The Purse

Welcome to our #247 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we spotlight Female Invest and their whopping £8.7m fundraise. The startup, founded by three female entrepreneurs, also secured $1m in 4mins via crowdfunding. This campaign had the highest number of female investors with 94% participation.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Female Invest secures £8.7m in Series A funding, sets new records in crowdfunding

Female Invest, a finance app dedicated to empowering women through financial education and community support, has just closed its Series A funding round with a whopping £8.7m. This landmark achievement propels the company further in its mission to bridge the financial gender gap and inspire a new wave of female investors, as reported by EU Start-ups.

Community-driven focus

Founded in 2019 by Emma Due Bitz, Camilla Falkenberg, and Anna-Sophie Hartvigsen, Female Invest was born from a shared frustration with the glaring gender disparities in finance. Today, the global platform has over 73,000 paying members spanning 123 countries and a vibrant online community of more than 512,000 followers.

The Series A round, led by venture capital firms Educapital and Rubio Impact Ventures, also featured a groundbreaking crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. In just four minutes, Female Invest raised $1m, setting multiple world records:

* The highest number of pre-registrants with over 12,000.

* The fastest to raise $1m.

* The highest number of female investors in a crowdfunding campaign, with 94% participation.

Co-founder Camilla Falkenberg said:

“We are absolutely blown away that our community invested $1 million in just four minutes! Our members have been asking for a crowdfunding campaign for years, but we never expected such a rapid response”

Smashing the gender gap in finance

Female Invest is on a mission to tackle the financial literacy and investment disparities that women face.

70% of stocks are owned by male investors, and female workers retire with about two-thirds less in their pensions compared to men. This is despite women being better investors than men.

“Women are falling financially behind everywhere. They earn less, save less, and invest less. Our mission at Female Invest is to close this gap as quickly and effectively as possible,” explained Co-founder Anna-Sophie Hartvigsen.

Sky's the limit: future plans and expansion

Female Invest is on an impressive growth trajectory, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 240%.

Currently, 40% of its users are based in the UK, and with fresh capital in hand, the company is gearing up to launch in the US, expand its trading offerings, and scale its operations even further.

Celebrating endorsements and accolades

The co-founders, who have been included in the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for finance, have also received endorsements from the likes of Hillary Clinton and Emma Watson.

They participated in the prestigious Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator in 2021 and co-authored the Sunday Times Best Seller “Girls Just Wanna Have Funds.”

“Traditional financial advice for women often focuses on saving money on beauty, clothes, food, and entertainment. But there's a massive gap in resources that help women grow their wealth through investments…” said Camilla Falkenberg.

Emma Due Bitz, a certified stockbroker since the age of 20, added, “The financial industry has long been dominated by men, often excluding women through its communication style and corporate culture…”

What’s next? (Re) listen to The Purse Podcast:

* #104: Why every woman needs a financial plan with Kristine Beese

* #117: How money works for women and why financial education is key with Sharon Lechter

* #124: Investing through a gender lens with Marypat Smucker

News in Brief

Financial news

* The Nasdaq 100 is now in correction territory: it is down 11.4% from the recent high.

* US Federal Reserve liquidity falls for another week, offering no support for stocks and crypto.

* Fear index Vix jumped 25.8% to hit its highest level since March 2023 as S&P 500 has its worst jobs day since October 2022.

* There is kind of convergence between Nasdaq 100 and Russell 2000 YTD as investors shift their money out of big tech and into smaller stocks.

* Global bonds have gained a whopping $1.2tn in value this week, most since December 2023, as bonds – at least government bonds.

* Sahm Rule Recession Indicator jumped to 0.53 from 0.43 following weak US jobs data, triggering a recession warning.

* Eurozone July inflation gives the ECB no green light to cut in September yet, but markets still price 96% probability for another 25bps ECB cut.

* The Bank of England has cut interest rates from 5.25% to 5%, the first drop since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.

* Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway halves stake in Apple from 789m shares at end-Q1 to 400m Apple shares now. Cash holdings hit a record $277bn – about ~30% of the market – cap as billionaire investor dumps $76bn of stocks

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* The crypto market has experienced over $272 million in daily liquidations amid a stock market downturn. 

* US spot bitcoin ETFs logged a daily net outflow of $237 million on Friday, the highest single-day outflow level since May 1 and the fourth highest since the launch of the ETFs in January. 

* Morgan Stanley tells wealth advisors they can pitch bitcoin ETFs in a first for a big bank.

* Bitcoin touched $70,000 following Donald Trump’s pro-Crypto speech. The Republican presidential nominee Trump pledged at a weekend conference to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower” if he returns to the White House following November’s election.

* Bitcoin has over the week dropped by more than 9% to $61,358—dipping as low as $60,704—according to CoinGecko.

* The price of Ethereum also dropped over the week, despite exchange-traded funds launching last month and proving popular with Wall Street.

ETH dropped by 8% in seven days and is currently trading at $2,915.

* Solana also had a rough week, down over to $143. Indeed, essentially all of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap were down over that span.

* Dogwifhat, the largest meme token running on Solana, has dropped the most by over 35% since this time a week ago.

* Crypto policy was still the talk of the town with politicians, though. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) formally introduced a bill to establish a national Bitcoin reserve.

* And Republican nominee and ex-president Donald Trump said the federal government could wipe out its $35 trillion in debt with Bitcoin.

Coffee Break? Read This

* Why are we so drawn to the ‘tradwife’ fantasy?

* We should embrace our inner goddess – but let’s not create another test for women to fail

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #246 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we highlight the interview with Marypat Smucker on The Purse Podcast. We talk about gender lens investing and what’s changed in the market since 2022.

Listen to the full interview here.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Gender lens investing: an update

We interviewed Marypat Smucker on The Purse Podcast about gender lens investing and what’s changed in the market since 2022.

We interviewed Marypat Thenell Smucker on The Purse Podcast.

Marypat is a CFA, MA Economics, MSc Finance, is Co-Founder and Principal of Parallelle Finance. She has published a range of research pieces on sustainable and gender lens investing, including Parallelle’s in-depth quarterly reports on sustainable investing and women in the global workplace.

We talk about (including) gender lens investing, why invest through a gender lens, gender bonds, women in leadership and how to accelerate the pace of change.

Here is a short excerpt from the interview

Jana: “What would you say has changed in the market since 2022? Is there anything that sticks out for you in addition to the growth that we're seeing?

Marypat’s response:

‘… we've talked about the AUM growth in gender lens equity funds. Which is one of the areas that we track and cover. And we are also seeing a steady growth in the number of equity funds.

So 18 of the 42 equity funds in our data set have a history of less than three years. That is really steady growth.

And in terms of significant trends: there's definitely one that merits highlighting and is in both public and private market gender lens investing.

This is a focus on investing in women's leadership in climate solutions. So in the private markets, this is a focus on investing in women founders of climate solutions and products. This is another growing area of focus for women-led funds ie to invest in women founders of climate solutions, women as the agents of the actors of addressing climate change.

