InvestHer Podcast

About InvestHer Podcast

InvestHer Podcast is a podcast for women entrepreneurs who want to learn about funding and get funded faster, and for investors and ecosystem players who want to learn more about what it's really like for female founders in the world of funding today. It's a behind the scenes look at the funding tactics and strategies that really work, to give women founders more confidence to get the funding you deserve to take your business to the next level. Each episode will be short, energetic and action-oriented, giving you lots of practical funding tips, so that you can get investor-ready, get the funding you need and back to building your business, FASTER. Join entrepreneur, consultant, TEDx speaker and women's advocate, Anne Ravanona, as she shares how to put the fun back into funding for female founders, with real truths about what it's like for women entrepreneurs in the funding world today, inspiring and practical interviews with the investors who actually do fund women-led companies, as well as key ecosystem players you need to know about. We've got your back! This show is not only about demystifying funding, it's also about understanding what are the key market dynamics and realities that impact HOW investors make decisions on who to fund, the existing biases and paradigms that need changing, and how we can ALL benefit from the biggest untapped resource to boost the global economy - women entrepreneurs. Anne Ravanona created Global Invest Her and is on a mission to help get 1M women entrepreneurs funded by 2030. She is a recognised international keynote speaker who inspires the hearts and wins over the minds of both investors and women entrepreneurs about funding female founders, coaches women-led businesses and helps corporates partner with and serve women entrepreneurs. So, whether you are starting out on your own funding journey, want to learn more about it before jumping in, or are curious about the real funding challenges women entrepreneurs face and the investment opportunity they represent, this podcast is for you! Let's change the funding game, together.

Publisher

Anne Ravanona: entrepreneur, funding expert, women's advocate and podcaster

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Nov 2019

Latest episode

10 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

3 of 72 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   10 Oct 2026

   Idea Alone Is Not Enough: Hellena Sailas and Emma Cochrane on Building Women Founders for Impact

   "It's very hard in the beginning, but as long as you move, it's possible." 🌍 Idea Alone Is Not Enough: Hellena Sailas and Emma Cochrane on Building Women Founders for Impact! 🎙 In this episode of the InvestHer Podcast, host Anne Ravanona speaks with Hellena Sailas & Emma Cochrane, Founder & CEO / Director of Strategic Projects, about building a circular-economy business from the ground up in Tanzania, the realities of fundraising as a young woman founder in an emerging market, and how the right ecosystem of mentorship, networks and skills training can accelerate women entrepreneurs from idea to investable business — and beyond. 🌍 Discover how Hellena Sailas turned a childhood dream of walking on a clean beach into Arena Recycling Industry after finding Dar es Salaam's coastline choked with plastic — and how Emma Cochrane has spent six years building HEC Paris's Women Entrepreneurs for Good program into a network of 1,000+ founders across 80+ countries, the very program that helped Hellena go from kitchen-table experiments to a half-million-dollar funded business. 💡 Don't miss this episode with actionable insights on: • Starting a circular-economy company at 23 with no engineering background and no roadmap • Moving from $5,000 grants to over $500,000 in funding — and what changed in between • Handling biased investor questions about marriage and motherhood with confidence • Why HEC's Women Entrepreneurs for Good is 100% free, online, and open to 80+ countries • How a three-week customer-discovery sprint forces founders to validate ideas before building • What investors really look for beyond the idea: team, systems, and ability to scale Two women, two sides of the funding table, one powerful conversation about what it really takes to build and back women-led businesses in Africa. 🔗 Listen Now | 🎧 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | ▶️ Full Show Notes About Hellena Hellena Sailas is a Tanzanian social entrepreneur and Founder & CEO of Arena Recycling Industry, launched at 23 to transform plastic waste into eco-bricks, paving tiles, and decking — creating green jobs for women, youth, and waste collectors across Tanzania. 🌐 Website: https://www.arenarecycling.co.tz/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hellena-sailas-00a157174 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamhelleny/ About Arena Recycling Industry Arena Recycling Industry is a Tanzanian circular-economy company converting plastic waste into sustainable construction materials, with a network of collection centres spanning Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. About Emma Emma Cochrane is Director of Strategic Projects at HEC Paris's Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute, where she founded and leads the Women Entrepreneurs for Good program — a free initiative that has trained women founders from more than 80 countries. 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-cochrane-1175b917/ About HEC Paris Innovation & Entrepreneurship Institute HEC Paris's Institute supports entrepreneurs worldwide and was ranked the second-leading start-up hub in France by the Financial Times in 2026. Connect with Anne & Global Invest Her 🌐 https://www.investherpodcast.com/ 📂 Funder Directory: https://funderdirectory.globalinvesther.com/ 🛍 Buy From Her Directory: https://www.buyfromher.com/ 🗨️ LinkedIn: Anne Ravanona https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneravanona/ 📣 Want to suggest a guest for the InvestHer Podcast? https://www.investherpodcast.com/suggest-a-guest #InvestHerPodcast #InvestHer #WomenFounders #FemaleFounders #WomenEntrepreneurs #CircularEconomy #PlasticWaste #AfricaStartups #Tanzania #SocialEnterprise #WomenEntrepreneursForGood #HECParis #GreenJobs #ImpactInvesting

2. 

