Scroobious

Our 2023 Community Report is live! It features data and insights and of course, the best founder stories from the Scroobious community in 2023. Check it out: https://buff.ly/3P0nvs0

Less than 2% of all venture funds go to women-founded companies! We've heard the stats, so let's meet some women striving to make a difference. Allison Byers, founder and CEO of Scroobious, is quickly driving innovation by removing barriers to partnership among diverse founders, investors, and service providers through scalable online education, community, and data-driven curation. She co-authored California Senate Bill 54, which was signed into law and requires venture funds to report diversity metrics. Her TedTalk would be titled Fundraising for the Rest of Us (also a book). "For far too long, we have relied on VC as the primary funding source for our innovation economy. However, the VC business model is not appropriate for most startup founders and small business owners. It has also evolved into one of the most inequitable resource distribution systems. Only 1.8% of venture capital dollars go to women-led founding teams and only 0.5% go to Black founders. These numbers haven't meaningfully changed in decades and are declining. We are in a funding crisis, which inhibits economic growth and generational wealth creation." Angelica Maestas is the Founder and General Partner of SevenFive Ventures, where she leverages extensive healthcare and startup experience to drive their mission of improving health equity. They invest in early-stage health tech startups that make healthcare more accessible and effective, focusing on solutions for underserved communities. On LinkedIn, you'll find her talking about her work in healthcare. "This drive for impact has served as my north star in my professional pursuits and is deeply rooted in my lived experience. As a child, we were often homeless. Though my mother often worked multiple jobs, she didn’t have the education or access to resources that could’ve afforded us a safe and stable home environment, much less, quality healthcare. I’ll remain in this space until I see the desperately needed impact in making healthcare accessible to the historically overlooked." Carrie Colbert is the founding and general partner at Curate Capital, founded in 2021 to support female-founded consumer brands. Carrie and team closed fund 1 in 2022 at $15 million - 50% oversubscribed, with nearly 80% of investors being women, including influencers with over 10 million followers. As an influencer herself, Carrie realized the power of influencers investing and has been a pioneer of the #influentialinvesting concept. She often talks on LinkedIn about Empowering Women Entrepreneurs. "I champion increased investment in women-led businesses, advocating for more opportunities and resources to support female entrepreneurs. Increasing Representation of Women in Venture Capital: I passionately support expanding the presence of women in the venture capital industry. I strive to advocate for more excellent representation and leadership roles for women investors to ensure a more balanced and equitable investment ecosystem.

Co-founded by Shaneel Pathak, Zamplo is a connected health platform that empowers people with the resources they need to mobilize their personalized health data, connect meaningfully with the global health community, and spend less time on health care and more time living their best possible lives. #FounderFriday

I have two questions for those who have raised from angel investors: Think of an angel investor on your cap table who provides high value beyond their check, regardless of check size. 1. How did you originally meet that person? 2. How long did it take for them to write the check? I'll go first. 1. Met at a virtual event where I was a speaker. 2. Two weeks. Please repost for reach. I'll share compiled answers with my thoughts. #Fundraising #AngelInvestors #Investors #Investing #Startups #Founders #Entrepreneurship

🎉 Today's the day! We've launched our community-powered Vendor Marketplace Beta! 💫 One of the most common requests we receive from founders is recommendations for trusted, vetted vendors. To meet this need, the Scroobious team is building the hub that connects early-stage startups with founder-friendly vendors, introducing them to service providers genuinely trusted by other founders to support them on their entrepreneurial journey. ➡️ If you’re a service provider looking to connect with diverse founders, apply to be part of our free beta: https://buff.ly/3A0OBev 💡 If you’re a founder seeking guidance, education, and connections, we’d love to have you join our community by applying for a sponsored account here: https://buff.ly/3zTIaKh

Founded by David Webb, Climate Clean is an environmental technology company developing innovative hardware to capture CO₂ emissions and data from wildfires. Their product, LowProptax AI leverages data with artificial intelligence to automate property tax and insurance premium appeals, providing cost savings while addressing climate challenges. #FounderFriday

Have you heard of prevention vs. promotion questions during fundraising?   🚧 Prevention Questions Risk-averse questions that focus on potential losses, risks, or challenges, emphasizing avoiding failures. Examples: ▪How long can you protect your market share? ▪What are your biggest challenges?   🚀 Promotion Questions Growth-oriented questions that highlight potential gains, opportunities, and future success, focusing on achieving growth. Examples: ▪How will you expand your market? ▪What is your strategy for scaling quickly?   Research by Dana Kanze and colleagues has shown that women receive more prevention questions from investors, while men receive more promotion questions. This changes the entire tone of the meeting and correlates with lower investment amounts for female founders. We hear countless stories about these interactions from founders in our Scroobious community. Here's the advice we share, and that I personally follow.   ✅ Advice for founders: Train yourself to recognize if a question is prevention- or promotion-oriented. If it's a prevention question, respond with: "Glad you brought that up, I think what you're asking is…" and reframe it into a promotion question. Then, answer the reframed question.   ✅ Advice for investors: Train yourself to identify whether you've just asked a prevention or promotion question. This often happens unintentionally. If you realize you've just asked a prevention question to a female founder, correct yourself by saying: "Actually, what I really want to know is…" and reframe it into a promotion question.   #WomenInBusiness #FemaleFounders #StartupFunding #InvestorBias #Entrepreneurship #GenderEquity #WomenInTech #VentureCapital #PromoteGrowth #InclusiveInvesting #PreventionVsPromotion #StartupAdvice #PutAWomanOnIt #Founders #Investors #Fundraising #Investing #Pitching

Want to learn more about a player, driving equitable capital access to capital? On this episode, Brenda speaks about purpose with Allison Byers, founder of Scroobious, a tech company driving innovation to equitable capital access by removing barriers to partnership among diverse founders, investors, and service providers. Scroobious is a platform that is working toward equitable capital access: In Allison’s words, “fair representation of all segments with the exclusion of none”  - now into its fourth year –  having served over 900 founders.  “Finding the funding and the people are critical to early stage success of a company.“ Listen to Allison’s personal story of Scroobius and how her  relationships that go back 20 years ago and an introduction to the newly appointed President and COO of Scroobious.  #equitablecapitalaccess #screwbias #relationshipsmatter You can listen to the entire episode today at the link below, https://lnkd.in/gFYQ78qf on all streaming platforms, or at: https://lnkd.in/gZuhKwSD

Founded by Manali Shinde, Gratinsta is dedicated to creating nature-inspired jewelry that celebrates the natural world and the unique beauty of each and every living creature. #FounderFriday

Check out our founder and CEO Allison Byers on Brenda A. McCabe, MBA's podcast The Founder's Sandbox. Allison discusses purpose and all things equitable capital access. Listen Here: https://lnkd.in/gtdiijyz