Micha Cooper-Edwards & Mica Eades Mayo Of Soleil Space: Why We Need More Women Founders & Here Is What We Are Doing To Make That Happen
An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
Legislation: In the wake of the now infamous Fearless Fund lawsuit and the attacks on both DEI and women’s rights, I think we have a unique once in a lifetime opportunity to advocate for legislative action to affect change. From government funding to support female-led funds and companies to portfolio allocation requirements, board seat allocations at VC’s, there is so much that can be done legislatively. But with the hits we’ve taken in the law it feels like as a community of women and men who’ve supported us, we might be cowering. This is a moment in time where we can not only show our collective power but ride that momentum to push for legislation to effect real parity in the venture space.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Micha Cooper-Edwards.
Micha Cooper-Edwards is the founder & CEO of tech-media company Soleil Space, the first cross-cultural next-gen interactive digital hub for independent filmmakers and communities of color around the world (www.soleilspace.com). The Forbes Next1000 awardee is a former multinational corporate marketing executive for iconic global brands such as Nike, Diageo, Pepsico and Moet Hennessy, turned independent film producer who experienced first-hand the systemic inequities of Hollywood, leading to the inception of Soleil Space.
In true woman-power fashion, Micha invited to our conversation one of Soleil’s newest investors Mica Eades Mayo, 25+ year B2B Tech executive for Silicon Valley darlings and legends like ServiceNow, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, who recently co-founded Untapped Investing, a San Francisco Bay Area investment group that focuses on women and underrepresented founders.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Thank you for having us! Sure, I came to the film and tech industries through a non-traditional path. Particularly when it comes to film I like to say I came in as a true outsider, which was difficult but turned out to be the very thing that gives me the ability to see the industry from a unique perspective. I didn’t go to film school, but I was always a storyteller. After a 15-year multinational career spanning advertising, brand management and product with some of the world’s most iconic brands, I felt increasingly stifled by commercial storytelling. I decided to quit my corporate career and go back to school to study Media at the London School of Economics, where my thesis was in Nigerian film. The shock of discovering an entire film industry that existed in Africa and had grown into a powerful force outside of the formal industry structure was not just fascinating but viscerally evolved my identity as a black person in the world. It also allowed me an objective critical analysis of the global entertainment ecosystem. It expanded my knowledge of other realms of global film and TV outside of Hollywood and sparked burning questions that underscored everything from that point — why do we in the Western diasporas of these cultures have little knowledge and exposure to these films, denying us the ability to see ourselves represented on screen? Why are we denied these opportunities to learn more about ourselves and about each other? That was the catalyst that set me on the path to become an indie film producer, and then start my own production company. It’s my experience as a producer that brought me intimately face to face with the barriers to getting these stories financed, produced with authentic creative freedom, and distributed to the very communities that they were created to represent. It is my experience as a producer that motivated me to launch what exists today in the tech-media entity, Soleil Space.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career? Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’ll answer both these questions with one story from my corporate marketing career that I’ve told before, but never seems to get old. In one of my roles at Nike, I worked in the basketball division and had the privilege of creating signature footwear with the brand’s top athletes. It was my first time working with Kobe Bryant, on his signature shoe. After a very comedic sequence of phone tag with him (including slipping and banging my knee in the shower while scrambling to catch his call), we got into an hour-plus long conversation immersing into the walking inspiration that was Kobe. He talked a lot about the Sistine Chapel, which I ignorantly thought was the “Sixteenth Chapel” due to the reason I’d never been to Rome and never heard of the Sistine Chapel. I kept saying Sixteenth and he would gently repeat Sistine in his responses, hoping I’d get it. Well, I didn’t. At one point, I just started calling it “the Chapel.” After we hung up, I was SO embarrassed when I Googled it but I learned a valuable lesson from Kobe. Maybe he had other thoughts at that moment, but he never belittled me or embarrassed me. Instead, he enlightened and inspired me while treating me like an equal. There are many stories about Kobe, but for me that was my personal experience of his legacy that will always live with me.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: For me it’s a very simple answer. My parents! But I’d like to hear Mica’s answer to this as someone who is actively helping my journey and championing our vision. I’m curious to know who did the same for her!
