Table of Contents

• What I’ve Been Doing…

• 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 Doing…

Life hack: Let me go ahead and start by adding some value. WhisperFlow Is letting me dictate my emails, text messages, and writing, and it's changed my life. It's also made me excruciatingly annoying co-work buddy. If you think & talk 40 times faster than you type, then it will change yours too. Linked here.

Survey results are in and they are fascinating! As a reminder, we conducted a little survey to back up our thesis with input from you and here are some interesting highlights extracted from the data:

• The categories those polled are MOST excited to invest in are

  • Women’s Health

  • AI enabled commerce and AI enabled…anything

  • Wellness and Longevity

• 88% (!) are interested in investing in a VC fund at a smaller than typical check size, which invests across portfolio companies

• There is a big demand for angel investing education

• Over half polled have not made an angel investment yet, with the primary reasons being

  • 1- lack of education around investing

  • 2- liquidity (heard)

  • 3- check size required is prohibitive

This project was EYE-OPENING and is informing lots of decisions in 2025. Big thanks to Rachel Gordon for masterminding this data project and to Annie Evans for spreading it far and wide- thanks to all who took part in it. Extra thanks to the brands who kicked in swag for the coolest gift bag EVER.

Winter cohort of The Dream Ventures Accelerator is underway. Early-stage investors—email me if you would like an invite to our April 16 celebration.

Recent Travel: I finally went to Mexico City with pal Desiree Almodovar for Art Week, and I get what all the fuss is about. I also went to my first Sundance thanks to the coaxing of Alex Johnson at Velvet AI and had a blast (and a $30 cup of coffee).

I tagged along with Annie to co-hosted investor events in SF and NYC for portfolio company Bloomi, founded by sexologist Rebecca Alvarez Story. I love when we get to mix investing and sex talk - it's my favorite (more info on Bloomi below)

Upcoming! I will be at SXSW March 9-13; send me any can't miss events. As always, I’ll be reference checking Andrew Yeung's event list to see what's what.

Will you be there? I’ll be on the hot seat at this event March 11- come say hi or grill me!

Also- really excited about the Women & Wealth Catalyst Summit on March 27 in San Francisco 👉 apply now to Reserve Your Spot and Use code GOLD25 for 25% off (any brands that are interested in putting your product into the hands of highly engaged influential women, please fill out this form)

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….

Bloomi

Bloomi is a sexologist-led intimacy company creating clean intimacy products and inclusive content, redefining how people experience pleasure and connection. We’re at a pivotal moment, building a category-defining brand, securing national retail partnerships, and scaling rapidly.

HIGHLIGHTS

• $5M in revenue since collection launch (March 2022)

• Founder-market fit – Led by an award-winning intimacy expert (UC Berkeley grad, MA Sexology, Stanford LBAN Scaling Program, Tuck Scaling Diverse Business Program)

• Proven market demand – Strong omnichannel growth via DTC, Amazon, Target, CVS and boutique shops

• Science-led innovation – FDA-cleared, plant-based, expert-developed products meeting real consumer needs

• Founder-led SPV is available for angels (click here) OR

• Reach out for more info on Bloomi/ join a virtual investor session March 6

AMPD

ampd is a tech platform that provides fully recoupable marketing budgets to artists and labels, executing their spend on initiatives that propel algorithmic streams and break through the noise in a world where 120K tracks are uploaded to streaming platforms daily.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Founder has 15+ years in the music industry across finance, marketing, and analytics (via Citi, Sony Music, Spotify and Royal)

• Currently- 90% of artist marketing campaign productions produce no ROI

• ampd is on a mission to empower a $12BN independent artist sector by unlocking marketing ROI in a $0.004-per-stream industry, using deep-data to replace vanity-metrics

• Recently completed a self-funded 15 artists pilot including DJ Khaled, Wiz Khalifa and Sam Feldt. Please see here most recent case studies showing 175-300% ROI on marketing spend in less than 4 months.

• Reach out for more info on ampd

ALICE MUSHROOMS

alice is a rapidly-growing functional mushroom chocolate supplement brand with products for sleep, energy, and sexual wellness. Their decadent chocolates combine the long-term benefits of mushrooms with the immediate effects of nootropics to create a supplement with instant effects that also improves overall health. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• In less than 2 years, the brand has been featured in The New York Times, The Cut, Bon Appetit, goop, + Forbes.

• The brand has become a top seller at Erewhon, Pop-Up Grocer, and over 700 independent retailers—and most recently, it launched in all Sprouts locations, outperforming top competitors with twice the number of SKUs.

• Current investors include L Catterton (who led the seed) Kevin Hart, Zac Efron, Pedro Pascal, and Dr. Jennifer Ashton

• Series A closing soon- led by Freedom Trail Capital- with a small percentage available left for aligned angels

• Please reach out ASAP with interest in Alice- I would love to get allocation for my network in this one :)

🙌Portfolio Company High Fives

📰News and Food for Thought

M&A /Venture News

Female founders just took in their smallest share of VC deals in five years. Sigh…but I am not dwelling because data is still showing that female-led firms outperform rivals -and hey!- Ulu Ventures Raises $208 Million for Fourth Fund.

