Fundraising Stories with Female Founders

Join Julia Elliott Brown, Founder & CEO of Enter the Arena as she sits down with Nicola Piercy, the Founder of Stripe and Stare, the world's most comfortable knickers sustainably sourced from trees. Nicola shares her life as a serial entrepreneur, from founding Stripe and Stare with co-founder Katie Lopes to getting £3.6million in investment.Whilst gaining angel investment, Nicola experienced a devastating personal loss—her husband's unexpected passing. Despite the immense grief, Nicola persevered, meeting investors and navigating the complexities of running a business. Her journey shows the strength, dedication, and resilience required to overcome adversity in both personal and professional realms.Since then, Stripe and Stare went on to gain their first major venture capital round of £1.8m from the Business Growth Fund as well as a further shareholder and customer “crowdfund”.Tune in to discover the unique journey of Stripe and Stare, the brand's commitment to sustainability, and the remarkable story of Nicola Piercy's triumph over personal tragedy while building a globally recognised and eco-conscious business.How to navigate VC term sheetsWhy you need to do due diligence on investorsHow to not take investor rejection personally

Being new to the world of investment, Lisa mapped out local experts in the North East of England that could fill certain knowledge gaps. It was after discovering who could add value to the business that she “accidentally” found her Angel investors and went on to successfully close her round with £225K of funding.Listen to Lisa’s investment journey to find out what she learned along the way and her tips that might help you with your own fundraising endeavours.In this episode, you’ll discover:The value of having advisors from the startWhy you should think of raising investment as a sales processHow to select the right route to investment 

Like many women starting businesses, the motivation for Rebekah Brown’s entrepreneurship, MPowder, was in response to her own experiences and spotting a gap in the market. She was struggling with a multitude of symptoms during perimenopause and felt there was barely any information on how to deal with it.Since then, Rebekah has listened to the stories of many women to understand midlife better, launching several supplements to help enhance the stages of menopause. Rebekah credits the co-creation community as the driving force behind the success of MPowder. As consumers feedback and share their stories, they help the team understand what they should be thinking about next.So, how hard was it to find investors ready to fund a menopause business? Rebekah reveals all about her experiences as she talks through her fundraising journey with our founder and CEO, Julia Elliott Brown.In this episode, you’ll discover:How accelerators can help you begin conversations with investorsWhy it's normal to feel confused by the investment worldWhy storytelling during pitches is the key to getting investment

Being an entrepreneur is an incredibly turbulent journey. Polly McMaster is the founder of modern luxury workwear brand, The Fold, and she’s been experiencing the highs and lows since 2011. As Polly says in this episode, “that's something you have to have your eyes wide open to, when you go into it”.So how did Polly approach her fundraising strategy and stay sane throughout the process? All is revealed as she talks to our founder and CEO Julia Elliott Brown about her experiences.In this episode, you’ll discover:Why a simple approach to raising investment is key How to deal with the immense stress of fundraising Understanding when you just need to get the deal over the line

Biscuit Tin won the COVID response competition from Innovate UK, being one of 800 out of thousands of applications which gave the business runway through the pandemic. With no marketing budget, Sheila used partnerships to get the business to market and has been on Dragon’s Den which has certainly helped with PR and awareness. She used the media opportunity to cleverly run the true investment campaign in parallel and raised from a mix of angels and VCs.Since then, Sheila’s been on a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, with a large US investor pulling out at the last minute, the UK economy crash and then, an all-consuming crowdfund for £150K. Sheila is still on the fundraising journey, looking for further investment to propel Biscuit Tin forward.How to keep moving forward when it’s tough raising investmentHow to get the most from PR opportunities when fundraisingWhy too many voices can hinder your funding journey