In the public markets, this is also happening. The gender lens equity funds do tend to include a pretty strong ESG screen, most of these funds. In equity funds gender lens is essentially a thematic ESG strategy.

And recently the asset class is experiencing a gender plus climate trend that goes beyond this ESG foundation to focus on investing in companies, displaying both climate and gender equality leadership.

So one example of this is two suites of funds that are offered by Morgan Stanley. They are Calvert funds that have been launched in Europe and the US. And they employ unique gender and climate investment criteria.

The Calvert principles for responsible investment are a well-known framework for sustainable investment criteria, and these funds are constructed within that framework.

And the European suite of these funds are domiciled in Luxembourg, and they are in scope with Article 9 of the European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.

And this suite also includes an emerging markets gender lens equity fund. It was exciting to see that entry into our data set. The other suite of funds is domiciled in the US and both of these groups of funds employ unique gender lens, investment criteria and climate criteria.

So they are a good example of this gender plus climate trend that we are seeing in many corners of gender lens investing.

Another trend is something that we are seeing in gender bonds again, back to the gender bonds. And that is that these bonds are in growing numbers being listed on local exchanges.

Also there is a trend toward international exchange listings and cross listings for some of these bonds cross listed on the local exchange and also an international exchange.

So that is really going a long way toward developing this asset class….

Listen to the full interview here.

News in Brief

Financial news

* On Wednesday, Wall Street suffered worst day since 2022 as Tesla and Google earnings disappoint.

* India quickly catches up to China as the world’s largest emerging market. Indian stocks comprise nearly 20% of the MSCI Emerging Markets index, while China has dropped to a quarter from 40% in 2020.

* China surprised markets by cutting interest rates, its first such move since Aug 2023.

* Russell 2000 outperformance vs S&P 500 continues. RTY vs SPX break out is at its widest levels since Feb 2000, > +9% MTD

* The US yield curve steepener trade continues with US 2s/10s yield spread rises to -14bps, highest level since Jul 2022.

* US GDP growth accelerated to 2.8% in Q2 from 1.4% in Q1, outpacing expectations of 2.0%.

* Rachel Reeves expected to reveal £20bn shortfall in public finances. Chancellor may raise some taxes in the autumn due to what Labour describes as its ‘shocking inheritance’ from Tories.

* UK business activity expands in ‘encouraging start to second half of year’. S&P Global flash composite purchasing managers’ index shows July rise for manufacturing and services sectors.

* The comeback of active? ETF share of total trading declines as investors have turned away from index-tracking funds.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* Donald Trump says he will create a ‘Bitcoin national stockpile’, calling cryptocurrency ‘the steel industry of 100 years ago’, as he courts the cryptocurrency crowd at Nashville conference. Trump said he'd lay out a plan ‘to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world’.

* Over the week, BTC is up close to 2% and trading hands for $67,920. Thousands of people were in Nashville for the annual conference dedicated to Bitcoin.

* Ether ETFs trade Over $1bn in strong crypto-fund debut. Several of the funds are finishing the day among the top 50 highest-traded US ETF debuts of all time.

* Ethereum is down 7% over the week, despite the sought-after funds finally launching. Investors have been cashing out of the main Grayscale ETF.

* Solana rose nearly 8% to enter the weekend at $183.80.

* A formerly dead Solana-based meme token Brat Summer (BRAT) shot up in value after pop star Charli XCX endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

* Sen. Cynthia Lummis announces bill for US Treasury to buy 1m bitcoin worth $68bn.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following on our conversation:

* What is gender lens investing?

* Market update

* Gender bonds

* The gender lens scorecard

* Investing in gender equality

* Women in leadership

* Directing capital to gender lens funds

Please enjoy! Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* 6 ways to give that aren’t about money

* Credit at last for female screenwriter airbrushed from Hollywood history

* Sundresses and rugged self-sufficiency: ‘tradwives’ tout a conservative American past ... that didn’t exist.

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #245 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Spotlight Pathology which has raised £125,000 from LYVA Labs based in Liverpool.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Spotlight Pathology secures £125,000 in funding from LYVA Labs

Spotlight Pathology has raised £125,000 from its Health and Life Sciences pre-seed fund LYVA Labs, as reported by UK Tech Investment News.

Liverpool-based LYVA Labs is taking the lead in investing in under-served founders and CEOs. And this week the company backed its fourth female-led business.

What problem is Spotlight solving?

Blood cancer diagnosis is currently time-consuming due to the shortage of highly trained pathologists. This leads to delayed diagnosis, treatment and poor patient outcomes.

What is Spotlight’s solution?

Spotlight has developed AI tools to streamline the diagnosis process for blood cancer representing a $15bn global market opportunity.

Spotlight has already secured a £900,000 grant from Innovate UK which has allowed the startup to build up a significant data bank of blood tissue sample.

And they recently recruited Dr Sam Perona as CEO in April, who is joining co-founders Dr Martin Fergie and Prof Richard Byers to lead the business to commercial success.

The CEO of LYVA Labs, Lorna Green is dedicated to tapping the potential of ambitious female entrepreneurs and she chairs Liverpool City Region’s new Female Founder Regional HIGH Growth Board.

And according to Akshay Bhatnagar, Head of Investment, LYVA Labs:

“LYVA Labs is delighted to back Sam, Martin and Richard in their mission to help reduce the number of people dying from blood cancer by providing the technology to allow more rapid diagnosis which will enable earlier treatment for the condition. We look forward to working with the team and seeing the product come to market over the next 12 months.”

News in Brief

Financial news

* Nasdaq 100 plunged 2.9% in biggest drop since December as trade angst hit chipmakers and because Trump is not a friend of Big Tech.

* Five day outperformance of Russell 2000 vs S&P 500 biggest in US history.

* Gold hit a fresh all-time high (ATH) as hopes for Fed rate cuts grow, and some traders ramped up bets on a second Donald Trump presidency.

* It seems that investors are buying that Trump wants a weak US Dollar. Speculators have increased their bets against the Greenback.

* Speculators have ramped up their bets against long-dated US bonds due to the rising prospects of Trump 2.0.

* ECB's Lagarde: what we do in September is wide open. Current interest rates stay the same. Markets are much clearer in this respect. Market participants are pricing in a further interest rate cut with an 80% probability.

* UK jobs market cools again as wage growth slows. Interest rate cut hangs in balance after ONS figures show annual pay growth eased to 5.7% in three months to May.

* BlackRock is eating the world: world's biggest money manager hits $10.6tn asset record, driven by ETF boost. Total net inflows were $82bn.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* Bitcoin tops $67,000, highest price in over a month. The uptick in Bitcoin’s price comes after a punishing stretch. Earlier this month, it dipped as low as $54,000.

* Former president Donald Trump’s slated appearance at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville this coming week is an especially bullish factor.

* Ethereum and Solana, rose 3.9% and 9.2%, respectively, to $3,500 and $170. Spot Ethereum ETFs are expected to begin trading on Tuesday, 23 July.

* JPMorgan analysts say that any rebound in crypto prices from this point is likely to be tactical — temporary and strategic — rather than the start of a lasting upward trend.

