It’s not just about supporting women; it’s about supporting talented women
Last week, we awarded two Bay-area female hardware startup founders with a free trip to China, joining our portfolio companies in what we hope will be an annual tradition. The trip is in partnership with our friends at Brinc, an ultra hands-on IoT accelerator that supports entrepreneurs looking to unlock the world’s data through connected solutions.
Manufacturing can be a large, ominous mountain climb for early stage hardware startups. We regularly demystify the process of meeting and evaluating manufacturers and prototype labs.
Our Make in LA portfolio companies feel prepared to approach this stage because we leverage our manufacturing partners and host trips and visits. Our factory visits include Los Angeles year round, this winter to China, and next summer to Mexico. Our mentors regularly share their manufacturing experiences, such as with this webinar by entrepreneur/investor Michael Corr. And we thought: why should we limit this experience to just the few cohort companies.
When we decided to add two outside founders, we knew we wanted to share this experience with #FemaleFounders of hardware companies. Our call for applicants was answered by female entrepreneurs working on bitcoin, health tech, home tech, and many other fabulous products. The response was incredibly inspiring and empowering.
We loved all of the applicants and selected two for whom we thought the trip would be particularly valuable:
Min FitzGerald, Cofounder and Behavioural Scientist at Nutrigene, will represent the company on the trip. The team’s goal is to understand requirements for setting up manufacturing and distribution for the product, including estimation of price points for considerations and best partners to work with.
Shadi Saberi, Cofounder and CTO of iSono Health, will join the trip with a goal to learn about manufacturing hardware in China. She’s also interested in networking with other entrepreneurs and learning from their experience.
The first week of December, the two founders are joining us as we travel to Hong Kong and South China. Our friends at Brinc have helped plan the 6 day adventure.
The attendees get the same experience as our portfolio companies, fee-free. We’re covering air, lodging, meals and in-country transportation. Why?
Why support #FemaleFounders?
Because they’re talented yet underrepresented. In an earlier post, we shared our lessons learned over the last year. One of those included our preference for searching in niches. With our portfolio companies, we seek to be the most helpful investor on the cap table. And for non-portfolio companies, we also seek to be of service. Twice a month we host “Retooling Fridays” to support entrepreneurs in any business from any walk of life.
Helping Min and Shadi better understand their manufacturing is rewarding for us. But it also comes back to supporting talented founders, underdogs in what is typically a male-dominated sector. We love meeting interesting folks, and we’ll gladly take the good karma points that come with it!
More after our trip!
