The Winner of the Lab’s Seventh Pitch HearstLab Event (at Home in New York)

On Wednesday, April 17, 2024, we held our seventh $100K Pitch HearstLab competition at the Hearst Tower.

Out of over 500 applications from women-led startups from across the country, six finalists were accepted to pitch in-person in New York City.

Each founder pitched to a live audience and a panel of expert judges, including Eve Burton, Hearst EVP & HearstLab Chairwoman, Alice Vilma, Morgan Stanley Managing Director and Co-Head of the Next Level Fund, and Tom Cross, Hearst’s SVP and Group Head of Transportation. The event was MC’ed by HearstLab Scout and ESPN Director, Kati Fernandez.

The event included an inspiring fireside chat between special guests Michael Clinton (of Hearst Magazines & ROAR Forward) and Kelly McLay, the founder and CEO of FIT and 1 of 49 women in the world to have successfully finished the World Marathon Challenge, 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days.

The event’s winner was UNLISTED, founded by Katie Hill, a cloud-based software that leverages AI and machine learning technology uniquely designed to reveal and align previously untapped real estate opportunities for buyers, sellers, real estate agents, and the industry as a whole.

In addition to a $100,000 investment from HearstLab, UNLISTED will also receive hands-on support from HearstLab. One winner, Keep Company, also received a bonus prize package of $10,000 of in-kind services from the Martin Group, Hearst’s premier marketing agency partner.

In advance of Pitch HearstLab, we hosted a full-day Summit for our community. The events included a Female Founder x Hearst Magazines Editor Roundtable, Sustainability Lunch and Learn, CEO Summit, and Community Dinner. Here is an overview (and some key takeaways from each event):

Female Founder x Editor Roundtable
We kicked off the day with HearstLab’s first ever Female Founder x Editor Roundtable. Editorial partners from across Hearst Magazines were invited to learn more about HearstLab and our portfolio companies during a two-hour presentation and networking event. HearstLab founders who built businesses for and are subject matter experts in the follow industries presented for ~5 minutes: 

The founder presentation closed with an opportunity for Hearst Magazine editors, reporters, and strategists to connect directly with founders they might be interested in covering. 

What a pleasure it was to get this dynamic group together for coffee and a cross-pollination of ideas!

Sustainability Lunch and Learn‍
In celebration of April being Earth Month, we hosted 5 HearstLab founders for a discussion on sustainable innovation moderated by HearstMade Business Assistant, Level Up Ventures Scout and sustainability advocate Sofia Bianchi.

A few highlights:
Reham Fagiri of AptDeco, recently featured by IKEA, is providing a true circularity solution for the furniture industry by “building for utility” (solving a problem with proven willingness to pay) while also benefiting the environment. AptDeco extends the lifecycle of furniture by enabling an end-to-end second-hand marketplace. This is significant! Nearly 12M tons of furniture end up in landfills every year.

Dana Kim of Highlight shared that brands (and climate-driven investors/LPs!) are putting their money where their mouth is by setting sustainability goals to reduce waste with real pledges, milestones, and commitments. Check out their latest list of the 27 brands building for a better planet.

Lizzy Kolar of Scope Zero, a fierce advocate for affecting personal and systemic environmental change through financial incentives and education, recommended her top reads, both by David Owen: The Conundrum (on why energy efficiency isn’t always better) and The Green Metropolis (on living smaller, closer) as well as learnings from her favorite Stanford University grad school class on lifecycle analysis. Note: paper bags aren’t always better than plastic!

Marcia Pereira of Bandora is a mechanical engineer by training and confirmed that buildings are now smarter and greener than ever. The key to tracking sustainability? Aggregating and managing data! Bandora is applying and leveraging AI to do this critical work.

Janelle Maiocco of Barn2Door, Inc. reminded us about the importance of societal behavior change. Convenience is king, especially when it comes to food. The more we can make sustainable solutions accessible, like connecting local farms directly to buyers with platforms like her own, the healthier the planet and society will be.