Coffee Break? Read This

* The hidden toll of microstress

* What one piece of advice would you give your younger self?

* Can you prepare for a good menopause? Perhaps start by thinking of it as a ‘second spring’

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #244 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we highlight an excerpt from the interview with the Christina Teo on The Purse Podcast.

Christina is the chief builder of SHE1K, which is the world's first C-suite executive angel syndicate.

We talk about Chris’ successful corporate career, how she immersed herself in the startup community, launching an angel syndicate, important lessons in investing and how more women can engage with their money.

Listen to the full interview here.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

SHE1K: how to launch the world’s first C-suite executive angel syndicate.

We interviewed Christina Teo, founder of SHE1K on The Purse Podcast.

We interviewed Christina Teo on The Purse Podcast.

Christina Teo is the chief builder of SHE1K, which is the world's first C-suite executive angel syndicate. She has built a community of 170 C-suite and senior executives who have invested $6m+ in 30 startups.

We talk about Christina’s successful corporate career, how she immersed herself in the startup community, launching an angel syndicate, important investing lessons and how more women can engage with their money.

Here is a a short excerpt from the interview.

Jana: “…Now you have an angel network and an angel syndicate. I'm curious to hear how you got it off the ground. And how you continue to grow this and fund startups? What's the investment thesis?”

Christina’s response:

“…But after attending that (Slush) event and speaking to female founders…I started to understand what these startups are looking for. And I realised that I had something to offer.

I was already 53 at that time, so it was still a little bit unnerving. I thought: what am I doing here? And will I be always introducing myself as ex-Yahoo! GM, you know? An ex-person who launched the world's first Windows platform; it just didn't resonate with me that way (anymore).

Therefore I said: I need to create something where I pull people to me, instead of me doing ‘push’; I've been a marketeer almost my entire career, so I should know this. So then I Googled women startups, female founders.

I couldn't find a lot of communities; in fact, none at that time in Singapore. So I said, okay, I'm going to start one, right?

So I wanted to get people to talk to me. And it was actually for my own learning, and to make friends, because I came back to nothing. I never really had to organise events myself in my, in my corporate career.

And in those days, we don't even have networking, right? Networking wasn't a thing. And the word community doesn't come up. I wouldn't say I have a smartphone community or an O2 community.

We didn’t have such concepts at that time.

So this community thing was also new to me, and I had been someone who was not social media friendly. Plus, I really don't like talking that much, you would be surprised! A lot of people say, we don't believe it, right?

And so for me to start a community was not something that was just like that. But I did. And then, my first event, I still remember it was January 17, 2017, and it was like bad timing to even have any events at all, straight after New Year's.

But guess what? More than 150 people registered and I had an 80 percent show, no, 90 percent show up rate.

I don't need a lot of things to encourage me, right? That's a good MVP right there! Visualisation again, you know, I'm onto something. And that was it.

So I actually invested a lot of time in understanding the startup ecosystem and putting myself out there and all the people that I was meeting were half my age.

So it's really not the same. It's not the same as in New York today either. In New York today, actually everybody is so open and so friendly. But thinking back to 2017 in Singapore, it was very different.

It’s not the same kind of culture. So I had to really invest a lot of time and energy. And then I staged a lot of events myself.

That gave me an opportunity to know who's who in the industry, right? VCs and successful founders and so on. So I learned the game and all that.

Then after three and a half, four years, I said, this was getting boring…”

Listen to the full interview here.

News in Brief

Financial news

* Betting odds for the Trump presidency rose after photos showed Trump, blood on his face, pumping his fist after an incident at his rally. The incident was triggered by gunshots.

* On Thursday, the Russell 2000 has biggest one day gain since November 2023 and the Nasdaq 100 had the biggest drop since October in 2023.

* US June CPI (inflation) undershoots headline and core, making the case for a September cut even stronger.

* The pound is hovering near a one-year high after stronger-than-expected GDP data, which showed the UK economy returned to growth in May with a 0.4% expansion.

* UK stocks, sterling, bond prices rise as business calls for ‘fresh start’ under Labour.

* Rachel Reeves to announce economic advisory council to boost UK growth.

* UK risks tech ‘talent drain’ to US if pension funds fail to back sector. Nigel Toon, the co-founder and chief executive of Graphcore, said domestic pension funds were giving inadequate support to private businesses in the UK.

* Big Tech is eating the world. Apple once again the undisputed number one. Apple gained 2% after bullish Bloomberg report about the upcoming AI-enabled iPhone sales prospects. Now worth almost $3.6tn, Microsoft number two with $3.5tn ahead of Nvidia with $3.3tn.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* Bitcoin price climbs and meme coins spike after Trump attacked at rally. Plus prediction market bettors think it's helped his campaign.

* Bitcoin ETFs log over $300m in net inflows to reach record level following six-day streak.

* German government's bitcoin selloff may have come to end as wallet emptied. (50,000 bitcoins were seized from the now-defunct film piracy website Movie2K).

* Donald Trump meme coin TREMP has maintained the largest gains, up 71% over the last 24 hours at a price of $0.66. TRUMP is up 39% on Saturday.

* Cypherpunk's new CEO Bets on Blockchain's 'picks and shovels’. This approach, investing in firms like Coinbase, Galaxy Digital, Anchorage, and ConsenSys, could offer a less volatile way to capitalize on the crypto industry's growth.

* SEC drops investigation of Bitcoin L2 Stacks and builder Hiro, filing says. This is another win for the crypto industry in its years-long struggle with the regulator.

* Biden's veto stands: what it means for crypto's regulatory future. The situation also brings to mind the SEC's lawsuit against Telegram in 2020. Both cases reflect the assertive stance of regulatory bodies in ensuring compliance within the crypto industry.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following on our conversation:

* Chris's successful corporate career

* How Chris immersed herself in the startup community

* Launching an angel syndicate

* The investment thesis

* Engaging female angel investors

* How to invest

* Important investment lessons

* And how do we encourage more women to engage with their money?

Please enjoy! Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* The big split: why divorce rates were soaring in 1976

* Angela Rayner’s suit and Victoria Starmer’s secret power: why do I suddenly smell sexism?

* Reducing Labour women to the sum of their outfits is suddenly all the rage

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #243 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Pitchbook’s data on female founders in the US and Europe.

Female-founded startups secured 2% of the total VC capital in 2023, the lowest since 2016. But European female-founded companies with at least one female founder generated a record high proportion of total VC deal value at 20.5% and deal count at 25.8%​.

However, angel investment participation by female investors has declined by almost half in 2023, which has impacted deal flow for female-founded companies​.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Venture capital has been surging, but female founders are not experiencing an uplift

They say that ‘change is not linear’ and female founder capital raising was more challenging in 2023, on average, than in recent years.

This is despite venture capital funding overall surging in recent years.

However, VC funding for female-founded or co-founded companies has been trending up in recent years, and 2023 saw the creation of several women-led funds, incubators for female founders and more new companies.