No investors wanted to “touch the business with a barge pole” fourteen years ago, when the company was started by Cindy, due to fear of being associated with SexTech. However, Cindy saw an opportunity in the market. She feels sex is essentially a recession-proof industry and the niche of “socially acceptable” sex, which normalises it and allows people to publicly share sex and advocate for this is needed in society.Cindy managed to get one private angel investor to invest $3 million. Things are slightly better now than 14 years ago thankfully, but there have still been many challenges due to restrictions around marketing and other elements. The longer-term goal for the business is to create “sex education” content in collaboration with experts through the platform. She’s currently raising investment to achieve this ambition.In this episode, you’ll discover:How to be resilient when raising investmentWhy you need to market yourself and your brand constantly to raise successfullyWhy the investors who get it, will champion you in every way! 

Katy secured a pre-seed funding round from several angel investors. She remembers hearing from multiple people “That's not possible" and is really glad she didn't listen to that advice and instead pushed to get on board the right angel partners that fully believed in the vision.The relationships Katy has built have been fundamental to the success of the business - with the next round of investment of £2 million propelling them to new heights alongside stock financing of £1 million. While stock finance is not for everyone, Katy’s deal structure has been a perfect marrying of both funding types that has allowed Luna Daily to scale quicker.In this episode, you’ll discover:How to build your dream teamStart with your brand positioningWhy you need to stay nimble in your fundraise

As digital nomads, Vivi and her co-founder had the ambitious goal of building a global empire. With Vivi being from an investment banking background, she had some financial skills, but starting a business was a whole new challenge. It’s why being humble is core to the culture of the business now, and not knowing everything is okay.The co-founders started with £60K to bootstrap their company which allowed them to launch a website, start marketing and recruit internal developers. Then they secured £300K through family and friends. AltoVita went on to raise £1.6m from angel investors globally. Key to their success were a few highly engaged ‘anchor’ investors who really resonated with the product. Vivi confirms herd mentality is not just a myth.Most recently was their Series A round. During the process, they walked away from some of the term sheets they were given by investors which was a difficult decision. When starting up a company, Vivi thinks you should truly consider investment market fit - not just product market fit.

Lucy started raising for Loanhood by building a rewards-based Crowdfunder and receiving a grant from NatWest. This helped establish the brand’s community and opened their eyes to the crowdfunding ecosystem. After some questionable advice, they tried to raise £400,000 from VCs who, from the get-go, said, "No, you're not ready for this. You haven't got any traction”. The founders also wanted to crowdfund via Seedrs as the business has a a major community aspect, so it made sense to go this route. They got commitment and went live in a way that felt poorly timed before several investors pulled out, and they decided to close the round when it didn’t exactly work out. Lucy believes you must be honest with yourself in this situation – there’s no shame in backing away and refocusing when the time is right. Thankfully, talking to other founders was invaluable and helped Lucy, and the team figure out the next steps - reaching out to Angel investors. After many LinkedIn messages, their lead investor reached out to them, which was a game changer, and the domino effect began.In this episode you’ll discover:Why rewards-based crowdfunding won’t work for everyoneHow important advice from the right people isWhy there’s no shame in failing a funding round and starting over

Stamena’s co-founder is her daughter, which occasionally means sparks with their differing yet complementary approaches to business. The first thing they did was research the market, to validate their idea and strengthen the vision. Then they found a shop to rent and purchased stock but just before the agreement signing, the owner pulled out. At this point, they were bootstrapping and got a small startup loan from the British Business Bank. As many founders do, Stamena underestimated how much capital they were actually going to need in the very beginning. So they crowdfunded and owe much of their success to showing their loyal community a burning passion for the business.Looking back, Stamena believes she made a mistake in not enlisting experts to help with the marketing of the crowdfund. As a new business owner, spending money can feel like a luxury. Changing your mindset to think big and getting professional support to help with your fundraise is Stamena’s top piece of advice to budding entrepreneurs.How to use  your passion to win investors overHow to remove a ‘fearful’ mindset Why you should never neglect your health and wellbeing during a fundraise