The Underestimated - Issue 13
The Diversity X newsletter showcasing the underestimated founders making a positive impact in the world and keeping you up to date on the Diversity X journey.
Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment, and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more by clicking here. CAPITAL IS AT RISK!!!
What is coming up in this issue?
👏🏾 Diversity X Update
📖 International Women’s Day - Embrace Equity
🌱 Community Update
📰 Monthly update on what has been going on with Diversity X
🤝 🔦Spotlight on a Diversity X Founders’ Community member
📆Upcoming events and plans
💥💥DX Team and Fund Update 🚀🚀
Fundraising for our first fund, a £1mn EIS fund, is slow going (and hard, hard work). There are many reasons for this, market conditions obviously are not great, we started too late in 2022, and then in 2023, there has been personal issues that the team are dealing with which took precedence over raising the fund. But on a positive note….WE ARE BACK AND RARING TO GO! 🚀🚀🚀🚀
However, it does mean, that our internal goal of raising the fund and fully deploying in this UK financial tax year is unlikely to happen. What it means is that we will deploy the fund in the 2023/24 UK financial tax year.
CALL TO ACTION: We need to meet with angels, HNWIs and sophisticated investors who are actively deploying, believe in supporting underestimated founders, and want to build a sustainable planet and sustainable businesses. If this is you or you know someone, please let’s chat. Additionally, we NEED more women and people of colour investors investing in funds. To this end, we are working with our friends at Odin to make it possible to come in with tickets less than £20k and as low as £1k.
Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment, and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more by clicking here. CAPITAL IS AT RISK!!!
To find out more, email us at investor@diversityx.vc
TEAM UPDATE
Welcome to Kris Jones, who joins the Diversity X team as Head of Founder Education. Kris is the co-founder of Magic Sauce, a platform to bring greater diversity to the startup ecosystem through education and matching great founders with great investors. Kris took up the reins from Ilaria to bring the Diversity X Founders’ University to life, which will be powered by Magic Sauce. Kris has a background in mentoring founders for the likes of Carbon 13, Raiise, and BlackValley and advising and building accelerator programs. As part of Kris’ role with Diversity X, Kris has also taken over running the Tuesday networking session (every Tuesday from midday to 1pm (UK time).
Kris has been a massive champion of Diversity X, and the founders in our community who have met him love the support he provides. I am delighted he is supporting us, and please join me in welcoming him to the team.
I would also like to share that we are close to bringing on a new advisor with a background in fundraising, investment analysis, and early-stage VC, to support the strategic development of Diversity X as a VC firm. Full details are to be covered in the April issue.
International Women’s Day - Embrace Equity
Wednesay (March 8th) was International Women’s Day. This month is Women’s History Month. Every day is about being intentional to bring about gender equality.
We know the stats, but for those who do not - here are a few…(I’ve taken these from the wonderful Oksana Stowe’s post following an #IWD event (original post here):
“British Business Bank (together with Diversity VC and British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (BVCA) have shared some key findings that show that there is a lot more work to be done:
💰 for every £1 of #venturecapital investment in the UK, all-female founder teams get less than 1p, all-male founder teams get 89p, and mixed-gender teams 10p.
📈 venture capital investment in start-ups with #femalefounders is increasing but progress is very slow. At current rates, for all-female teams to reach even 10% of all deals will take more than 25 years (until 2045).
👨 83% of deals UK VCs made last year had no women on the founding teams.”
My question to each of you is, what do YOU want to do about it? Because you can be part of the catalyst for change IF you want to be.
One of the themes raised at an event hosted by Taylor Vinters around impact investing and diversity was the need to be intentional about making change. Another was looking at existing data is telling us anything. If we want to truly see what underestimated founders can do, then we need to take the intentional step of backing them in order to create meaningful data. Period.
Often, mentoring is offered or pushed from pillar to post of different accelerator models, but this has not shown the well-intentioned real change - funding for underestimated founders has not changed. Sponsorship and straight-out backing are now needed. You, actually, strike that, I mean “we” have the chance right now to champion underestimated founders. And we have the opportunity to back them. Celebrating women (and for us women founders) (or any other section of diversity) is not a one-day celebration or a month-long celebration, it is an everyday intentional act that can be normalised into each of our daily lives.
This is at the heart of the Diversity X mission. We are asking for backing so that we can both serve you AND provide an opportunity for underestimated founders to build businesses that create a sustainable planet, sustainable businesses, and are powered by inclusion.