Here is a summary of the key stats on US/European female founders in 2023 from Pitchbook:

Key Stats:

* Overall VC Funding Trends:

* Female-founded startups secured 2% of the total VC capital in 2023, the lowest since 2016.

* Companies with both male and female founders received 20.7% of the total US VC funding, the highest on record​.

* Mixed-founder companies raised approximately 33% more capital than in 2020 but completed fewer deals​.

* Industry Breakdown:

* Female co-founded startups saw significant funding in sectors like B2B services and pharmaceuticals/biotech, with B2B services accounting for 27% of all capital raised for these startups​.

* Female-only founded startups received notable funding in software, contributing over a fifth of the total capital invested in both female-only and mixed-gender founder groups​.

* Exit Activity:

* Exit activity for female-founded companies declined to its lowest since 2016, although those that did exit accounted for a record 23.3% of total exit activity​.

* The cumulative exit value for female-founded companies decreased by more than one-third year-over-year​.

* Valuations and Deal Counts:

* Pre-money valuations for female-founded companies have increased significantly over the past decade, with three-quarters of all venture rounds in 2023 based on higher valuations than previous rounds​.

* Female-founded companies closed more deals than any pre-pandemic year but recorded the lowest annual deal value since 2017​.

* Regional Insights (Europe):

* European female-founded companies with at least one female founder generated a record high proportion of total VC deal value at 20.5% and deal count at 25.8%​.

* Angel investment participation by female investors has declined by almost half in 2023, impacting deal flow for female-founded companies​.

What next? (Re) listen to The Purse Podcast:

* #114: Male allies, eradicating 'bad behaviour' in VC, investing in female founders and how to build a startup investment portfolio with David Fogel

* #116: Female founders are a better investment and why male investors need to back women with Pierre Rolin

News in Brief

Financial news

* World stocks at fresh record highs, euro hits three-week high ahead of French election run-off

* If it feels like the market has been very well-behaved of late: the last time the S&P 500 lost more than 2% was in December.

* Betting odds for US President Kamala Harris are now higher than for Biden's re-election.

* Latest US jobs numbers show economic momentum keeps cooling: unemployment rate rose to 4.1% from 4.0% due to higher labor participation rate.

* UK stocks, sterling, bond prices rise as business calls for ‘fresh start’ under Labour.

* The rise in the relative size of the US equity market has reflected the dominance of the US economy. But US equity valuations have become stretched, implying US ‘exceptionalism’ is already expected to continue well into the future, Goldman says.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* After ten years, the Mt. Gox bankruptcy’s Bitcoin distributions have officially begun—and the crypto market is spooked.

* On Friday, the price of Bitcoin collapsed as low as $53,898, its lowest price since February, according to CoinGecko. That’s a 27% drop from its all-time high of $73,700 registered in March, and the largest pullback from a local high since the asset’s bottom at $15,500 in November 2022.

* Ethereum has slid way down and closed out the week at $2,989 for an 12% weekly drop.

* Ethereum will soar against Bitcoin after ETF approvals: K33 Research

* Solana down only 4% this week-and is actually up a modest 3% over the past 24 hours. The asset is potentially next to get the digital asset ETF treatment

* Investment firm Multicoin Capital promises to match SOL up to $1m to back crypto friendly candidates.

Coffee Break? Read This

* How a solo retreat helped relight my creative fire

* Sunday with Louise Minchin: ‘I’m an activity addict’

* All the rage: women are furious – and repressing it can ruin our live

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #242 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we highlight a short excerpt from the interview on The Purse Podcast with financial psychiastrist Vicky Reynal.

We talk about how financial psychotherapy can help address money issues, evolving gender roles, money habits, money avoidance, the impact on relationships, crisis points, and how women can engage more with their money. Please enjoy!

Listen to the full interview here.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Financial psychotherapy, evolving gender roles and money habits.

Financial psychotherapist, Vicky Reynal joined us on The Purse Podcast to talk about money, money behaviours, how this impacts our relationships and more.

We interviewed financial psychiatrist, Vicky Reynal on The Purse Podcast.

Vicky runs a London-based private practice that specialises in financial psychotherapy.She is the author of Money on your Mind: the Psychology behind your Financial Habits, which recently won Best Book at The Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards.

With a dual background in psychology/psychotherapy and an MBA from London Business School, she has worked with people from a range of industries, public sector, and creative professions.

She has years of experience as a psychotherapist in the private and public sectors, including the British NHS and has lived and worked in nine different countries across three continents.

We talk about gender roles and money, childhood influences on money behaviour, money avoidance and crisis points, money dynamics in relationships, therapy sessions about money issues and how women can engage more with their money.

Here is a a short excerpt from the interview:

Jana: “…How are gender roles evolving as a result of women earning more, inheriting more, owning more…?”

Vicky’s response:

..Things are evolving, they are changing, but how much that translates into different dynamics within couples? It's slow.

And I think many women… might have had the arguments with their partner at home around… why does the childcare and household responsibilities still default to her, even though they're both in full time employment?

Despite having similar salaries, I might still see the man managing the investments and assets, and then the woman managing more the household and holiday budgets, for example.

It is not an uncommon scenario, and it's taking time to shift because as humans, we default to what's familiar.

And even if a part of us would rationally not agree with how we're handling things and would rationally think that yes, we should both manage investments and we should both equally contribute we default to what we know.

And that's because many of us grew up in a ‘traditional model’; it is hard to fight against those tendencies and those stereotypes that we carry internally.

In Money On Your Mind, I talk about the paradigm of money equals power, and one couple in particular has gone to couples therapy, and the partner confesses that they feel entitled to less housework because they earn more money.

But I have seen cases in which even when they earn the same or the woman earns even more, she's still burdened with those responsibilities.

And so you can see that at one level, we believe one thing, but at another level, it's hard to apply it.

Jana: “It is hard to apply it. And I can understand how we want to have harmonious relationships… but it becomes difficult if you really want…(something) to change and the other partner won't let you…”

Vicky’s response:

But I've heard many times women say: ‘oh, but you know, he takes charge of it. He doesn't let me do anything’.

And I think in order to shift dynamics, we need to take some responsibility for are half of it, are half of the dynamic.

And sometimes I challenge that a little and I say": well, when was the last time you asked to do more, or you took some initiative, or even tried, or even simply just brought it up that you think it should be balanced differently and you want to learn how to manage the investments”.

And the answer is, often not.

Often we sit comfortably and that dynamic on the one hand and then maybe complain about it on the other hand, but we haven't really taken the steps to allow it to shift.

Jana: “Right we haven't really done the work. So for example, I love this idea of a ‘money date’ with your partner and maybe suggesting a money date once a week initially..and you can decide what you cover… that's a positive step, isn't it?”

Listen to the full interview here.

News in Brief

Financial news

* Japan's Yen weakens beyond 160 per dollar, the weakest level since 1986. A weaker yen squeezes households by increasing import costs.

* Financial markets at risk of 'sharp correction', warns Bank of England. In its latest financial stability report, the BoE says that high inflation, or geopolitical risks, could trigger a selloff.

