 New findings from a three-year study conducted by Him For Her show that women hold only one in seven board seats. Given the average number of board seats per company, that translates to fewer than one per company. 58% of female directors are the only woman in the room. More: - Still, the numbers are improving: For private and public companies, the percentage of women board members grew from 11% in 2020 to 14% in 2021.
- That jump is still less than the growth from 7% in 2019 to 11% in 2020.
- Certain public companies perform better:
- 30% of the directors' seats at S&P 500 companies and 26% of those from Russell 3000 companies are occupied by women.
- The Russell 3000 Index has only 3% of companies having no female board members.
- For the first time, over half (61%) of studied companies had at least one woman on their board.
- The numbers for women of color are substantially worse: Only 3% of board seats are held by women of color.
- 69% of companies had at least one man of color on the board, while only 22% included a woman of color.
- The majority (56%) of female board members hold independent seats. Investor seats are only 9% occupied by women.
- For venture-backed companies, the percentage of investor directors on boards fell to 48% in 2021, down from 53% in 2020 and 56% in 2019.
| |
Brightline, a provider of virtual pediatric behavioral-health services, raised $105M led by KKR. The funding valued the company at $705M and saw participation from GV, Optum Ventures, Oak HC/FT Partners, Threshold Ventures, and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. More: - Palo Alto-based Brightline expects to serve 30,000 children and teenagers by the end of 2022.
- It currently operates in all 50 U.S. states.
- The market opportunity for a virtual mental health care service for adolescents is massive: 75% of U.S. counties had not a single child or adolescent psychiatrist prior to the pandemic hitting.
- According to a recent study, anxiety and depression among children and adolescents have jumped by at least 20% since then.
- Brightline’s services include coaching, care, and treatment for ADHD, cyberbullying, depression, anxiety, and more.
- It has partnered with health plans such as Aetna, self-insured employers such as Stanford University and Xcel Energy.
- It works with 85 care providers, including psychologists, psychiatrists, speech-language pathologists, and behavioral coaches.
- The company hopes to triple the last figure by the end of the year.
| |
 A message from PIPE “This is going to fundamentally change how we raise money and how we scale…” Founders and business owners face one challenge after another as they grow. One of the biggest is finding a way to finance growth without giving away too much equity, taking on restrictive covenants, or being pulled away from the business to fundraise. When MUD\WTR co-founders Paul DeJoe and Shane Heath saw 400% growth in their first year, they couldn’t spend all their time raising rounds to finance that rapid growth: “Being able to Pipe millions of dollars before we went to fundraise not only allowed us to focus and not worry about day-to-day cash, but it also showed investors that we had access to this capital anytime we wanted,” says DeJoe. Ready to scale your business? Pipe is the world’s first trading platform to turn your recurring revenue into dilution-free capital. Find out what it means to Pipe your revenue by clicking below: Get Started
| |
 U.S. IPOs collapsed in Q1’21, raising only $2B over 18 total deals, according to data provided by Renaissance Capital, a global IPO investment adviser. Of those, only seven raised more than $50M, and half of all proceeds came from TPG’s $1B debut. More: - Most activity came from micro-cap offerings, which pressed the median deal size to its lowest level in two decades: $27M.
- Despite the reduced size and volume of IPOs, first-day pops drove IPO gains to 33%.
- Renaissance Capital’s own IPO Index saw its worst performance since 2011 with a 25% drop, putting its losses higher than the S&P 500’s.
- Not only have traditional IPOs suffered — while 53 blank check IPOs raised $8.8B, the rate of terminations and withdrawals has continued to rise.
| |
The gold standard of startup accelerators, Y Combinator, is increasingly becoming a fight club, writes the TechCrunch editorial team. While there were always multiple companies operating in similar niches, the program now appears to be leaning into having multiple companies competing for identical markets. More: - Previously, cohorts were diversified in terms of geography, age, business model, and target market.
- The latest 400-strong batch is characterized by a degree of sameness not present in previous iterations of the program.
- The team gave a list of examples, including:
- TradeX and Better Opinions, two Indian companies of the same founding year, both provide a generalized betting platform.
- The only difference appears to be their respective targeting of higher- and lower-income consumers.
- Firezone and Netmaker both offer open-source VPN services built on Wireguard.
- Both offer paid and free tiers and will duke it out over customer service, firewalls, and UI.
- Finku and Pina and Sribuu are Indonesian personal financial advisor platforms based out of Jakarta, founded in the last year or two, with no discernible differentiating factors.
- Two Mexico City-based vehicle insurance platforms founded in 2021, Clupp and Momento, are in the cohort. The former is working with a fully licensed carrier, while the latter is seeking to become one.
The wider lens: - Of course, upon query, YC claimed that the aforementioned companies are not competing and that, moreover, many companies pivot during the batch.
- On the bright side, about half of the 22nd winter cohort came from outside the U.S., continuing trends from last year.
- Beyond that, 24 hail from Africa, and Nigeria was the third-best represented country (after the U.S. and India) with 18 companies.
| |
 Today’s Funding 💸 Adtech/Martech - Stylitics (New York, N.Y.), visual merchandising and outfitting solutions: $80M C led by PSG.
- CHILI publish (Aalst, Belgium), platform to create, edit, and share visual content through secure graphic templates: $11M led by Connected Capital, participation from Group MC, Pamica, PMV.
- Glimpse (New York, N.Y.), product placement platform for luxury short-term rentals and resorts: $6.2M led by GSR Ventures, Origin Ventures, Y Combinator, participation from Julia and Kevin Hartz, Bradley Horowitz, Bangaly Kaba
Biotech/Health Want to read about all of today’s funding in one place? The funding roundup is only available to free users on Mondays and Fridays. Upgrade to Inside VC Premium for either $10/month, or $100 billed annually, to receive the full list in every issue! For a limited time, we are offering a 14-day free trial. Click here to sign up! | | | |
Quick Hits - Don’t let the daily grind become a nightly one. Get custom nightguards and teeth whitening for 80% less than the dentist. — Use code INSIDE33 for 33% off.*
- Home internet provider Starry will merge with SPAC FirstMark Horizon Acquisition to enter the NYSE. The company had raised $400M prior to going public.
- Gopuff will reportedly lay off 3% of its global workforce in an effort to cut $40M in costs. The company employs 15,000 people and was recently valued at $15B. It recently instituted a hiring freeze after losing several execs, but still plans to go public this year.
- OnlyFans, known for P2P adult content, wants to merge with a SPAC after failing to raise capital from investors skittish about being associated with pornography. The company hopes to rebrand to more varied content to clinch a deal.
- Talenthouse, an advertising gig platform, will list on Zürich’s stock exchange via a reverse merger valuing it at around $450M.
- ArK Capital, a Swedish data-driven precision finance company, raised $183M (€165M) in fresh debt and equity funding led by Local Globe.
- Give your recruiting team an unfair advantage with Trinsly. Start your 21-day free trial.*
*This is a sponsored post.
| |
Upcoming events at Inside:
| |
 |  | Inside VC's writer/curator Stephen currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master's degree in philosophy. He otherwise spends his time trying his hand at recipes from India and Southeast Asia, escaping it all at the kickboxing gym, and offending aural sensibilities with his band. |  | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
Pipe is the world's first trading platform for recurring revenue. | |
Comments
Post a Comment