Community Update
Another 30 underestimated founders joined our ranks over the last month. If you are or know any founders that are any of:
Female ✅
Person of colour ✅
Disabled ✅
LGBTQ+ ✅
Neuro-diverse ✅
Older ✅
Founders’ News
Then point them to the Diversity X Founders’ Community. It is free and here to support their entrepreneurial journey. They can join from here - https://welcome.diversityx.community/invitation?code=G34DC9
If you are a parent, you should join Charlie Rosier’s (founder of Babbu) What’sApp Group (link here) and they are also offering parents of 0-3 years olds 3 months discount on their platform (see here).
Big congratulations to Carol Constant (Founder of Bemensa) and Christabel Charles (Founder of SideSparkz), both of whom have been accepted into accelerator programs. Good luck.
Karishma Gupta of Satatland (circular fashion tech brand) is closing her pre-seed round. Satatland is a fully circular fashion company that allows you to make your own decisions and rewards you for returning your purchase.
They have recently been awarded an £150k innovate UK grant focused solely on the circular economy, this is a significant achievement that brought validation and recognition to the hard work and dedication they have put into building a circular fashion business.
They are looking to speak with potential investors to close their round this month. Reach out to Karishma at karishmag@satatland.com.
******DISCLAIMER! - This newsletter showcases founders from within the Diversity X Founders’ Community. We do not endorse or promote any investment into any of the featured startups.******
News from the Diversity X journey
Highlights over the last month:
💥 We have welcomed another 32 underestimated founders, and now our community platform has 383 founders.
💥 424 views of issue 12 (down 277 from issue 11) and 351 subscribers (to date, up 6 from issue 11).
💥 Progress on the Diversity X Founders University - we edge ever closer. Work is now focussed on finding partners and sponsors for the program (get in touch if you can help or know someone/an organisation that wants to support).
💥 Attended a couple of #IWD networking events this week.
💥 Our website is up and running.
💥 Thank you to everyone who has supported the journey so far.
Meet the Underestimated
Only female founders in this issue! Make sure you read about these great founders.
Dr Gace Olugbodi - BeGenio
The Founders:
Dr Grace OLugbodi is the creator of the multi-award winning maths game, Race To Infinity (part of her series of 5 games) and the author of Make Maths Fun: How to Increase Your Child’s Grades and Confidence Through Games.
Grace graduated with 1st Class Honours in BSc Computing with Information Systems from London Guildhall University and holds an MSc in Financial Markets with Information Systems from London Metropolitan University. She then became an Investment Banker and Java Software Programmer and worked in five different Investment Banks over many years.
Grace’s educational products support parents and teachers to use a special method that makes maths fun, increases confidence, reduces mathematical anxiety and helps increase children’s opportunities and life chances.
Grace struggled to excel at maths when she was 10 years old. During her summer holidays, her father taught her how to enjoy maths by making it fun and creative.
Her attitude to maths changed and she loved maths from then on. Grace started to excel at maths and won the school prize for maths, out of over 350 students.
Grace learnt that anyone can enjoy maths when maths is made fun and creative. She credits all her career success to her parents and the confidence she gained through having fun with maths.
Grace is on a mission to change the way children learn maths, so that they are equipped to fulfil their potential in life.
She is the Chair of Governors and Trustees of a Primary School and the Chair of the Finance Committee. She is also the Governor in charge of Creative Curriculum, teaching and learning for the school; as well as a former Trustee and Director on the SU Board of one of Central London’s largest Universities.
She is also a Director & Trustee on a Multi Academy Trust (MAT) comprising 6 Primary and Nursery Schools.
Her Race To Infinity game launched in 2017 and has won several National & International Awards and has been endorsed and approved by organisations including National Numeracy, Tower Hamlets Education BP and the Good Toy Guide. Grace has also won numerous awards in the last few years, including the Micro to Small Business Award 2019 for the Royal London Borough of Greenwich Business Awards 2019. She was a Judge alongside the Mayor of Greenwich on the 2020 Awards.
Many Headteachers, Heads of Maths Depts, teachers, parents, children, tuition centres and tutors have all enthusiastically endorsed the game.
It has been awarded the prestigious Amazon CHOICE BADGE and the Amazon BESTSELLER BADGE multiple times by Amazon.Co.Uk and Amazon.com. In 2018, Amazon asked to partner directly with Grace’s company and became a partner, so Amazon now buys the Race To Infinity game wholesale and sells retail.
The Startup:
BeGenio is a social impact business creating products that help children love maths, make maths fun and less daunting for kids and their parents, using EdTech and AI to increase confidence, fluency, creative thinking and eliminate mathematical anxiety.