* Global wave of elections could hit UK financial system, warns Bank of England. Central bank raises concerns over newly elected governments as more than 80 countries go to polls this year.

* The assets in Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF have shrunk by $22.2bn. Just ~$11bn came from cumulative outflows, the rest from price losses.

* The descent is as fast as the ascent: Nvidia is now only number 3 and again worth less than $3tn.

* Amazon enters elite $2tn club as AI optimism fuels rally. Amazon up ~27% this year, driven by improving growth trends as AI re-accelerates its cloud-computing business. The milestone puts Amazon into an exclusive club of comps worth $2tn or more: Alphabet crossed the level in April, while Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple are all worth north of $3tn.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* Bitcoin plunges 5%+ as funds see most outflows over 2 weeks since ETF approval. Bitcoin investment products saw ~$600m in outflows for a second consecutive week. It is currently trading at $60,890.

* Ethereum has dropped 3%+ over the past week, it is currently trading at $3,365.

* Solana leaped by an impressive 6% this week to over $142 thanks to VanEck pitching the first-ever application for a U.S.-based Solana ETF. It’s a prevalent bullish thesis for altcoin investors, eager for a taste of the Wall Street inflows that Bitcoin ETFs enjoyed earlier this year. And 21Shares followed up with its own Solana ETF filing on Friday, continuing the buzz.

* Alternative runner-up smart contract platforms including Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX) and Polkadot (DOT) also rose approximately 5.5%, 11%, and 7% respectively.

* The Telegram-linked Toncoin (TON) recovered some of its gains from earlier this month following a steep correction last week, rising over 5% in the last seven days. It has now successfully eclipsed Dogecoin as the 9th largest crypto by market cap.

* Kaspa (KAS)—a top 25 crypto by market cap exploded 23% this week after Marathon Digital announced that it was mining the cryptocurrency.

* Blast (BLAST) was a major focus for traders this week, as the token tied to the Ethereum layer-2 network finally launched alongside a sizeable airdrop that put $354 million into the wallets of users.

* The Solana-based Joe Biden “Jeo Boden” (BODEN) token plummetted 52% in a single day whilst Donald Trump’s, “Doland Tremp” (TREMP) token plunge late Thursday into Friday—though it's still up 13% on the week.

* SEC returns S-1 forms to Ethereum ETF issuers, with at least one more round to go. ETH ETF go-live expected on 4 July.

* On Thursday, Coinbase sued the SEC agency and the FDIC over its handling of FOIA information requests.

* On Friday the SEC sued MetaMask-maker Consensys over the $250m in fees it's collected.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following on our conversation:

* What is financial psychotherapy

* Gender roles and money

* Generational differences in women's financial behaviour

* Childhood influences on money habits

* Money avoidance and crisis points

* Money behaviours and self-sabotage

* Money dynamics in relationships

* Therapy sessions and overcoming financial issues

* How women can engage more with their money

Please enjoy! Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* 6 ways to give that aren’t about money

* Geriatric millionaires: why boomers keep getting wealthier

* My husband died, and now I can’t access our savings or sell our house

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #241 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we share a short excerpt from the interview with Adeo Ressi, CEO of Decile Group, on The Purse Podcast.

Adeo is revolutionising global entrepreneurship and venture capital (VC). As CEO of Decile Group, he helped launch nearly 50% of all new VC firms worldwide in 2023, and he serves as Chairman and Co-Founder of the Founder Institute, which runs startup accelerators in over 300 cities worldwide and has over 7,000 portfolio companies.

We talk about ethical investing, backing female and diverse founders, the changing landscape of VC and startups, the impact of AI on humanity, Adeo’s investment thesis and more+

Listen to the full interview on The Purse Podcast.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Investing in ethical managers to address the world’s most pressing problems

We interviewed Adeo Ressi, CEO of Decile Group on The Purse Podcast.

We interviewed Adeo Ressi on The Purse Podcast.

Adeo Ressi is revolutionising global entrepreneurship and venture capital. As CEO of Decile Group, he helped launch nearly 50% of all new VC firms worldwide in 2023, and Adeo serves as Chairman and Co-Founder of the Founder Institute, which runs startup accelerators in over 300 cities worldwide and has over 7,000 portfolio companies.

He is committed to solving the world's problems by having visionary limited partners back ethical investors to fund pioneering entrepreneurs. Adeo previously served on the Board of the X PRIZE, created the original SAFE note, drafted the Mensarius Oath for ethical investing, and founded companies with over $2bn in exits.

Here is a a short excerpt from the interview:

Jana: “… can you share how your experience as an entrepreneur has shaped your approach and how you support emerging fund managers and founders…”

Adeo response:

Yeah, I think, actually a lot of people say there are two sides of the table, but there's actually three sides of the table.

There's the investors in funds that are called Limited Partners (LPs). They're the people that run the funds that are either Managing Partners or General Partners or different terms. And then of course they're founders. So there's actually three sides of the table and I am now on all three sides of the table.

I have a company, so I'm an entrepreneur. I am an investor as an angel, and I do some venture investing as well, and I'm an LP.

And that holistic view really changes your perspective on the innovation ecosystems worldwide, right? Because what we need to fix the world right now are visionary LPs that really care about things.

Right, we can't just invest in stuff because it's gonna sound cool or maybe makes a lot of money, we need people at the top which are the LPs who are visionary and care about things.

And they need to back ethical managers, ethical Managing Partners, ethical General Partners: they're not investing again only to make money, but they're investing with purpose, with passion.

They care, they want to do things the right way. They don't want to treat founders wrong. They don't want to treat female founders wrong. They want to treat everyone with dignity and respect that they deserve.

And then last but not least, all the way down, you need entrepreneurs that are passionate about problems that are going to make the world a better place.

And if we can line those three things up, then we can really make a dent in fixing some of the fundamental problems that the world is facing today. Because this is a kind of all hands on deck moment for humanity right and we need entrepreneurs that care, we need investors that care, and we need capital sources that care and that alignment is what's gonna change things.

So you know my experiences as an entrepreneur allows me to see all three sides of that equation and see how important alignment between all the stakeholders are, in order to move humanity forward….

Listen here to the full interview.

News in Brief

Financial news

* S&P 500 hit its 30th record this year, defying concerns about high valuations & narrow breadth that could make the market more vulnerable to surprises.

* The 10 largest stocks in the S&P 500 now account for 37% of the market’s total capitalization, far exceeding the prior peak of 26% in 1999.

* Citi downgrades Europe stocks on political turmoil, upgrades US after Stoxx600 underperformed most since the 2023 banking turmoil. Strategists cite political risks as they lower Europe view.

* To put things into perspective: the US currently has a total debt of $34.7tn, $24.9tn is marketable to the public.

* Sterling is weakening on the foreign exchange markets, as traders anticipate that the Bank of England may cut interest rates in August.

* UK inflation falls to 2%: Rachel Reeves warns cost of living crisis is not over, as inflation hits official target for first time in three years.

* Nvidia now accounts for almost 6% of the total US market capitalisation. And Nvidia is now worth more than the entire stock market in France or the UK.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* CryptoQuant noted that the broader crypto market is starting to lose momentum due to a lack of new investor demand.