   2 Oct 2026

   Stop Fighting a Rigged System: Allison Byers on Raising Capital on Your Terms

   "I didn't fail. I didn't understand the system that I was working in, and the system is broken." 💡 Stop Fighting a Rigged System: Allison Byers on Raising Capital on Your Terms! 🎙 In this episode of the InvestHer Podcast, host Anne Ravanona speaks with Allison Byers, Founder, CEO, and Author, about the systemic barriers underestimated founders face in fundraising, why venture capital was never designed for most of us, and how her new book Fundraising for the Rest of Us arms founders with the playbook, the language, and the mindset shifts they need to raise capital on their own terms. 🌍 Discover how Allison Byers transformed a deeply personal experience of watching the all-male team that acquired her MIT-spun medtech company raise $55M where she could not into a career dedicated to dismantling the systemic barriers in capital allocation — co-authoring California's landmark Fair Investment Practices by Venture Capital Companies Law, building Scroobious as a relationship-first capital access platform, and writing the fundraising guide that underestimated founders have always needed. 💡 Don't miss this episode with actionable insights on: • Why venture capital was never designed to fund most innovators • How familiarity bias quietly drives capital allocation decisions • The Core 10 pitch deck framework and the risk each section must de-risk • Reframing prevention-oriented questions into promotion-oriented answers in real time • Building an Ideal Investor Profile before you ever open a pitch conversation • Why silence from investors is data — and how to break through it with curiosity • Choosing capital sources that match how you want to build If you are building for a world that does not yet fully fund you, this episode is your next step. 🔗 Listen Now | 🎧 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | ▶️ Full Show Notes About Allison Allison Byers is a founder, investor, and capital access advocate whose career is devoted to building a funding system that works for The Rest of Us. She is the Founder and CEO of Scroobious, a relationship-first platform connecting underestimated founders with aligned capital, and the author of Fundraising for the Rest of Us. Allison co-authored California's landmark Fair Investment Practices by Venture Capital Companies Law and serves on multiple boards shaping the future of equitable investing. She draws on her own experience co-founding a medtech company spun out of MIT, raising nearly $10 million, and bringing an FDA-registered product to market — and on the painful lesson that followed — to give every underestimated founder the knowledge and confidence to navigate the funding landscape. 🌐 Website: https://www.scroobious.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.allisonbyers.com 🎙️ Catch Allison's previous episode: https://bit.ly/InvestHerPodcastEp44InvestinginChangeAllisonByersScroobious About Scroobious Scroobious is a relationship-first capital access platform designed to connect underestimated founders with the investors most likely to understand, champion, and fund them. The platform operationalises the principle that trust precedes capital — helping founders build the right relationships before they ever need to make an ask. Scroobious sits at the intersection of education, community, and deal flow, giving The Rest of Us the infrastructure the traditional funding system was never built to provide. Resources Mentioned 🌐 Scroobious — relationship-first capital access platform: https://www.scroobious.com 💼 Connect with Allison Byers on LinkedIn / personal website: https://www.allisonbyers.com Connect with Anne & Global Invest Her 🌐 https://www.investherpodcast.com/ 📂 Funder Directory: https://funderdirectory.globalinvesther.com/ 🛍 Buy From Her Directory: https://www.buyfromher.com/ 🗨️ LinkedIn: Anne Ravanona https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneravanona/ 📣 Want to suggest a guest for the InvestHer Podcast? https://www.investherpodcast.com/suggest-a-guest #InvestHerPodcast #InvestHer #WomenFounders #FemaleFounders #WomenEntrepreneurs #FundraisingForTheRestOfUs #Scroobious #AllisonByers #FundingToolkit #CapitalAccess #StartupFunding #UnderestimatedFounders #InvestorBias #WomenInVC

3. 

