Cost: $30 refundable fee to hold your reservation - fully refunded upon attendance to the event.
Description:
Washington state has grown to become a tech hub and an ecosystem of startups as talent from big tech (Microsoft, Amazon) gets the itch to build and execute their vision. But in 2020, just 2.3% of VC funding went to women-led startups. This figure ranges from 2-3%. Not great. The VC world is network-based and can be tough for women to break into.
Here’s some data:
• Only 12% of decision-makers at VC firms are women and most firms don’t have a single female partner.
• Of partners at VC firms, only 2.4% are female founding partners.
Partners have significant control over investment decisions. When women venture capitalists do make decisions, they’re twice as likely to invest in female founding teams.
We all know that women are just as capable as men in building and running amazing companies. These numbers should be better.
Please join us on March 3, 2022, at Tavern Hall in Bellevue to network and hear stories and advice from three women who have legal backgrounds and who have first-hand experience hearing and making VC pitches and operating startups in our community. Let’s invest in women, and each other.
Speakers:
- Jessica Nguyen, Chief Legal Officer of Lexion (moderator)
Jessica is the Chief Legal Officer at Lexion, an AI powered end to end contract management system with a mission to help legal departments be productive, valued, and happy. When not doing legal work, she wears the chief customer advocate hat because she has lived first hand the contract and reporting pain points of Lexion’s customers. Jessica played a big role in helping Lexion build its product and company during its early days, and was also involved with its Series A pitches. Last spring, Lexion closed an oversubscribed Series A $11 million round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from existing investors Madrona Venture Group and Wilson Sonsini law firm.
- Lekshmi Venu, CEO and Co-Founder at MajorBoost
Lekshmi is the CEO and Co-Founder of MajorBoost, a new health-tech spinout from Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI (AI2) that aims to reimagine how doctor’s offices and insurance companies communicate with each other, using artificial intelligence to deal with time-consuming phone calls. Last summer, MajorBoost received $350k in pre-seed funding from Seattle’s Allen Institute for AI (AI2). She’s an entrepreneur in residence at AI2 and founded MajorBoost in September 2020. Prior to that, Lekshmi spent 6 years at Amazon, where she led machine learning for Amazon Payments. She helped start MajorBoost last September.
- Elisa La Cava, VEnture Capital Investor at Madrona Venture Group
Elisa is a venture capital investor with Madrona Venture Group, an early stage VC firm that was an early investor in Amazon, Smartsheet, Redfin, and many other successful companies. She sits in the board meetings of many companies (including Lexion’s board meetings) to understand what it takes to build a successful company and has personally heard countless pitches to provide perspective on what investors are seeking when they make their investment decisions. Elisa has a BA from Clarmon McKenna and an MBA in Finance from Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management.