* Bitcoin chopping sideways below $64,500, notching another 2.6% loss in the last seven days.

* Most momentum-based meme coins like PEPE, DOGE, SHIB, and WIF are all down 5%, 9%, 13%, and 25%, respectively, on the week.

* Bitcoin will soar thanks to failing Japanese banks, says Arthur Hayes. Freshly printed U.S. dollars will be needed, so “buy the fucking dip,” he urges.

* MicroStrategy bought another $786m in BTC this week. Michael Saylor’s software firm purchased another huge sum of Bitcoin, widening its lead as the top corporate holder.

* Spot Ethereum ETF issuers post fee and seed investment disclosures in latest wave of amended filings. The ETH ETF products are expected to launch by July 2. 

* Pantera Capital is raising funds for second TON token investment. The form notes that the minimum investment per backer is $250,000. The firm is currently also raising a $1 billion new crypto Fund V to invest in venture equity, early-stage tokens, special opportunities and liquid tokens.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following on our conversation:

* What is ethical investing

* Backing female and diverse founders

* The changing landscape of VC and startups

* The impact of AI on humanity

* Adeo Ressi’s investment thesis

* How to encourage more women to invest in the startup ecosystem.

Please enjoy! Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* 6 Common Leadership Styles — and how to decide which to use when

* No dating apps, no dates, no exes, no hookups: what’s driving the ‘boy sober’ trend?

* We should embrace our inner goddess – but let’s not create another test for women to fail

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #240 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we highlight the top paid women CEOs in the S&P 500, but only 25 women are included in the list, and men continue to significantly out earn women at the most senior level.

Even though studies show women outperform in 17 out of 19 leadership skills, they are up against gender bias and discouraging trends including the “glass cliff’.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Top paid women CEOs, women in leadership and the “glass cliff”

Out of 341 CEOs included in the AP’s annual compensation survey, only 25 are women in the S&P 500, as per The Associated Press.

Shocking, right?

But this is the highest number of women making the list since the AP survey began in 2011. The second highest tally of women CEOs was in 2017 ie 7 years ago.

This includes CEOs at S&P 500 companies who have served at least two fiscal years at their companies, which filed proxy statements between Jan. 1 and April 30, 2024.

However, overall trends are discouraging. And according to Christy Glass, a professor of sociology at Utah State University:

“We’ll see a year where there’s kind of a banner year of women CEOs,” she said. ”But then a year or two down the road, we’ll see a significant turnover.”

The median pay package for female CEOs rose 21% to $17.6m. That’s better than the men fared whose median pay package rose 12% to $16.3m.

However, the highest paid men still make far more than the highest paid women.

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan raked in $161.8m — the vast majority of that in stock awards.

In contrast, Lisa Su, CEO and chair of the board of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, was the highest paid female CEO in the AP survey, with a total compensation worth $30.3m.

The others in the top five highest paid female CEOs include:

* Mary Barra: General Motors-

* total compensation of $27.8m

* Jane Fraser: Citigroup

* total compensation $25.5m

* Kathy Warden: Northrop Grumman Corp.

* total compensation $23.5m

* Carol Tome: UPS Inc.,

* total compensation $23.4m

Gender bias is embedded in the cultural and social fabric of our society.

And women are up against systemic bias in the workplace, which only becomes more pronounced the higher up you go.

The gender pay gap is therefore significant at the C-suite level.

Women in leadership and the “Glass Cliff”

In the first quarter of 2024, CEO appointments and departures worldwide reached a record high.

There were 52 departures and 68 new appointments among corporations listed on global stock markets such as the FTSE 100 and S&P 500.

But women CEOs are 4x as likely to leave their position in under a year.

That's 24% of women CEOs leave within a year, compared to 10% of men.(Data from Russell Reynolds Associates).Here's why:-Studies show that companies in turmoil are more likely to appoint women to leadership roles. This represents far more 'risk of failure' for women CEOs.

-The board usually signals 'change' and 'transformation' to investors by hiring a woman CEO. But male CEOs are not labelled with the same. (LSE research)

- Women face harsher scrutiny and criticism, with less support. Especially during a market downturn.

-A board which lacks gender diversity, will flip back to 'what they know' and 'what they are comfortable with' ie a male CEO.

-Women's authority is more likely to be undermined, because she challenges gender stereotypes. See "The Authority Gap" by Mary Ann Sieghart.

-Senior level women are leaving due to micro-aggressions, promotion gaps and 'the burden of overseeing diversity and inclusion programmes'. (Leanin & McKinsey research).

However, studies show women outperform in 17 out of 19 leadership skills, leading to better team retention and build better company culture.

This leads to greater profit. Women are good for business.

What next? (Re) listen to The Purse Podcast interview:

* #119: Pink Chip Index: challenging investor bias against female CEOs with Grace O'Brien and Sam Rowlands

* #120: The double X economy, the cost of sexism and what to do about it with Professor Linda Scott

News in Brief

Financial news

* Big Tech is eating the world: the outperformance of Nasdaq 100 vs Nasdaq 100 Equal Weight burst higher again extending a remarkable trend.

* The US labour market looks completely schizophrenic. While the Establishment survey by BLS reports 272,000 new jobs for May, the Household survey shows a large drop in the number of employed, down 408,000 jobs.

* ECB cuts rates by 25bps as expected despite higher inflation projections for 2024 and 2025. Main rate now at 4.25%

* Halifax’s latest house price index, just released, shows that average prices were little changed month-on-month in May. The average house prices slipped to £288,688 last month, a 0.1% drop compared to £288,862 in April.

* Roaring Kitty’ YouTube livestream fails to lift GameStop stock as shares tank by ~40%. Gamestop had announced before the livestream to dump 75m shares into the recent meme mania, just days after completing a 45m share offering.

* Nvidia becomes third member of $3tn market value club as AI rally steams ahead. Stock rallied 147% this year, adding about $1.8tn. Chip giant passed Apple in market cap, is now 2nd most valuable public company.

* To put things into perspective: the market cap per employee of Nvidia has hit almost $100,000,000.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other top cryptocurrencies plunged in price suddenly Friday afternoon, yielding a still-growing pile of liquidations that includes almost $300m worth of long positions.

* Bitcoin dipped from a price above $71,000 to under $69,000 in a matter of about 40 minutes, while Ethereum plunged from $3,800 to under $3,650. Both coins are starting to rebound.

* Looks like Bitcoin is a potential beneficiary of Trump. Trump has been very pro-crypto in recent months.

* Friday: the Solana-based BONK had fallen 9% over the past hour to $0.00002745, showing a 16.7% decrease in price over the past day. Dogwifhat and the Ethereum-based Pepe had each fallen 13% during that same span.

* The Bitcoin-based BRC-20 token ORDI had increased 1.7% over the past day, while the decentralized storage protocol Filecoin’s native token had increased around 1% to $6.03.

* Arthur Hayes says crypto bull market is 'reawakening' amid BOC and ECB rate cuts.