   25 Sept 2026

   Get Off the Fence: Renate Crollini's Blueprint for Women Who Are Ready to Build

   "If you are a female founder and you've had this idea in the back of your head for a day, a week, a month, a year, 10 years — get off the fence and do something." 💡 Get Off the Fence: Renate Crollini's Blueprint for Women Who Are Ready to Build! 🎙 In this episode of the InvestHer Podcast, host Anne Ravanona speaks with Renate Crollini, General Manager of Tech Ready Women, about how Australia's leading accelerator for female founders is turning ideas into investment-ready businesses — in just eight weeks. Renate unpacks the startup and investment readiness programmes that have served over 6,500 women, the community that keeps founders supported between cohorts, and the practical, no-excuses philosophy that has seen 40% of programme graduates go on to raise seed funding. 🌍 Discover how Renate Crollini went from a 12-year career in sustainability and large-scale infrastructure in New York City to returning to Australia, finding herself hooked on the startup world, and ultimately stepping into the role of General Manager at Tech Ready Women, where her lived founder experience now shapes every programme she designs and delivers. 💡 Don't miss this episode with actionable insights on: • How Tech Ready Women's eight-week model drives faster, more focused founder transformation • Why connecting to your founder 'why' matters most before anything else • Bringing tech back into Tech Ready: vibe coding, AI agents, and MVPs in two hours • Knowing your numbers inside out — the non-negotiable for any funding conversation • Building a warm-introduction culture in Australia's risk-averse investment landscape • Why customer revenue is still the best funding you can get • Creating community between programmes so no female founder has to go it alone If you know a woman with an idea the world needs, send her this episode. 🔗 Listen Now (https://bit.ly/Ep69-investherpodcast-RenateCrollini) | 🎧 Apple Podcasts | Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/episode/5kGzG4Yhqf2CMuGI058acM) | ▶️ Full Show Notes (https://bit.ly/Ep69-investherpodcast-RenateCrollini) About Renate Renate Crollini is the General Manager of Tech Ready Women, where she leads the commercialisation and scaling of the organisation, overseeing founder programmes, partnerships, and revenue strategy. Her career spans engineering, large-scale infrastructure, corporate advisory, not-for-profits, and startups across Australia, New York City, and beyond, giving her a rare depth of lived experience she brings directly into every programme she designs. Alongside her role at Tech Ready Women, Renate is the Co-Founder of Adaluma, an ESG data-verification platform helping banks, corporates, and governments access real-time, audit-ready sustainability data. Known for translating complex data and policy challenges into clear, practical pathways, she is equally at home on a construction site, in a boardroom, or in a startup pitch room — and equally passionate about all three. 🌐 Website: https://www.techreadywomen.academy/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renatecrollini About Tech Ready Women Tech Ready Women is Australia's leading accelerator and education platform for female founders, having supported over 6,500 women across nine years of operation. Through practical eight-week programmes spanning startup fundamentals, AI enablement, and investment readiness, Tech Ready Women meets founders wherever they are on their journey — from first idea through to raising capital. Owned by Scalari Group, the organisation pairs award-winning online learning with live workshops, small-group coaching, and a growing alumni community called Female Founder Grow, ensuring no founder has to navigate the startup journey alone. Resources Mentioned 🌐 Tech Ready Women — Website: https://www.techreadywomen.academy/ 💼 Connect with Renate Crollini on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renatecrollini Connect with Anne & Global Invest Her 🌐 https://www.investherpodcast.com/ 📂 Funder Directory: https://funderdirectory.globalinvesther.com/ 🛍 Buy From Her Directory: https://www.buyfromher.com/ 🗨️ LinkedIn: Anne Ravanona https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneravanona/ #InvestHerPodcast #InvestHer #WomenFounders #FemaleFounders #WomenEntrepreneurs #TechReadyWomen #Australia #FemaleFounderAustralia #StartupAustralia #InvestmentReady #AIForFounders #FundingReadiness #WomenInTech #StartupCommunity

Inside a recent episode

Global Sisterhood: Carine de Meyere on Trade Missions & Angel Investing

Published 4 Sept 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] I think everyone understood America better after we had visited the Constitutional Museum. In Saudi Arabia was the exact same thing. In Japan was the same thing. And I think in China, it's going to be the same thing as well. So the groups usually consist of 15 women entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and executives. For me, it's very important that they upfront have a clear idea why they want to join the mission. You know, do they want to maybe take their company to that country? Do they want to go and launch something? Is there something that they want to bring back to the Netherlands? I find it very important that they... that they're not only taking, but that they're also giving. […]

Who has been a guest on InvestHer Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Vanessa Del Pozo Sanchez
• Andie Cooper
• Cathy Allara Latiwa
• Sarah Naylor
• Lesley Tully

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

65,286

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 56 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

52

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

75

Questions about InvestHer Podcast