What can you do to support BeGenio? They are raising a small round to complete our AI Maths Game App to fully-launchable MVP stage. Reach out to the Grace for more info.
Veronique Trang and Greg Sidier- Telmi
The Co-Founders:
Veronique Trang is the CEO of telmi. Veronique started her career at Ernst & Young as a strategy consultant, then started her entrepreneurial journey with a first venture in 2012. She went on running the Unilever Foundry Unilever’s corporate startup partnership programme, where she led over 40 partnerships with innovative tech startups. Veronique’s young daughter Anouk started her podcast during the lockdown. Veronique was blown away by the power of podcasting to develop kids’ communication skills but found no safe or educational podcast creation platform for kids. That’s how telmi was born. Veronique has a unique understanding of what makes startup partnerships successful. Veronique has two children.
Greg is CTO of telmi. Greg co-founded two startups. One was Melodiq, a kids audio player. That’s how Greg met Veronique. Greg is a recognised AI and machine learning expert (ex JP Morgan). He holds a masters in computer science, machine learning and applied mathematics from top French engineering schools. Greg’s AI/ML expertise is critical to building telmi as a safe and scalable product. Greg has two children.
The Startup:
Effective oral language skills is one of the strongest predictor of success in life. Today children express themselves on platforms not made, not safe, not educational for them. Telmi is a podcast creation app for kids. Telmi makes podcasting educational, fun and safe for kids to become effective communicators. while developing their interests and confidence. With Telmi, kids can safely listen to and create meaningful, snackable podcasts in 3minutes. On telmi, kids recommend their favourite books or movies, share their love for football or coding, describe an artwork they discovered in an art gallery.
Telmi’s mission is to empower children from all backgrounds and uncover the voices of tomorrow. Watch their 60s intro video
So far, telmi is in beta, and already piloted with institutions and user groups, The beta app delivered great traction pre-launch 👉 33% active beta users converted to paid users.
It recently appeared in Startup Magazine as one of their favourite startup at Allia demo day
What can you do to support Telmi? If you love what they are doing, and especially
- If you are angel investing at pre-seed/seed stage; or
- If your organisation engages kids between 5-13 (or their parents), we’d love to discuss partnership opportunities
then email me Veronique at vero@telmi.io
Corinna Bordoli and Greg Sidier- Telmi
The Co-Founders:
Corinna is the founder of CocoRio and Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 by ClubHub!Corinna's background is as a creative and as an Operations professional in the creative industries. Aside from CocoRio, Corinna volunteers for charity Daisy Network as the London Coordinator, advocating for women with premature menopause (POI) and is passionate about raising awareness on women's health.
Corinna Bordoli
Léa is the founder of CocoRio and Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 by ClubHub!
Lea’s background is in communications, content creation, event management and creative workshops leading within multiple industries: the early years, fashion and higher education and across multiple continents: The Nordics (Finland), East Africa (Tanzania), France and the UK.
The Startup:
CocoRio offers bespoke creative experiences for children. What really sets them apart is their Creative Nannies. They utilise musicians, actors, dancers and other artists who are fully vetted and trained to deliver the unique CocoRio Learning Journey through their 4 Magic Ingredients, to their clients’ children. The magic ingredients include; music, art, language, and movement. Their creatives are trained in age-appropriate creative activities and will incorporate at least one of the magic ingredients into each session whilst taking care of all other regular nanny duties.
What can you do to support CocoRio? CocoRio are raising investment to grow, launch their app, and reach more families by scaling nationally and later internationally! If you are interested in joining and supporting them on this journey, you can check out the campaign page: https://mailchi.mp/c2efbcff23bd/sn2hkndzf0.
******DISCLAIMER! - This newsletter showcases founders from within the Diversity X Founders’ Community. We do not endorse or promote any investment into any of the featured startups.******
Upcoming Events
Every Tuesday - Networking Call
Every Friday - A Week in Review call
26th May - Founders Newtorking Event (In-Person) _ link to sign up in the Diversity X Founders’ Community platform (Heartbeat).
Illuminate Dublin - POSTPONED (likely summer 2023)
And that’s a wrap for this month and year….
Reach out with any questions to investor@diversityx.vc
INVESTORS - let’s chat - contact Kevin (kevin@diversityx.vc). CAPITAL AT RISK
Underestimated founders® - join a community that is a welcoming and safe space. Here is your link (note - this is only for founders - others will be removed).
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