* Silicon Valley courts Trump in latest crypto campaigning push: report. Trump raised $12m from a San Francisco fundraiser that saw prominent crypto leaders in attendance.

* Arbitrum DAO votes to approve $215m gaming ecosystem fund proposed by Arbitrum Foundation.

Coffee Break? Read This

* No equality for working women in any country in the world, study reveals

* Power, patriarchy, victimhood, denial: three experts on why men hurt women

* I got married knowing I didn’t want children, and that my husband felt the same. Then he had a change of heart

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #239 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we focus on Melinda French Gates’ announcement on Tuesday that she will be donating $1bn to women and girls over the next 2 years.

We highlight why this is important and how Melinda has decided to allocate the money over a two year period.

(Re) listen to The Purse Podcast interview with Nicole Sykes, who leads Pro Bono Economics' communications and influencing work in the UK. We discuss how women and women with wealth are reshaping the charity sector.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Melinda French Gates is backing women and girls by donating $1bn

On Tuesday, Melinda French Gates announced that she would be leaving as Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which she co-founded almost 25 years ago.

And she embarks on a new chapter in her philanthropy: to donate $1bn in new spending to women and girls over two years, as per her opinion piece in The New York Times.

This is the second billion-dollar commitment Melinda has personally made in the past five years.

Why focus on women and girls?

Because ‘the second the global agenda gets crowded, women and girls fall off’. And Melinda has been a gender advocate for nearly 20 years.

***

Melinda follows on the heels of billionaire philanthropist, MacKenzie Scott, who has donated $16.5bn since her 2019 divorce from Amazon's Jeff Bezos. And this year has more than doubled her previously planned donations for the year to $640m.

Why is Melinda donating $1bn to women and girls?

* In the US, only about 2% of charitable giving in the United States goes to organisations focused on women and girls. And only about 0.5% goes to organisations focused on women of colour.

* Decades of research on economics, well-being and governance make it clear that investing in women and girls benefits everyone.

* Economies with women’s full participation leads to GDP growth and economic resilience.

* Women’s political participation leads to decreased corruption

* Reducing the time women spend in poor health could add $1tn to the global economy by 2040.

* And yet, around the world ‘women are seeing a tremendous upsurge in political violence and other threats to their safety.’ And in ‘many low-income countries.. the number of acutely malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women is soaring’.

* ‘In the US, maternal mortality rates continue to be very high, with Black and Native American mothers at highest risk. Women in 14 states have lost the right to terminate a pregnancy under almost any circumstances. The US remains the only advanced economy without any form of national paid family leave.’ And teenage girls’ mental health is under threat.

This is how Melinda’s $1bn donation will be allocated:

* $240m will be devoted to partnerships with a diverse group of 12 global leaders.

* Each leader will be provided with a $20m fund to distribute to charitable organisations they consider to be doing urgent, impactful and innovative work to improve women’s health and well-being in the US and around the world.

* $250m will be awarded through an open call, launching later this year, with Lever for Change to identify organisations working to improve women’s mental health and physical health worldwide.

* $200m in grants aimed at supercharging the work of organisations that are fighting the US to advance women’s power and protect their rights.

Overall, Melinda has received $12bn from Bill Gates for her philanthropy.

Teresa Younger, the president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, who also received a grant, has said:

"If philanthropy took lessons from the way that women are moving money, we would see more money in the field having greater impact..”

What next? (Re) listen to The Purse Podcast interview:

* #109: How more wealth in the hands of women will reshape the charity sector with Nicole Sykes

News in Brief

Financial news

* Hang Seng Tech Index, the benchmark for Chinese tech stocks listed in Hong Kong, down 10% from May high, entering correction territory.

* China’s economic miracle is ending, leaving President Xi Jinping with a challenge none of his predecessors faced: how to govern after the boom.

* On Friday, software stock prices dropped: iShares Tech Software Sector ETF finished -5.8% (biggest daily drop since the pandemic with Salesforce down 20% (worst session in ~20 years), UiPath -35%, Okta -6%, Mongo DB -24%.

* US liquidity has increased for the third week in a row. This also explains the recent winning streak on the Nasdaq 100 and the crypto rally.

* US Q1 GDP growth was slower on soft consumer spending. The US economy expanded at 1.3% pace versus initial estimate of 1.6%. Consumer spending was lower on outlays for goods like autos.

* Eurozone's inflation rose faster than expected in May ahead of ECB meeting. Overall CPI accelerated to 2.6% in May year-on-year, up from April's 2.4%. Even worse: downtrend in core inflation reversed with core CPI ticked up to 2.9% in May from 2.7% in April.

* UK house prices return to growth as market ‘shows signs of resilience’.

Rate more than doubles to 1.3% in May and average property price rises to £264,249, Nationwide says.

* Nvidia is now worth $2.8tn after the recent rally, a whole $300bn more than the German stock market. (Nvidia rises to $1,000+ per share in all-high following blowout numbers and 10:1 stock split announcement).

* To put things into perspective: the bulk of the S&P 500 performance came from the 5 tech heavyweights Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia. The tech combo gained 27% YTD.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* The price of Bitcoin broke above $70,000 on Monday but is now trading for $68,000+.

* It looks like bitcoin is a potential beneficiary of Trump. Trump has been very pro-crypto in recent months.

* In a historic first, Donald Trump is now the first U.S. President to ever accept Bitcoin Lightning Network payments.

* Ether turned positive, gained 0.3% after SEC approves 8 #Ethereum ETFs including BlackRock and Fidelity. But ETF issuers must have their S-1 registration statements go effective before trading can begin. It's unclear how long this process will take but some analysts are speculating that it could take weeks.

* Ethereum's price currently stands at $3,810 according to CoinGecko. Analysts did say that the coin was due a bull run soon, though.

* President Biden vetoes pro-crypto resolution, defends SEC's judgement. The White House said the bipartisan-passed bill would “jeopardise the well-being of consumers and investors.”

* Trump ethereum meme coin price hits new high after post-verdict dip. The token's price has nearly doubled over the last week, up more than 84% during that span and pushing its 30-day gains to 274% as of this writing.

* Sahil Arora, a promoter who works with celebrities to launch crypto projects, launched a meme token with Caitlyn Jenner. The Solana-based project sent crypto Twitter into meltdown on its launch. The token, JENNER, has since plunged and is trading at a big loss since its launch.

* This helped drive up other meme coins including Dogwifhat and FLOKI are both big winners this week, having surged by 15% and 14%, respectively.

* Crypto exchange Gemini said Wednesday that it will pay out over $2bn worth of digital assets to customers of its Earn lending program.

Coffee Break? Read This

* Dame Shirley Conran obituary

* Women paying up to £8,000 for private midwives amid frustration at NHS care

* ‘I just want to be equal’: female angler takes on elite men-only flyfishing club

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

The Purse Ltd. Copyright 2024 & All Rights Reserved

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jointhepurse.substack.com

Welcome to our #238 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we highlight a short excerpt from the interview with Professor Linda Scott on The Purse Podcast.