Bottom line: You can make money and do good! We continue to be inspired by our community of female founders making meaningful changes in their respective industries.

CEO Summit
Most noteworthy was our CEO Summit. We gathered upwards of 50 HearstLab founders, ranging from pre-Seed to Series B, to participate in curated networking sessions on topics critical to their startup’s business development (from “growth hacking” and “scaling” to “breaking into enterprise sales” and more).

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HearstLab Co-Lead, Beth Devin, led a superstar panel discussion on fundraising and exit strategy with Stephanie Campbell (GP, The Artemis Fund), Anna Talerico (CEO, Corporate Finance Institute), Jenny Fleiss (Partner, Initialized Capital, Co-Founder & Board Member, Rent the Runway), and Priyanka (“Pri”) Carr (President, Highlight, ex-COO, SurveyMonkey).

Some notable takeaways:‍

• On raising right now
  • The goal of  fundraising is building a sustainable business so you can control your destiny. The more investment you take, the less control you have over your company.
  • Investors are adjusting to an industry correction post-pandemic. They want to see growth and profitability (a perfect combo). Focus on the healthy economics of your business.
• Because growth is important, consider the following:
  • The game is about prioritizing what’s most impactful to the customer you serve. Stay close to your customer by developing feedback loops, focus groups, surveys to track Net Promoter Scores (NPS). Stay true to the problem your business is solving.
  • The sooner you can test, pivot, and/or optimize your business model for growth, the better. Being a founder is all about risk tolerance–this includes proactively managing runway to avoid emergencies.
• On scaling
  • Identify growth inhibitors and address them, quickly and directly.
  • The goal is for your business to be successful by creating a highly differentiated solution from your competitors. If you want to pivot (to a new customer, geography etc.), evaluate first if the potential revenue gain is going to return the cost of operationalizing the pivot. ‍
• On exits
  • An exit is a milestone, not a destination.
  • Think of the strategic options based on the position you want yourself, the company, and your employees to be in and how being public vs. private, for example, influences liquidity.
  • You’re allowed (and encouraged!) to talk to multiple parties to explore options and build trust with potential buyers.

Ask Eve Anything
‍After the panel and networking sessions, the HearstLab team hosted a ~30 minute “AEA” (Ask Eve Anything) for participating founders that featured Eve Burton. Questions were mostly about the genesis and future of HearstLab and Eve’s advice for founders. 

Some pearls of wisdom:

• Good business is about communication
  • To get the outcomes you want, communication needs to happen with the right people (read: decision makers), at the right time, with the right dosage of information (less is often more
• It’s okay to say no
  • Go with your gut. If it doesn’t feel right, ethical, aligned with your values and/or goals, it’s okay to pass.‍
• You’ll know you’re initiating change when your people are successful
  • With HearstLab, we know we’re chipping away at our mission to close the 2% gap in venture funding when we see the success of our founders. Our portfolio is currently valued at $2.5B.

What’s next?
Pitch HearstLab is the pitch competition with the largest check size for women-led startups in the world. The event series is aimed at finding and funding the best high-growth B2B(2C) women-led startups in the US and select international markets. New York is the seventh event in the series, and the first time the event was brought home to Hearstlab at Hearst HQ.

With prior competitions in Los Angeles, San Antonio, Amsterdam, and Madrid, and multiple winners at each event, HearstLab has invested over $3 million in 14 early-stage women-led startups through the pitch series alone. To date, HearstLab has invested over $100 million in 70+ women-led startups, currently valued at over $2.5 billion collectively. Its mission is to help closing the funding gap in venture capital funding for women. Current data shows that women-led businesses still receive just 2% of all venture funding, despite the growing number of female entrepreneurs.

Pitch HearstLab will be hosting their virtual competition (“Pitch HearstLab U”) for current and recent university graduates this Summer and heading to London and Atlanta in Fall 2024, with additional US-based and international competitions on the horizon. Beyond pitch events, female founders can apply for investment from HearstLab investment anytime (up to $1 million) throughout the year. 

For more information, visit the HearstLab website and follow HearstLab on LinkedIn.