Women in decision-making roles positively impact the economy, employment rates, business prosperity and a country’s GDP. So, why is less than 2% of venture capital funding going to female founders, and even less to women of colour?
The official theme for International Women’s Day is ‘Inspire Inclusion’, while UN Women is championing a message of ‘Invest in women: Accelerate progress’ this year. So, we spoke to five women from a range of backgrounds who’ve built businesses against the odds.
Here, the founders explain how they fought to their way to the top and share their goals for transforming the beauty, fashion, food, home and health industries for the better.
“At the table I’m building, everyone’s invited to pull up a chair”
Dr Ateh Jewel, founder of Ateh Jewel Beauty, tells Senior Beauty Writer Florence Reeves-White about her ‘everyone’s invited’ beauty brand, and the challenges she faced securing funding.
Ateh Jewel
When she was 15, Ateh asked a woman at a beauty counter if she could try a pink blusher. The salesperson told her, “black girls don’t suit pink blush” and wiped the table where Ateh had been leaning her arm.
“It really scarred me,” says Ateh, who went on to become a beauty journalist and broadcaster before founding her inclusive beauty brand, Ateh Jewel Beauty. “I’ve been working in the industry for over 23 years, and it’s changed a lot in that time but, when I started my business, I still hadn’t found a foundation that was perfect for me.”
A US survey in 2021 found that the percentage of funding going to black women founders was just 0.34%. And securing investment was an issue Ateh came up against time and time again. Even when she found multiple women willing to fund her business, they struggled to get approval past male-dominated boards.
“I got asked why I wanted to sell makeup in a vast range of shades, because Fenty Beauty was already doing that,” Ateh says. “I can’t imagine them asking a white woman why they wanted to make another skincare brand, just because Estée Lauder was already doing it. It’s as if they think there isn’t enough space in the industry for more than one successful black woman.”
But Ateh persevered, determined to make her vision a reality.
“I found some amazing angel investors who championed me and enabled me to launch my blush,” she says. “But I have 20 foundation shades that I want to launch and I’m still finding it hard to get funding.”
And Ateh’s advice for other women with big ideas for a business of their own?
“Don’t let anyone change your vision or dilute it,” she says. “If you feel there isn’t a space at the table for you, create your own table. At the table I’m trying to build, everyone’s invited to pull up a chair.”
atehjewelbeauty.com
“Funding decision makers are an almost exclusively male club”
Olio co-founder, Tessa Clarke, tells Good Housekeeping’s cookery editor, Emma Franklin, about the app’s mission to end food waste while connecting communities
Tessa Clarke
It was when Tessa Clarke was moving to the UK from Switzerland and the removal team asked her to throw away the family’s uneaten food, that her idea to tackle food waste came to be.
“The farmer’s daughter in me had a pathological hatred of food waste. I was not prepared to throw it the bin,” she says. “I couldn’t believe there wasn’t an app where I could share spare food with someone nearby who could pick it up.”
A third of all the food we produce globally each year gets thrown away – a typical British family throws away £730 of perfectly good food annually. Tessa got together with like-minded university friend Saasha Celestial-One to solve the problem.
“No one likes wasting food, but we’re no longer connected to our communities; we no longer have anyone to give our surplus food to,” says Tessa.
Their food-sharing app, Olio, soon launched in 2015. Olio means “a miscellaneous collection of things” and fittingly, it’s also a traditional Portuguese stew intended to use up ingredients. But one of the greatest challenges was fundraising.
“The odds are very much stacked against you. The problem is the people who decide who to give money to are still part of an almost exclusively male club.
“When we were pitching this neighbour-to-neighbour food sharing app, we would have all these male venture capitalists look at us very blankly – they weren’t connected with the problem, they didn’t understand it. That’s something female founded businesses hear over and over again.”
Eventually, by 2017, the company had raised $2.2 million (approximately £1.7 million) in funding. Since its small beginning, Olio’s growth has been rapid, with 7m Olio-ers across more than 50 countries. Free to download, the app allows people to share anything surplus in their neighbourhoods: from food and clothes to books, electricals and even pet accessories.
olioapp.com
“Female founders challenge corporations to do better”
Our Place co-founder Shiza Shahi tells the GHI’s homes editor, Hannah Mendelsohn, how kitchenware brings people together and the mission behind her brand.
“I’ve always loved bringing people together around food,” says Shiza Shahi, founder of kitchenware brand, Our Place. “Breaking bread together and sharing our stories at the dinner table is at the heart of connection. That’s why I started Our Place. By designing better, healthier, and more beautiful kitchenware products, we’re inspiring more people to cook, host, gather, and connect.”
The brand’s aim was to reduce the use of forever chemicals (PFAS) in cookware. The synthetic chemicals appear in many aspects of modern life (including in some non-stick coatings), and, as with the likes of microplastics, their impact on human health is still being studied.
