Only 2 percent of venture capital funding goes to female founders. These founders aren't household names like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, or Bill Gates, but yet they've managed to build remarkable companies and raise venture funding. Welcome to She Ventures Forward, the podcast where we dive deep into the inspiring stories of trailblazing women who secure venture capital funding to build impactful companies and explore the challenges they faced along the way
The Acquisition Playbook: Claudia Laurie on Building Prive and Selling Smart
Claudia Laurie spent two and a half years at Uber mastering the science behind pricing, incentives, and subscriptions before leaving to build Prive, a subscription billing platform for D2C brands. Four years later, she had raised $5M, processed half a billion dollars in GMV, and successfully exited through an acquisition. In this episode, Claudia breaks down how she and her co-founder pivoted from their original idea after customer feedback, built a sales motion from scratch, and fundraised pre-product as first-time founders. What does it actually feel like to go from LOI to close? How do you evaluate competing acquisition offers when your team already thinks they're moving over? Claudia pulls back the curtain on all of it. Honest, tactical, and full of hard-won pattern recognition, this episode is a masterclass in founder decision-making.
12 Mar 2026
What Precision Medicine Has Been Missing: Kelly Lacob on Building Xella Health
In this episode of She Ventures Forward, Natalie sits down with Kelly Laab, CEO and co-founder of Xella Health, the first precision healthcare platform built specifically for women..
Kelly opens up about the real mechanics behind her $3.7M pre-seed raise: why going straight to institutional investors was a costly mistake, how she built a proof of concept with almost no money, what it took to grow a 10,000-person waitlist before launch, and the bold move of setting her own terms when no one wanted to lead.
2 Feb 2026
Building Human-Centered Education in an AI World with Audrey Wisch of Curious Cardinals
In this episode of She Ventures Forward, Natalie sits down with Audrey Wisch, founder and CEO of Curious Cardinals, a personalized learning platform helping students discover their purpose through mentorship.
Audrey shares how Curious Cardinals began as a passion project while she was a student at Stanford and evolved into a venture-backed company serving thousands of students with a network of hundreds of mentors. She walks through her decision to pause her studies, build full time, and raise venture capital from early customers who deeply believed in the product.
The conversation explores how Audrey thinks about building human-centered education in an AI-driven world, where technology is used to amplify mentorship rather than replace it. She also breaks down her approach to fundraising, choosing the right investors, staying close to the end user, and why venture capital should be treated as a tool rather than a requirement.
This episode is a must-listen for founders, operators, and anyone thinking about education, AI, and how to scale impact without losing the mission.
10 Oct 2025
Reinventing Marketing Through Regenerative AI: Zinnie Zhang on Building Enttor
Zinnie Zhang joins She Ventures Forward to share how she’s building Enttor, an AI marketing platform helping enterprise teams scale authentic social media engagement. From identifying gaps in marketing software to raising pre-seed funding , Zinnie’s story is inspiring in turning frustration into innovation.
12 May 2025
How Market Experiments Beat Market Research: Kate O’Keeffe, CEO of Heat Seeker AI
Kate O'Keefe wants to end the era of building products nobody wants. In this episode, the Heat Seeker AI founder and former BCG and Cisco exec shares how market experiments, not surveys, are the key to finding product-market fit—and why marketers everywhere are rethinking their playbook.
28 Apr 2025
From Personal Problem to VC-Backed Company: The Powered by Hue Playbook
Today, Powered by Hue co-founder and CEO Janvi Shah takes us inside her journey from solving her own pain point in beauty to building a platform used by major brands. In this episode, she shares how she turned personal experience into a powerful vision, the tactical steps behind raising $4.5M, and what it’s really like to fundraise.
If you're building something from scratch or wondering how to stay resilient when the odds are stacked against you—this one’s for you.
