with the same amount of conviction and ultimately you're able to connect with people to really understand your vision and are and are willing to back you now, the intimate apparel industry is highly competitive. What makes Abby stand out and how are you disrupting this industry? Yeah, it's so interesting. You're actually talking to me right now while I'm in London and I just finished walking the floors. I do a lot of comp shopping and I was walking the floors and Selfridges and harvey nicks and Herod's just kind of seeing what's out there and it's it's a little bit just so depressing how the industry hasn't really evolved. It's all of these underwire torture bras and the reality is that women do not need to sacrifice comfort to get support. And that's the technology that he has is that we have this, we have this flocking technology and this technology, what it does is that it it gives you the support that you need without having an underwire. I mean this bra here is actually one of our best sellers and we can't even keep this thing in stock. And the thing is, you know, women just want to be comfortable, they want to be supported. But when they go shopping for some reason they feel like they need these under wires to get the support. That's not true anymore. We have a technology now that will give you that support without having to sacrifice that comfort. And that's really what separates from the rest. So with the technology, this technology prevents sliding writing and bunching so your underwear actually stay in place and are seamless. So every single one of our products is solving for women's issues. Ultimately, we've just been conditioned to tolerate discomfort. And in 2022 we just don't have to do that anymore. So that's how we're really winning in the industry. Renata, your quote there, we do not need to sacrifice comfort to get support. I feel like that could apply to so much more than just lingerie. You know, unfortunately we are out of time here, but what an inspiring conversation. We can't wait to follow your journey and see, you know, how he performs in the years ahead. That's Ramada Black, co founder of A. B.