Table of Contents

• What I’ve been up to…

• Hot Deals🔥

• 🙌 Portfolio Company High Fives

• 📰 News and Food for Thought

• 🌈 Founder’s Corner

• 🍰Shop Women-Founded Brands/Current Obsessions

• 🍦Other Things No One Asked For

What I’ve been up to…

We out there…

It has been a sprint into summer!

Happily, we just closed the our SPV for Hey Jane which included 43 investors. I am so proud of this one and to back a renegade like Kiki Freedman. Teamwork really made the dream work, co-leading with Annie Evans, Frida Polli, Kara Dennis, Christina Tadin and Helen Weston to produce some great investor events in NYC and LA.

Also closed this month: a Series A extension SPV for Another Tomorrow! This makes the third time I invested in Another Tomorrow- I am extremely bullish on the future of sustainability in fashion and consumer demand supporting it (especially with with Vanessa at the helm)

If you are dying to hear about my media diet- GREAT NEWS- you can read all about it in my feature in Monday Media Diet (thanks to my buddy Colin Nagy intro’d by my other buddies over at Daly. ). By the way- Why is This Interesting is a fav newsletter. I pay for 10ish subscriptions, re-eevaluate frequently, and this one has made and remade the cut.

Last week, my very funny friend Jenny Mollen Biggs had me on her podcast All the Fails. Admission: I didn’t sleep for days before this came out. It was a tiptoe into the most vulnerable parts of my story and miles outside of my comfort zone…but I have gotten so many loving messages from friends and strangers afterwards, many sharing their own stories of struggle and transformation and fake-till-makes (and many requests for my therapist’s info).

We are three weeks into the 11th cohort of the Dream Ventures Accelerator.Annie and I love how each one of these cohorts have their own personalities and sense of cohesion and am really enjoying this group (check out the founders here)!

I’m curious- do you get to slow down this summer? I try to use summer as an building time- doing less “productive work” (deal sourcing, diligence, meetings, emails, emails, emails ) and invest time into projects I have been putting off, building better systems, and goal planning.

P.S. and an ask: I am going to Japan in a few weeks with the fam, your top recommendations are welcome!

Hot Deals🔥

Fun fact that I can’t stop repeating: if 30% of accredited women invested just $10,000 into a woman founded company, we can move over $10 billion. LFG….

Diem

Diem is building a social search engine, powered by community conversations & Diem AI—inspired by the way women search. Think: Perplexity AI meets Reddit (but for female-centric content!) Our vision is to build a community layer to discovery on the internet. Diem had a crazy start to 2024 with avg. 104% MoM growth in Q1 and increasing engagement (41% WAU/MAU) & retention (45% D30) in the app. Our $2.5M round is being led by Stellation, with participation from new funds like Precursor, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels & Otherwise Fund, as well as existing investors including Acrew. More details in our deck, here.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Growth: community has grown by 104% MoM through Q1 (in April, 37% of people who viewed a 'Diem' clicked to share it).

• Engagement: Avg. time in app = 14.5mins+ daily (53 mins for responders), WAU/MAU = 41%+

• Revenue: $80k ARR contracted for B2B pilot partner program (on track to hit $525K ARR by early Q3).

• Marketing: audience of over 130K and we have established repeatable growth tactics that convert our audience with $0 ad spend.

• Press: Business insider (Top Social App of 2023) and TechCrunch

• Research: we released our first State of Search report on how women & girls are searching the internet.

• Request Deal access here (open SPV on Play Money with a min investment of $500)

• Or Reach out for more info.

  DIEM

  

Thimble

For the needle-phobes! THIMBLE is the first easy, safe, and affordable solution for alleviating needle pain and anxiety. Thimble is the first and only comprehensive platform addressing both the physical and psychological effects of needle procedures with its patent-pending Prepare (pre-injection patch) and Recover (post-injection patch) and research-backed app

HIGHLIGHTS

• 257 million people in the U.S. experience needle fear and anxiety. That same fear stops millions from participating in other forms of essential care, including vaccinations, diagnostic tests, blood donation, and life-saving treatments.

• Distributed by ITL Biomedical, a leading global provider of medical devices & systems

• Thimble is in partnership discussions with a multi-billion dollar multinational medical technology company as well as other multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies.

• Invented, co-founded, and led by Manju Dawkins, MD, a board-certified dermatologist, Thimble has been awarded the Grand Prize at the 2023 American Academy of Pain Medicine Innovation Challenge and the 2024 Innovation Award by the Skin of Color Society.

• Reach out for more info.

  

  Thimble Patch making shots less ouchy

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🙌Portfolio Company High Fives

📰News and Food for Thought

M&A /Venture News

The parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue has agreed to acquire Neiman Marcus in a $2.65 billion deal, creating the ultimate high-end department store behemoth. The acquisition of Neiman Marcus makes Saks Global, as the new group will be called, the dominant player in its market, with a combined 75 stores (including two Bergdorf Goodman locations), as well as 100 off-price outlets.

Subsequently to the above, will Barney’s make a comeback?

BeReal is being acquired by mobile apps and games company Voodoo for €500M.

Naomi Watts’s menopause brand Stripes Beauty acquired by L Catterton.