Linda Scott is Emeritus DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Oxford, as well as a visiting professor at Brown University where she teaches gender and economics. 

We talk about sexism, the gender pay gap, the UK Equality Act, women in leadership, male allies, female entrepreneurship, why women stabilise economies and how do we put a stop to sexism?

Listen to the full interview on The Purse Podcast.

***

And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

The Double X Economy and the cost of sexism

We interviewed Professor Linda Scott on The Purse Podcast: we talk about the Double X Economy, sexism, women in leadership, male allies, women in entrepreneurship and why women stabilise economic growth.

We interviewed Professor Linda Scott on The Purse Podcast.

Linda Scott is Emeritus DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Oxford, as well as a visiting professor at Brown University where she teaches gender and economics. 

She is the author of The Double X Economy, a 2020 book that deeply documents the worldwide and historical pattern of women’s economic exclusion and makes a passionate argument for the economic and humanitarian reasons to eliminate this destructive inequality. 

Recognised as an outstanding work of science and economics, the book has been translated into 14 languages. Scott continues her work as a gender consultant for a wide range of major world institutions, such as USAID and the World Bank.

Here is a a short excerpt from the interview:

Jana: “…And I think women reach a point where they think, you know what? I'm just going to start my business. I'm fed up of this. I'm going to do things my way. I'd rather take a 50 percent pay cut, start my own business, get away from all the nasty sexism, politics, what have you, but be in control of my destiny, then hang on within this very toxic culture….”

Linda’s reponse:

Right. I think in the research they don't ever ask that question, but it is my opinion that that is the primary driving factor.

Women do show entirely different reasons than men do. Or substantially different reasons than men do for starting a business I think. And I can completely understand why women want to do that.

However, I teach a course on gender economics and entrepreneurship at Brown University and have done that for quite a while. And.. I saved the entrepreneurship until almost the end of the class. And the reason I tell them on the first day is all the sexism, economic sexism, we're going to learn throughout the course of this term is going to come home to roost every bit of it when we get to entrepreneurship.

… You not only get discrimination in terms of investment, discrimination in terms of customers, in terms of suppliers, you still have to deal with sexism in your own workplace. And it's very, very high risk for anyone, male or female.

Now nations really need for women to start more businesses. (The) UK being very much in that category.

And so, it does have a very, very negative impact on economies because it very much retards growth, but also when they innovate, they tend to innovate more to the market.

And, mind you, then the number one reason why startups fail is because the market doesn't want whatever it is.

 But women are more likely to innovate in a way that their thing is they look to the market and they say this fits in the market, right?

And so there it's a very different kind of fit. And they're more realistic about, both the upsides and the downsides of entrepreneurship and investment than men are.

So we do, we go more to a high risk strategy- intrinsically, when we go always after the male model of entrepreneurship, if we include in a dignified way, the way women run those startups.

…It's much more stable way for an economy to be built.

It also is the case that because of the variety of innovation that women bring to entrepreneurship.

 The IMF shows that, economies as a whole are much more resilient in a downturn if they have a good base of female owned businesses.

And the thing is about the women and senior leadership, there's also a lot of research there to show that product performance, financial performance, all kinds of things are, better when you have mixed teams.

But it's also true that accountability and transparency is better.

Risk management is better if you have mixed teams.

And I don't think this is because women are, somehow being more noble…They are more attuned to the long term, they're more attuned to the environment, social damage, things like that.

But it's really because you have the mix, right?

Because the men bring something that's valuable.

Sometimes you have to take risks, right?

So the men bring something that's valuable, but the combination of them kind of brings some fresh air in, let some sunshine in, makes people do their due diligence with more emphasis.

And so I think that's why. You know, as a whole businesses do better and societies do better where those are more balanced…”

Listen to the full interview here on The Purse Podcast.

News in Brief

Financial news

* China’s economic miracle is ending, leaving President Xi Jinping w/a challenge none of his predecessors faced: how to govern after the boom

* US liquidity has increased for the third week in a row. This also explains the recent winning streak on the Nasdaq 100 and the crypto rally.

* US 2 year yields jump as Fed minutes show higher rates still on table.

* Pound surges as summer rate cut hopes vanish. Traders have drastically reduced bets that the Bank of England could begin cutting interest rates over the summer after inflation figures came in higher than expected in April.

* UK inflation falls by less than expected to 2.3%, reducing chance of June rate cut. Drop in April is smaller than forecast but level is still lowest in almost three years.

* UK house prices in first annual rise since June; rents up 8.9%. Average home prices climbed by 1.8% in March, the first annual increase since last June, according to the Office for National Statistics.

* Solar stocks are rallying, with a boost from China. China's Solar Industry Group calls on members to crack down on low-price competition to stop a price war. Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) jumped almost 9%.

* Nvidia rises $1,000+ per share in All-time high following blowout numbers and 10:1 stock split announcement.

Crypto: bitcoin, ethereum, DeFi

* ETH ETF is approved by the SEC. Ether turned positive, is now trading for $3,792, a more than 20%+ seven-day jump. after SEC approves 8 Ethereum ETFs including BlackRock and Fidelity. But ETF issuers must have their S-1 registration statements go effective before trading can begin. It is unclear how long this process will take but some analysts are speculating that it could take weeks.

* Analysts at Standard Chartered predict a surge in Ether prices to $8,000 by the end of 2024 if an ETF is approved.

* Bitcoin rode off the back of the ETH approval rumours on Monday and passed the $70,000 mark for the first time in more than a month.

* Number of new Bitcoin wallets drops to lowest level since 2018. Only an average of 275,000 addresses were added to Bitcoin network each day in the past week, compared to 625,000 6 months ago. Bitcoin nevertheless rises by 2% in the ‘Everything rally’ to ~$67.5k.

* Other coins and tokens have risen over the past week, with Chainlink, Avalanche, and Bitcoin Cash making gains of 4.8%, 3.1%, and 3% respectively.

* Dogecoin is the best-performer out of the top assets, having jumped by 7% in one week.

* Yuga Labs will 'no longer touch' CryptoPunks amid new collection backlash. ‘Super Punk World’ is a 500-piece collection developed in collaboration with artist Nina Chanel Abney, who has been criticised for ‘diluting’ the CryptoPunks brand.

The Purse Podcast

We cover the following in this conversation with Professor Linda Scott:

* What is sexism?

* UK: The Equality Act -how effective is it?

* Financial services industry: the 'Sexism in the City' report

* How sexism shows up for women:

* the gender pay gap, the motherhood penalty, women in leadership and as women entrepreneurs

* Men becoming allies

* Startups: female founders vs male founders.

* Investing in AI vs fixing organisations for women

* Economies grow by investing in women.

Please listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify+

Coffee Break? Read This

* I feel the strongest I’ve ever been. Menopause hasn’t slowed me down

* Meryl Streep: it’s ‘hardest thing’ for men to see themselves in female characters

* I stopped chasing the Hollywood vision of female friendship – and embraced the person I am.

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with Jana via the The Purse website or tweet @jointhepurse and janicka. We do no provide investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a financial adviser.

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