Meh And Awkward: Beauty M&A In 2024 In 2024, beauty M&A started strong with major like Dr. Barbara Sturm and Honey Pot but slowed mid-year due to economic challenges and inflation. Looking ahead, investors are prioritizing profitability and operational efficiency, with strong interest in fragrance, biotech, and female health brands.

Cosmetics retailer Mecca considers $2 billion exit The Aussie company is privately owned by its founder, Jo Horgan, and her husband, Peter Wetenhall

Fara Homidi Beauty Secures Sandbridge Capital Funding The cool-girl brand lined up investment from the private equity firm known for securing exits for former investments Thom Browne, Ilia Beauty and Youth to the People.

Wonder bread owner buys Simple Mills for $795M That's a giant number and I don't know how to feel about Wonder Bread buying better-for-you brands so prayers up for all of you almond flour lovers.

New Growth Investment Pushes Whatnot to $5 Billion Valuation The platform enables real-time transactions via live video streams across various categories, including trading cards, comic books, women's fashion, and electronics. In 2024, its annual gross merchandise value for livestream sales surpassed $3 billion .

Vera Wang Sells IP to WHP Global - a management group with a portfolio including Rag & Bone and G-Star. Wang will continue as founder and chief creative officer, and will join WHP as a shareholder, aiming to expand the brand into new categories and markets.

L’Oréal Enters Long-Term Beauty Deal with Jacquemus. Seems like Big Beauty is keen to lean into luxury portfolio by tapping into the cool, digitally-savvy brands- while allowing Jacquemus to enter the beauty market with expertise behind them.

L’Exception Sold to Asset Management Firm AA Investments French luxury retailer L'Exception was acquired by AA Investments, a private equity firm aiming to expand its presence in the European fashion market (and seeming to focus on distressed deals- see their 2024 purchase of Rose Inc, a beauty brand co-founded by supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Amyris, for $2.5 million)

Mackenzie Scott leans into impact investing in a shift from pure philanthropy to impact investing in for-profit companies. More of this please; blending social impact with financial returns!

Almost Half of VC Funding Raised Last Year Went to Startups in One Category. Yeah, it’s AI, receiving a record-high $97 billion in funding last year.

On that note, Forerunner announces a $500 million early stage Fund VII: Human Insight in the Age of AI and Perplexity is raising a $50 million fund pre-seed/seed fund

And still on that note: AI Connector Bot Boardy Closed an $8M seed round ON HIS OWN! “Most of the investors in the round never spoke with a human.” WILD - AND- I highly recommend you call and chat with Boardy - even if just for a goof. I'm kind of blown away…

News / Reads

The Great Green Retreat: How Short-Term Politics Is Derailing Corporate Climate Strategy "The Net Zero Banking Alliance went from universal participation and CEO photo ops to complete dissolution in a matter of months," Egan notes. "That's how quickly things can unravel."

Consumer is Back – And Why It’s Been So Hard Since 2014 … AI is the catalyst. After a decade-long lull, we’re seeing a new wave of opportunities emerge—ones that go beyond just tech and tap into behavioral shifts.

Are we tired of productivity hacks yet? No? OK- A Surefire Way to Be More Productive (NYT) Spoiler: gamify with streaks

Mr. Beast on Diary of a CEO is worth a listen (I loved his take on building teams) but it bummed me out. Is he ok? I’d like to make him some soup.

🌈 Founder’s Corner

Tyler, founder of this newsletter platform, is writing one of the realest newsletters on fundraising and founder-ship (and the nostalgic design makes me happy).

Shark Tank is casting for season 17. Apply here or attend an open casting in LA or Philadelphia.

Grants/Accelerators:

The WellWorks Database List: grant programs, VC Firms, and Loan Opportunities for Black women and Non-binary founders.

The Orlando Magic Venture Challenge, a pitch competition with up to $750k potential investment. For startups in the sports and health industries (deadline to apply: March 5).

Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures: access to capital ($250k) and resources to help them develop and scale.

Whole Foods Market's accelerator exclusively for early stage (CPG) brands not yet selling in Whole Foods Market (deadline to apply: March 19)

📖 Book Club

This month I read James (a MUST READ) and This is How You Lose the Time War (trippy, sci fi, existential …into it).

Also- How to Become an Indistractable Reader

🍰Shop Women-Founded Brands/Current Obsessions

This Alice/Ghia chocolate spread on everything

This sauna blanket and this sad lamp are the reasons I am (barely) surviving this winter.

This Bloomi arousal oil.. trust

Speaking of which- fav fitness app B the Method has a sexual health series that is a game changer for syncing strength with pleasure - send to your girlfriends (free month and 20% off props with code KELLEY)

🍦Other Things No One Asked For

Huge rebrand for Walmart….

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