Welcome to Female Founders

Female Founders is designed to connect female-founded health and life science companies with LSX’s network of investors and experienced life science professionals, provide the resources to help women raise more capital and facilitate knowledge-sharing between founders and industry veterans. Why are we here?

• To stimulate investment in female-founded health and life sciences companies in Europe, by connecting them with LSX’s existing network of 10,000 investors
  
  
• To connect women with experienced health and life sciences industry professionals for mentoring, knowledge-exchange and networking
  
  
• To provide a network for women in European health and life sciences to share ideas, ask questions and make the connections needed to grow their business

Values

Knowledge-exchange

• We facilitate open, honest dialogue between women in health and life sciences to help grow female-led businesses, as well as to support individual career progression.

Diversity and inclusion

• We believe that diversity drives innovation. We welcome women from all cultures and backgrounds and encourage diverse points of view and experience to solve some of the world’s biggest health challenges.

Member-led

• The needs of our members are integral to setting the strategic direction of the Female Founders network. We are committed to taking regular advice from our members as the network evolves and to hosting regular feedback sessions for members to contribute actively to that evolution.

Serving unmet medical needs

• Female-led businesses don’t just solve “women’s problems” but they certainly help. We are committed to driving investment into companies solving women’s health challenges and serving unmet medical needs.

Events

Building a diverse leadership team and board
Friday 30th April 11am BST

In the recently released Deerfield Report an analysis of 140 venture-backed health and life science companies found that nearly half had no female board members. And, of the six who managed to achieve 50% women on their board, all but one had a female CEO. For all the talk about the importance of diversity at the most senior levels, in reality there are still too many very real barriers to achieving it. This webinar addresses the problem head-on, including some tangible changes that might be implemented to build a diverse leadership team and board, including:

• What are the risks of hiring based on competency over experience? What are the potential benefits? How to navigate board and investor objections.
• Weighing up the relative benefits of tangible solutions like rewriting policies, interview targets or quotas and unconscious bias training, by looking at them through an “idealist vs realist” lens
• How will the demand for diverse boards and leadership teams evolve in the next five years? What is the commercial risk of not taking gender parity seriously? What is the outcome if they fail to adapt?

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Women’s health investment priorities including “taboo tech” growth markets, inclusivity and equality
Thursday 13th May 12pm BST

Women’s health is gaining ground as an important market segment. But it still desperately needs more investment. This session looks at why women’s health is so lucrative and how it extends beyond Femtech to complex medical solutions. It also looks at how to stimulate investment in female founders and putting women’s health at the top of more VC agendas.

Panellists:

• Marie Laure Mahe, Vice President Business Development, Europe, Essity Ventures
• Lucanus Polagnoli, Co-Founder, Calm/Storm Ventures
• Deepali Nangia, Co-Founder, Alma Angels
• Maria Velissaris, Founding Partner, SteelSky Ventures

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“Women’s health is global health” – seizing market opportunities in period care, incontinence and sexual wellbeing
Thursday 13th May 3pm

Some of the world’s most interesting SMEs tackling an array of women’s health concerns including period care, incontinence and sexual wellbeing look at how to launch a successful women’s health brand including busting taboos, fund raising, product manufacturing, distribution and marketing.

Panellists:

• Gloria Kolb, Co-Founder and CEO, Elidah
• Frances Tang, Founder, Awkward Essentials
• Daniella Peri, CEO, Yoppie
• Arion Long, Founder and CEO, Femly

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Ask the Investors Roundtable
Tuesday 15th June 2pm BST

Featuring:

• Jonathan Synett, Managing Director, NCL Technology Ventures
• Jeroen Bakker, Principal, Novo Holdings

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You can see more events here