Who is going to buy all these make-up brands? Kosas, Rare, Makeup by Mario, Westman Atelier, and Summer Fridays are all exploring exits

Patrick Starrr’s One/Size and IGK Hair Explore Exit Options 2024 revenues are projected to reach $115 million for One/Size and $80 million for IGK (Side note: Aaron Grenia -the G in IGK- was my first hairstylist when I moved to New York, and he has always been the coolest and most talented dude. I hope they crush.)

Melinda French Gates on why she is investing in women and girls “Decades of research on economics, well-being and governance make it clear that investing in women and girls benefits everyone. We know that economies with women’s full participation have more room to grow. That women’s political participation is associated with decreased corruption.”

Shiseido Said Eying OSEA as Skin Care Brand Explores Deal Options

News / Reads

SHEIN emits more pollution than the country of Paraguay

Gen Alpha’s ‘Sephora kids’ trend has reached a fever pitch, forcing summer camps to ban skin care items

L.A.’s ‘Soho House for Dogs’ Lets You and Your Pup Socialize in Luxury: Are we at peak pet yet?

171,000 Traveled for Abortions Last Year. See Where They Went.

Loved this newsletter on why abortion is essential healthcare.

Hedi Slimane Is Expanding CELINE's Bath and Body Line and launching a dedicated Pilates collection including a very fancy reformer in wood and canvas.

Bumble buys community building app Geneva to expand further into friendships.

This McKinsey Podcast “What’s new in consumer wellness trends?” had some juicy bits. I found this interesting “… back in 2020….’clean and natural’ was actually beating out clinically backed products in many subcategories. In supplements globally, for example, consumers were more likely to say they’d prioritize clean and natural over clinical effectiveness, if they were forced to choose between the two. What we’ve been surprised by in more recent years is that the pendulum has really swung in the other direction. The more recent research we saw is moving toward clinical effectiveness and science backing being the most important priorities that consumers have.”

The 10 Forces Shaping Commerce from Rex Woodbury. I forgot to mention this one in my media diet but it’s so good. Highlights:

• Novo Nordisk, the Danish drugmaker behind Ozempic and Wegovy, sits at a $450B market cap (bigger than LVMH’s and now Europe’s most valuable company)

• ….a McKinsey survey shows that physician recommendations are the third-leading driver of purchase decisions (!)

• Retailers are responsible for about 25% of global carbon emissions. Scientists estimate that, globally, 35% of the microplastics found in oceans can be traced to textiles. 95.2% of SHEIN clothing contains new microplastics. The good news is that, 1) consumers are waking up to the problem, and 2) they’re pressuring brands to clean up their acts.

• In the future, we’ll be surprised that we ever searched with exact words (2024 search: “dark blue jeans” “black crop top” “gold necklace”. 2025 search: “going out outfit”)

To that last point….Daydream Secures $50 Million In Seed Funding to Launch New AI-Powered Search and Discovery Shopping Platform

E.L.F’s So Many Dicks campaign 🏆

If you haven’t been following the Mixoloshe’s viral rebrand and long-form marketing stunt…it is a fabulous case study in storytelling. But I dread the copycat’s that will stem from it…

Kerrygold Butter Packaging is toxic 😭 but this butter is having fun

Also, our tampons are full of heavy metals. Sigh. More to come on this…

From Goldman Sachs: Gen AI: too much spend, too little benefit?

🌈Founder’s Corner

From XRC: Deep Dive on Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements (VMS) market. Key Takeaways:📊 VMS sales stabilized post-pandemic with significant growth projected for the remainder of 2024 , 🚀 High-potential areas: weight loss, hormonal health, and innovative forms of VMS , 🔍 Differentiation is crucial in this crowded market

Why Influencers Want You in Their Group Chats Influencers are using Instagram broadcast channels as a place to reward engage their most loyal followers with behind the scenes content (I love this engagement strategy for brands as well)

GWI Social Media Report 2024 (tidbit: Boomers are are rapidly growing consumer of influencer content!)

Yes, there are a lot of VCs OOO, but Carta says summer fundraising is still a go..

Grants/Accelerators:

Two beauty accelerators open for applications: Rare Beauty Lift accelerator (deadline July 18) and MaesaMagic Incubator Campaign

Bold Beginnings Grant (women entrepreneurs under 30) for $25,000

Hello Skip Best Grants for Small Businesses in 2024

HAYVN HATCH Pitch Competition

Book Club

This month I read Buy Back Your Time, (highly useful) Miranda July’s All Fours, (discussed in every group chat I am on) and Brat (messy and I like it).

🍰Shop Women-Founded Brands/Current Obsessions

Elemind: I haven’t tried this yet, but met the founder recently, and am blown away by this tech. Elemind is the first neurotech headband clinically shown to help people fall asleep significantly faster, and restart sleep fast if they wake up. They raised a bundle by the likes of Bezos, Gates and the Family Fund- I can’t wait to see if this works…

Vyrao Sun Rae is the scent of the summer

Not surprisingly loving this oil infused body wash from Saltair called Golden Hour.

I thought I hated rum until I tried Coconut Cartel

🍦Other Things No One Asked For

Happy Prime Day to all who celebrate

Kristen, founder of Heartbeat, is giving me so many chuckles with this brand content (also the spicy rosé really is great).

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