Recent studies show that women-founded startups are the horse VCs should be betting on. For every dollar of funding, these startups generated 78 cents, whereas male-founded startups generated only 31 cents. Yet, funding opportunities for female founders are scarce, and even with increased initiatives to build awareness and close the funding gap, women are still being denied equitable access to capital when starting their own companies.
How do we fix this? Creating initiatives like the Salesforce Women Founders Group are important first steps, but we need scalable strategies for change. We were joined by three investment professionals for a dynamic discussion on how we can look upstream and discover more potential for impact.
Our Panel of Experts:
✔ Joelle Kayden, Founder and Managing Member of Accolade Partners
✔ Sherrick Murdoff, VP of Partner Investments at Salesforce
✔ Jordan Richards, Managing Partner of Sverica Capital Management
✔ Enki Toto, Salesforce Ventures Impact Investing
Tips from Today:
- Look for the right investors and do your research to make sure they are the right investor for your company.
- Find an executive sponsor that is aligned to your industry to help you identify if your product has the strategic fit.
- Find investors with similar values as your company.
- Find alignment on joint customers with investors, so there is an opportunity to go to market together.
- Think about how willing you are to manage venture requirements if you accept funding.
- Match your business stage with the right type of investment so you can access the capital you need to move forward.
- Take investments from people that are going to help you along the way.
- The time is NOW! Investors are looking for diverse entrepreneurs to invest in.
Watch the full webinar recording to learn more best practices and recommendations for diverse founded companies seeking investment and how to get noticed.
About Coastal Cloud
Coastal Cloud is a Salesforce Platinum consulting partner based in Palm Coast, Florida. Through its unique consulting business model, the Company provides implementations and managed services to assist clients in migrating to next-generation systems. Coastal Cloud, one of the fastest companies to achieve Platinum status with Salesforce, was named to Inc.’s Best Workplaces in 2020, including making the Editor’s Top 10 List. For more information, please visit www.CoastalCloud.us.
About Sverica Capital Management
Sverica Capital Management is a leading growth-oriented private equity firm that has raised over $1.1 billion across five funds. The firm acquires, invests in, and actively builds companies that are, or could become, leaders in their industries. Since its inception, Sverica has followed a “business builder” approach to investing and takes an active supporting role in its portfolio companies. Sverica devotes significant internal time and resources to help its management teams develop and execute growth strategies and proactively looks for levers to pull to accelerate growth by reinvesting back into those companies. Sverica firmly believes in building businesses collaboratively that can endure for the long term by starting with a strong foundation and bringing the right people and playbook to drive reinvestment and ultimately strong returns for our investors. For more information, please visit www.sverica.com.
About Salesforce Ventures
Salesforce is the global leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), bringing companies closer to their customers in the digital age. Salesforce Ventures, the global investment arm of Salesforce, invests in the next generation of enterprise technology that extends the power of the Salesforce Platform. Salesforce Ventures is building the world’s largest ecosystem of enterprise cloud companies and extending that technology to customers. Portfolio companies receive funding, strategic advisory, and operating support, and can easily join Pledge 1% to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce Ventures has invested in more than 375 companies, including DocuSign, GoCardless, Guild Education, nCino, Twilio, Zoom and others across 22 countries since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures.