Mica Eades Mayo: As Micha and I share the same name (pronounced “mEE-ka”), allow me to offer the origin story of my name bestowed by my parents which will give a window into me. I am half Black and half Japanese-American. My mother was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii where my maternal side of the family had immigrated from Japan. My father was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky where my fraternal side of the family had settled as surviving descendants of the Middle Passage. The unlikely union and marriage in the late 1960s came after the two met and fell in love at Oberlin College in Ohio. Following Oberlin, my parents moved to Chicago for graduate studies and my mom started her first teaching assignment on the city’s South Side. I can only imagine how few Japanese-Americans there were in the Chicago Public Schools district at the time! Despite being quite the dynamic spitfire, my mom struggled connecting with the class and earning their trust. After several days with little progress, one student stood up and told the rest of the class to “shut up and listen” seeing how hard my mom had been working in building lesson plans and trying her best to facilitate instruction. This was the inflection and turning point for my mom and the class! From that moment forward, the class banded together, went on field trips, etc. The student was ‘Mica Swain’ and she is who my parents named me after. I’ve aimed to live up to my namesake and this origin story by being this type of upstander. Speaking up and taking action for the underserved and underrepresented is what sparked me and my two co-founders, Felicia Mayo and Attica Jaques, to start Untapped Investing.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: One of my favorite books that I believe contributed to my sense of identity as a Trinidadian, is A Brighter Sun by Samuel Selvon, one of the Caribbean’s literary icons. I loved the book so much that I even played its drunkard character with hardly any teeth in my high school play! But seriously, it’s a period story, set in Trinidad during World War II, and follows the life of a young Indian couple who came from humble (some would say lower class and uneducated) background. That book combines tragedy, triumph and socio-political commentary, while bringing to life the uniquely complexed beauty, history and multicultural tapestry that is Trinidad & Tobago. But it also gave me a much deeper insight into a sub-culture and class that was different from my own. It shaped my view of humanity and convicted me in the knowledge that every person has a dream. No matter our status, our class or cultural background. As a leader, I believe my first job is to inspire dreams and help people achieve their dreams for themselves, their families and their communities. That translates directly to the purpose of Soleil, to provide a platform for the collective dreams, imaginations, histories and hopes of people of color around the world to be fully articulated through storytelling.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: Ooh, this is a tough one to choose from. I’ll pick one that I’m leaning on a lot these days. It’s actually a Bible quote from Jeremiah 29. “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.” This has given me a lot of strength along this founder journey that can sometimes be unpredictable. On my toughest days, I’ve had vulnerable moments where I questioned my choice to take this path. This quote gives me the inner confidence that even though my journey as a female founder might have more obstacles, even these challenges are making me better and are working together for my good.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: I think this is a good one for Mica to answer, because I think she’s doing just that!
Mica Eades Mayo: After decades of breaking through glass ceilings and experiencing glass cliffs in Corporate America, my two co-founders and I realized that while we were making good money for our immediate families, we were woefully falling short in creating wealth for the broader Black and brown community or building true generational wealth and leaving a legacy that would make our ancestors proud. Through our own discovery to find our shared purpose, we learned that just 0.48% percent of all the VC funding in 2023 went to Black founders and VC funding to women only founders has hovered at a mere ~2%. We found this both shocking and appalling and rather than admiring the problem, we decided to do something, coining our extraordinary former First Lady Michelle Obama. From there our new charted path became clear, let’s pull our respective networks together and form an investment group who only invests in women, Black and underrepresented founders. We use our collective CRO, CPO, and CMO superpowers from our years as career operators to scout, screen, and diligence the untapped industry-disrupting early-stage founders/startups. Then we curate experiences for our (in most cases) first-time angel investors to hear, learn and invest as the three of us invest alongside.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: Two words. Capital, and access. They beget each other. That statistic you mentioned is the most generous description I’ve heard of the situation facing women founders. It also doesn’t apply the time factor. The kicker stat that hasn’t budged in 3 years? 2%. That’s the percentage of all $1.4T of venture capital globally that went to female founders. In the US, for black women it’s .38%, which technically rounds to 0! The root cause of this is access. Access to the networks and the funders at the earliest stages especially who are willing to not just invest in us, but at levels that will allow us to get to market quickly, be aggressive competitively and scale exponentially. Instead, female founders are over-mentored and under-sponsored. Most often we are channeled towards incubators and accelerators that I would argue are often the crumbs and not the cake of the venture capital resource pool. These programs have value, but most often do not translate to substantial capital. It also supports an underlying assumption that we don’t know what we’re doing (even though most of us start businesses with more years of prior experience, and world-class expertise) or need more mentoring before being investable. Male founders are more likely to be given substantial “belief and opportunity” funding upfront with much higher valuations and are subsequently mentored along the way.
