Alexa von Tobel, Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital, and Leoni Runge, Founder of Zaya, join ChedHER to discuss the state of maternal care and support for female founders in venture capital.

chedHER

Supporting Female Founders in VC

joining us now to discuss the state of maternal care and support for female founders and venture capital is Alexa von Tobel the founder and managing partner of inspired capital and Leonie Runge, founder of Zaia Alexa, I wanna start with you if I can for a second, what kind of companies and founders do you look for? So it inspired were an early stage investor uh and we invest in businesses around the country uh and even outside of the country in all categories. So we're generalist fund focused on a plus entrepreneurs trying to build multi billion dollar businesses and Leonie for you. Can you just help a little bit more about SIA Care? Sure. We're on a mission to establish a new standard of maternity care that means from preconception to postpartum, expecting a new parents can go on via care dot com and they will find a network of maternity care specialists that wrap around and complement the O B G Y N care. So from lactation consultants to pelvic floor therapist, postpartum, mental health therapists and acupuncturists and a critical piece of our model is that we make that care affordable. So all of our practitioner services are covered by insurance, Alexa when you look at inspirational cos I'm just curious what was it about SIA that really inspired you And then more broadly, how do we get more funding for female founders and because we know this is a really critical thing. Um great question. So first um Leonie is just a real standout entrepreneur in every way and the problem that we're solving, which is maternity care for for women around the country. It's a massive problem. It never goes away. Uh, if you think about just the opportunity there to bring better care to two moms, it's a permanent problem that exists, anxiety care has a really innovative model for how it will actually bring all of that care to mothers through that process. Um, and then how do we get more capital to women? You know, one of the things I'm really proud of inspired as a generalist fund, we invest in men and women, um, but we happen to have three female partners um, At the top of now are half billion dollar fund and I think that just seeing different investor types out there constantly keeps giving different archetypes and I'm really proud to say uh, that inspired our founders are 40% female, which breaks every single metric out there and I think that really is just because of who is at the top of inspired and I think the fact that um, we look differently, it's probably quite good for the ecosystem And you offer that different perspective that then leads to the change to have a more equitable relationship when it comes to female founders having access to equity and to grow, you know, really smart businesses, which when I think of maternal care, I think of maternal mortality rates in this country and what has happened with that over the last 50 years and the great need that there is for something like this Leonie to that end, what has your journey been like with raising capital as a female founder? So we've been very fortunate at Zion Care to have tremendous interest from, from investors along the journey. The investors we partner with and I would like highlight inspired in this. They, they see the massive opportunity and, and need here to transform the women's health journey. I think less particular to me being a female founder than to the fact that we're in the women's health space. I will say there was the need at times to really educate um, about the needs in, in this space. Um overall, I think there's been a huge increase in, in funding startups in the women's health space. So me and my, my fellow entrepreneurs, I think we feel a lot of momentum behind us at this point, Alexa, just taking a step back for a second, why did you launch kind of inspire, you know, why did it inspire capital kind of launch here? What did you see was missing in the VC space that you were hoping to fill? Great question. So I myself am a former entrepreneur, was part of one company, got acquired by facebook and then I was the sole founder of learned Best that I sold to North Russia Mutual and having been a kid in the new york tech ecosystem for 15 years building businesses. I really wanted to come back and build the fund that I wish existed for me. So our team had inspired has worked together overlapping for 63 years we've built and scaled 10 businesses amongst the founding team. And so we just bring in a very critical operator, I and D. N. A. To everything that we do which has served as well. And so just getting started here, it inspired. I'm curious, wanted to let you go, Leonie, what advice do you have for other female founders out there who are looking to kind of follow you in this journey? I think as a founder you get a ton of advice from all sorts of people and that advice usually comes with a lot of conviction. Um I always recommend listening to these different perspectives, taking all that information in, but when it comes to making a decision, trust your own instincts, your journey as a founder in your company are are unique and so what worked for others might not actually be, be like might not translate for you, So have the confidence to to go your own path, have the conference to go your own path, really appreciate your time and your insight. Ladies Alexa von Tobel, the founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital and Leonie Runge, founder of Zaia