3 Apr 2025
Launching the Girl’s Bathroom of the Internet: Emma Bates on Launching Diem
In this episode of She Ventures Forward, Natalie sits down with Emma Bates, co-founder and CEO of Diem, a social search engine built to feel more like the girl’s bathroom at 1am than a Google rabbit hole. Emma shares the origin story of Diem, why traditional search fails women, and how she’s building an alternative front door to the internet. She opens up about raising $5 million, navigating bias in venture capital, and what it takes to be taken seriously as a non-technical female founder in tech
2 Feb 2025
Building the Future of Social: Ali Debow on swsh's Evolution
In this episode of She Ventures Forward, Ali Debow, co-founder of swsh, shares how she and her team pivoted multiple times before landing on an AI-powered shared photo album app.
She talks about the early days of testing ideas on college campuses, dropping out of NYU to go all-in, and raising $2.4M to build the future of consumer social. Ali also shares insights from her experiences as a Z Fellow and Thiel Fellow, the power of warm intros in fundraising, and why relentless optimism is key to startup success.
17 Sept 2024
In a Pickle: Creating a Marketplace With Julia O'Mara
In the latest episode of She Ventures Forward, Natalie sits down with Julia O'Mara, co-founder and COO of Pickle, a peer-to-peer rental marketplace that’s changing the way we think about fashion. Julia opens up about the unconventional path that led Pickle from a social polling app to a thriving community-driven rental platform. She shares insights on raising $8 million in seed funding, the challenges of building a dual-sided marketplace, and the scrappy, hands-on strategies that got Pickle off the ground. Listen in for Julia's advice on building a brand from the ground up and the power of community-driven growth
29 Jul 2024
How Sophie Wyne pivoted with Ariglad
In the sixth episode of She Ventures Forward, Natalie sits down with Sophie Wyne, co - founder of Ariglad.
Sophie shares lessons learned from pivoting Ariglad's product as well as her journey through YC and how that helped her build and raise what Ariglad is today.
10 Jun 2024
How Pavla Bobosikova nagivated early stage M&A with WFHomie
In the fifth episode of She Ventures Forward, Natalie sits down with Pavla Bobosikova, the founder and CEO of WFHomie, to discuss raising for a remote first platform during COVID, how accelerators help with financing, and how to navigate an early stage M&A, especially when no priced round had ever been done before.
6 May 2024
How Valkyrie Holmes is building insurtech company Faura at 20
Join us for the fourth episode of She Ventures Forward with Valkyrie Holmes! Valkyrie shares her unique path from working with organizations like SpaceX and NASA to tackling the complex world of insurance with Faura, which aims to reduce natural disaster risk for homeowners at only 20. She discusses the challenges she faced while raising at a pre-seed level, how she thinks about getting customers to buy into her vision, and her strategies for continuing to build Faura.
10 Mar 2024
How to start and run a fund: SC Moatti’s impact on VC with Mighty Capital
In the third episode of She Ventures Forward, join us as we explore SC Moatti's journey from product visionary at Meta and Nokia to founding managing partner of Mighty Capital.
SC shares her unique entry into venture capital, her strategies for distinguishing Mighty Capital in a competitive industry, and her insights on what makes a startup stand out to investors
16 Feb 2024
Kirthiga Reddy's Path to Founding Virtualness and Championing Mothers with Lifterly
In the second episode of She Ventures Forward we sit down with Kirthiga Reddy. From being the first employee at Facebook India, to the first female investing partner at Softbank, to her innovative efforts in blockchain through co - founding Virtualness and empowering women through founding Lifterly, Kirthiga's journey is a masterclass in navigating the venture capital landscape. Learn how she raised money for her own ventures and how she started her own fund F7 with 6 other Facebook executives
8 Jan 2024
Monisha Perkash and the Lumo Bodytech journey
In the first episode of She Ventures Forward we sit down with entrepreneur Monisha Perkash, co-founder of Lumo Bodytech. In a deep dive into Monisha’s journey, discover how she raised $26 million across Seed, Series A, and Series B funding rounds. From challenges in scaling a hardware-centric startup to the resilience required in the competitive world of venture capital, Monisha shares invaluable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs. Explore the unique challenges faced by female founders and the strategic moves that led to the acquisition of Lumo Bodytech by Seismic.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
7 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 24 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
25
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
60
Contact She Ventures Forward
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of She Ventures Forward?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