Can you share with our readers what you are doing to help empower women to become founders?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: I think it would be great for Mica to share her perspective on this from an investor point of view:
Mica Eades Mayo: Another statistic that motivated us to act is the rejection rate is 3x higher of Black business owners who apply for funding in comparison to that of white business owners. This is why funneling “I believe in you capital” to underrepresented and women founders is our priority but this is just one component of what we are striving for as we aim to change the face of venture. Let’s shift to Micha’s second word — access. Here is where several examples of empowerment come into play. Obviously, we cannot invest in every deal but even when it’s a no, it is usually accompanied by a, “But please allow me to connect you with another resource for help and support.” In cases of both yes and no, relationships will oftentimes develop and deepen where we provide ongoing mentorship, coaching, and sponsorship. Even in the beginning screening and diligence phase, we are respectful and like Micha’s story of Kobe Bryant, we never belittle or demean. Our very first Black female portfolio founder shared with us that on numerous occasions, previous fund managers and capital allocators had questioned whether her innovative energy tech solution had been hers. No doubt that would not have been asked if she were male. This type of bias has no place with Untapped Investing.
This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: There are so many reasons! First of all, just by the odds alone, to be a female founder to begin with means that you are bold, resilient, battle tested and deeply purpose driven. No woman founder looks at these statistical odds and thinks… “Oh, this is definitely the easy path!” These are important qualities of any founder, and because of the disparities we face, there is a high correlation of these qualities with female founders. Women led companies also have a lower failure rate and have a higher rate of successful outcomes even despite the glaring disparities in capital, access to networks and other resources. Another killer stat that I discovered from a BCG report I recently read is that female-founded startups generated 78 cents in revenue per dollar invested versus 31 cents for male-founded startups. These companies also were more capital efficient. Women also take a more people-centered approach to leadership, and we are proven to hire more diverse teams with higher retention rates, both on the basis of gender, socioeconomic background and ethnicity. And then, there is the market opportunity. The more female founded companies that exist, the higher propensity of product innovations and opportunities for both female consumers and talent! We see what happens when men assume to know better than women what we want and need. In all areas of life, as women we are multipliers that benefit communities and business is no exception.
Can you please share 5 things that can be done or should be done to help empower more women to become founders?
Micha Cooper-Edwards:
Stop the Cycle: Overcoming disproportionate inequity requires a disproportionate effort — without fear or shame. Disproportionate transparency, strategic support, and yes, disproportionate risk-taking and long term, recurring investment commitment. This can’t be business as usual and it is not about favors, or charity — as an asset class, female founders are already proven to outperform. This is about meeting the urgency and magnitude of the moment to balance a stubborn, overwhelmingly unbalanced scale. This is now an existential crisis as 2024 will end with the lowest percentage of female founders in 7 years! While many of us look to men for the solution, I believe it starts with the female funders. I’m going to reveal something that might be controversial. Among my female founder circles, I’d admit that there are ongoing debates about the true value of having female investors on our cap tables, if they’re writing smaller checks, take longer to make decisions, are more risk averse and don’t do follow-on investments. This is by no means true of all female investors, but it applies to enough to the point that there are female founders who prefer dealing with male investors and keeping women as mentors or advisors. This is a serious and growing perception problem! But I think there are systemic factors that contribute to this. If female investors have trouble raising funds from their LP’s, this makes many of them more conservative (or careful) investors. They have less to deploy and take less chances. With that comes more pressure both on them and their portfolio companies and many also have less resources to allow them to give adequate beyond-the-check support to portfolio companies, far less double down on an investment.
Mica Eades Mayo:
Expand the Funding Circle: To stem the tide and disproportionately shift more capital and greater access to female founders particularly from female funders, then it is imperative for us to grow, support, and retain our emerging and fund I female VCs, fund managers, and capital allocators. Shouldn’t be a surprise but the same bias that women founders traditionally encounter with VCs is often what female VCs experience with institutional investors. I was recently at a powerful LA Tech Week event entitled “Building Bridges for Women of Color Investors” hosted by USC Greif Center for Entrepreneurship, Cap Table Coalition, Sisters with Ventures, and Emmeline Ventures and featuring the Honorable Controller Malia Cohen in a one on one conversation with Qiana Patterson. All who joined are working every minute and every day knowing that unlocking capital for women and children is one of the greatest opportunities to move an innovative economy forward but for far too many in attendance the struggle is real. And there are many emerging fund managers that are not able to sustain and others that likely will not get to a fund II. What could help? To start, more women-focused fund of funds (FoF) and accelerator programs. My favorite quote from Qiana Patterson at the LA Tech Week event, “Nothing bad happens when women have more money. In fact, everything gets better.”