So, Shiza developed an alternative – a ceramic-based coating called ‘Thermakind’ for the brand’s iconic, multi-tasking ‘Always Pan.’
“I wanted the industry to get on board with making healthier and more sustainable choices,” she says. “That’s why it’s so important to have more female founders. We make products that are better for women, and challenge corporations to do better. The result is more mission-driven business with a kinder impact.”
Now boasting A-list investors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Jay-Z and Will Smith, it’s hard to imagine a world where the stylish Always Pan wasn’t a kitchen counter staple. However, the road to investment didn’t start quite so smoothly.
“We faced a lot of rejection, so we bootstrapped our savings, and worked hard on the first product design, creating the beautiful and innovative Always Pan. From there we were able to build traction and eventually down the road attract incredible investors,” Shiza explains.
Today, Our Place’s repertoire includes a range of pans, accessories, cast iron pots, and even appliances (starting to launch in the UK from later this year).
“Being an entrepreneur will demand everything from you – some days it will feel like climbing Everest in flip-flops!” Shiza says. “Make sure you’re building something you believe in deeply. That passion is your superpower.”
“Women aren’t a marketing campaign, we deserve respect and investment”
By Rotation’s founder, Eshita Kabra-Davies tells Assistant Features Editor Bethan Rose Jenkins about her peer-to-peer fashion sharing app, which counts Dame Helen Mirren’s as a member.
Scrolling wistfully through Instagram, London-based Eshita Kabra-Davies found herself wishing she could borrow the clothes she saw on stylish women for her honeymoon to Rajasthan, India, where she was born. While on her trip, Eshita was staggered by the effects of textile waste she witnessed there, and the idea for By Rotation was born.
Eshita decided to create a clothes sharing platform which could provide affordable access to high fashion pieces, and encourage a more sustainable reuse culture. But, despite having a career in finance, convincing investors to back a female-targeted, female-founded business wasn’t easy.
“I’m a bit of an anomaly, having been able to raise venture capital as a solo woman of colour, immigrant and first-time founder in the UK,” says Eshita. “Decision-makers in venture capital tend to be men in their late 30s to mid 50s. They just don’t understand the value of circular fashion, but will happily spend billions funding start-ups by men who look like them.”
Dame Helen Mirren’s Needle & Thread dress can be rented from £24 on the platform.
Now, By Rotation hosts over 400,000 users in its glossy app community – and even Dame Helen Mirren has become one of the platform’s ‘rotators’. Customers can borrow and rent out designer pieces (worth a combined £50 million+) at a fraction of the retail price, while reducing the need to purchase new items. A win for the wallet, as well as for the planet.
So, what does Eshita believe is the key to seeing more female founders like her succeed in future? “Women deserve respect and equal treatment: we are not a marketing campaign,” she says. “That means less lip service, mentoring programmes and office hours for women, and more dollars directly into women-owned businesses.”
byrotation.com
“With a ‘kick-ass’ attitude, change can happen”
Ruby Raut, founder and CEO of sustainable period pants brand WUKA, speaks to Priyankaa Joshi about tackling the period taboo and becoming a founder.
Ruby Raut clearly recalls her first period and the overwhelming feelings of shame she experienced. In Nepal, where Ruby grew up, the word for period, ‘nachune’ literally translates to ‘untouchable’ and girls are often banished for the duration of their period. Ruby would be sent away to her aunt’s house, but others could be confined to huts or sheds.
“I wasn’t allowed to go out in the sun, look at men or touch plants as it was believed I would kill them. Just because I had my period!” she says. “This taboo doesn’t just exist in Nepal, it happens all over the world.”
Ruby was given rags to use as period products which were bulky, uncomfortable and leaked, although they were reusable. During her Environmental Science degree, Ruby was shocked to learn that over 200,000 tonnes of period products end up in landfill every year.
This prompted Ruby to create a comfortable, eco-friendly alternative. After a long development process, she made 30 pairs of period pants and managed to raise £7,000 on Kickstarter (a crowdfunding platform). In 2017, WUKA (Wake Up Kick Ass), the UK’s first reusable leak-proof underwear brand, was born.
“Just 3% of funded British business are female-founded,” Ruby says. “One key challenge was people suggesting the business would do better in developing countries like India or Africa and failing to acknowledge that period poverty has risen from 12% to 20% in the UK in the last year alone.”
Today, the B Corp-certified business stocks pants, sports shorts and swimsuits made from sustainable cotton, recycled nylon and Tencel. More than 700,000 products have been sold across 46 countries.
“With the right ‘kick-ass’ attitude, passion, perseverance and a collective approach, you can build a successful business that’s profitable and positively impactful too,” says Ruby.