Micha Cooper-Edwards:
Lock Arms: Yes, I’m freshly quoting Kamala on the Ellipse here! As women in the venture ecosystem, we are our most important allies. We need to take our peer advocacy to another level and develop a systemic playbook for change at every level, in tangible and measurable ways. I think we’ve mastered the art of gatherings and supportive talk, but we haven’t yet mastered the science of action. This means everything from metric-based portfolio allocation targets that actually get measured and reported, to building pyramids of mentorship AND sponsorship, and sustainable, recurring means of investing in female-led companies. Also, while we are our most important allies, we can also be our own worst enemies. I have female founder friends with female board members who are outright abusive or dismissive to them. These women are not in the majority, but neither are the numbers insignificant. I think this brutal honesty and self-reflection is needed as a community if we are to evolve past surviving, to truly thriving. For a female founder, it hurts much more when female investors, advisors and others with strategic interest and/or influence on our companies replicate the very biases and abuses that we are already subjected to by the rest of the world. We need to develop codes of conduct and accountability for bad behavior. Because if female founders fail, our entire community as women in venture, fails. We can’t afford unforced errors — we have a 98% gap to make up.
Micha Cooper-Edwards:
Legislation: In the wake of the now infamous Fearless Fund lawsuit and the attacks on both DEI and women’s rights, I think we have a unique once in a lifetime opportunity to advocate for legislative action to affect change. From government funding to support female-led funds and companies to portfolio allocation requirements, board seat allocations at VC’s, there is so much that can be done legislatively. But with the hits we’ve taken in the law it feels like as a community of women and men who’ve supported us, we might be cowering. This is a moment in time where we can not only show our collective power but ride that momentum to push for legislation to effect real parity in the venture space.
Mica Eades Mayo:
Prioritize Your Own Wellness: It might seem strange that my recommendation for empowering others is to prioritize your own self. When it comes to one’s health and wellness, it is absolutely imperative to make it a priority. This is not selfish; quite the contrary, this is self preservation. If us women are not able bodied, mind and soul, lifting our children, our families, our communities, our nation, our world is not possible. Seldom do us women put our needs first but we have all seen what happens when that matriarch falls. So my guidance to myself and all other women is to take care of your needs.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Micha Cooper-Edwards: I don’t see myself as having enormous influence just yet! But, I’m both humbled and proud to say that Soleil’s work is the very mission that I believe can maximize my small portion of God-given talent to bring the most amount of good I can, to the most people. We’re not building just a product or a platform, but a movement towards independence, enlightenment and empowerment for the very fact that media has a fundamental and powerful influence on how we perceive ourselves and each other. In turn, this impacts how we value our own contributions, our understanding of our histories, who we choose to respect, fear, empower, exploit or subjugate. It affects who we let in and who we shut out. The mission of Soleil Space to build an equitable, representative global film industry goes straight to the heart of our global humanity. It can also bring economic prosperity and sustainability to creatives of color and by extension the communities they represent, allowing them to preserve their cultures and truly own and thrive from the products of them. My hope is that when fully realized, our vision will spawn new independent, self-sufficient creative economies that have to this point been severely underinvested in, despite brimming with the potential of fresh young talent who have a lot to teach the world. Especially now where we wake up with daily anxiety about wars, social injustice, demonization of entire communities, economic disparities, climate crises and so much more, this is crucially important. This is the movement that can inspire movements. For me it doesn’t get bigger than this.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Micha Cooper-Edwards: For me that person is Trevor Noah — I think he epitomizes what Soleil Space is all about. His comedy is so curious and smart, yet so relatable, and he is a consummate student of global culture. He’s broken down so many barriers to human understanding and connection with his art. We share the DNA of transculturalism. I so wish I could just sit and talk about the vision of Soleil Space with him!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Micha Cooper-Edwards: You can join the Soleil Space movement at soleilspace.com, follow us on IG @soleil.space or keep up with our community screenings via our YouTube channel — https://www.youtube.com/@soleilspace
To contact me directly, send me a DM via IG: @michacooperedwards
Mica Eades Mayo: You can #BeTheChange and #TapIntoTheMovement by following Untapped Investing on LinkedIn–https://www.linkedin.com/company/untapped-investing/. If you are an early stage founder aligned with our thesis or are interested in becoming a value-aligned partner or member, please visit our website and complete the contact form–https://www.untappedinvesting.co/.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Thank you for having us! It’s an honor.
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEOs in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
