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📺 Last Friday, Profit News TV welcomed our co-founder, Ruxandra Muys-Stoian , SHRM-SCP, for a discussion revolving around angel investing and the current financial landscape for fundraising.

For those looking to understand more about pressing startup issues, this is an interview you’ll want to tune into (note: interview is in Romanian).

Ruxandra Muys-Stoian , SHRM-SCP clarified the role and nature of an angel investor, highlighting how WIT Angels Club fits into the broader business angels networks.👼

She also unpacked the impact of the current financial crisis on startups eager to raise capital, particularly in Europe and the USA – valuable insights for anyone navigating this challenging terrain.🌐

For Romanian startups looking at US expansion? There’s practical advice in the conversation too. 🇺🇸

We appreciate Ruxandra Muys-Stoian , SHRM-SCP sharing her thoughts and expressing her belief in WIT Angels Club‘s mission to support purposeful tech investments and diverse founders. 🚀

To have access to the recording, please access this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kq1AjmCFjJD25Ub6dKJg73Diz91xerVu/view?usp=share_link

#angelinvesting #financialcrisis #startups #techinvestment

WIT Angels Club is thrilled to announce our investment in Pluria, a diverse & innovative tech startup! 🚀

Pluria is transforming the future of work with their remote & hybrid platform, empowering companies to recruit teams & grow beyond borders.

We’re overjoyed to support the talented founders with impressive business acumen and humbleness, Andrei Cretu and Gabriela Draghia, as their mission aligns with our commitment to empowering diverse ventures & impactful tech.

Delighted to join an international group of investors, Eleven Ventures, Croton Capital, Phoenix Venture Fund LLC, and business angels to support Pluria to scale up, expand globally, and prepare for the next round. 🚀

We are extremely happy to see that our members feel comfortable to starting their angel investing experience within the Club.

For more details about Pluria and this transaction, several interesting links:

https://www.11.vc/our-investment-in-pluria/

https://therecursive.com/pluria-raises-2m-to-let-you-design-your-hybrid-work-journey-an-interview-with-the-founders/

 

 

 

US (December 2022)

On the last days of this year, WIT Angels Club shares Forbes’s predictions for Venture Capital in 2023.

But before talking about what’s ahead, let’s have a look at 2022: “Some people are calling 2022 the year the party ended. Others are calling it the hangover, or even the new normal. What we can all agree on is that 2022 was a year of reckoning for the venture capital (VC) industry”

What changes 2023 will create in the long term for the startup world?

Before reading a bunch of predictions from leading investors, our résumé in a few words:  greater focus on solving big problems that matter, rigorous diligence, bigger bets on women!

#1: A resilient new generation of founders will emerge

“Still-tough market and macro environment of 2022 will produce a generation of founders that are more robust, more strategic, more determined, and far more resilient than those we’ve witnessed in the past decade”, Cherry Ventures

#2: The downturn will push startup founders to build painkillers, not vitamins

“In a recession, the lack of money forces people to be more creative, solve only problems that people are truly willing to pay for (even when budget is tight), and be more frugal, only spending on things that move the needle”, Pear Ventures

#3: Climate tech will emerge as a bright spot in an otherwise rocky environment

“As tech and crypto retrench amidst the economic downturn, climate tech investing will emerge as a relatively predictable safe haven for entrepreneurs, tech refugees, and investors”, Congruent Ventures

#4: We’ll see better investors, less “VC tourists,” and more thorough diligence

“Investors are also going back to basics. Diligence is back, along with appreciation for companies that are building real value, not relying only on future value. Less founders. Less investors. More opportunities. When it is harder, the tourists leave”, Pear Ventures

#5: Bigger bets will be placed on women

“We have no doubt that female founders and female-led funds will prove resilient, and more investors will double down on diversity as the smart play in 2023. Long story short, if you’re not backing women, you’re losing out”, Pivotal Ventures

These are shifts in the VC industry worth celebrating!

Paris, France (October 2022) 

WIT Angels Club attended the event “Women in Investment Day (WinDay)” in Paris, organised by Femmes Business Angels, the largest European community of women business angels.

The panels’ topics underlined the lack of women in investment, the consequences of this situation at a global level and levers to be implemented to address this gap.

Same takeaways to think about:

1. Only 10% of students are women in the software development engineering schools in Europe.
==> maybe this is one of the major reasons why only 1.7% of capital went to women-led start-ups in Europe in 2020?

2. More than 60% of impact start-ups are founded by women or mixed team.
==> Women are more likely to look at and invest in this category of start-ups

3. Unconscious bias: attraction to similarity is a huge problem in the European tech scene, with a major implication: current capital doesn’t support women-led entrepreneurship equally as it supports men-led entrepreneurship.

3. Dare to join the investment ecosystem to sustain women’s presence in #venturecapital, #privateequity, #businessangels communities

4. Invest in your financial education. Less than 10% of European women are capable of actively participate in a financial conversation.

Let’s build our path together in this investment world.

San Francisco, US (November 2022)

Bay Angels organises a pitch event evening on Wednesday the 30th.

Wishing luck to the start-ups presenting their business projects. Tough job for Rux, our WIT Angels Club‘s partner, one of the judges of the event.

Some great start-ups were presented:

Karen Frame – CEO, Makeena
Toby Ricco – Founder, Bimotal
Jess Owens – CEO, Greenlist
Kaitlin Frank – CEO, eMOD
Terra LaRock– CEO & Founder, Mindful Mamas

And some amazing judges,
Naveen Khugputh – Co-founder & COO, Werqwise
Ruxandra Muys-Stoian – Co-founder, WIT Angels Club
Shawn Flynn – Investment Banker & President, Bay Angels

Thank you, Rux, for representing WIT at this Pitch Event.

Paris, France (November 2022)

STATION F, the world’s biggest startup campus based in Paris, is putting impact technology above the rest!

What do they mean by impact? Startups that contribute positively to the planet and its people.

Why impact tech? “Not only have we seen a massive interest in climate over the last few months, we also feel that there is a growing urgency to act now”

WIT Angels Club cannot be happier to see that major players of the international tech scene focus on tech with purpose businesses.

It’s time to act for our planet and for us on both sides: impact entrepreneurs and angel investors supporting these businesses.

Luxembourg (6-7 December 2022)

Diversity is more than gender. However, European Investment Fund (EIF) has tackled one of the major ones, female representation in the investment world, in its two-day event “Empowering Equity” held in Luxembourg.

WIT Angels Club had the chance to participate in and met female fellows from VC, Private Equity and Private Debt European ecosystem. Throughout the inspiring conversations we had, a few takeaways to share:

1/ Angel investors are crucial in nurturing startups in their earliest and most vulnerable stages. They provide a unique package of finance, mentorship, and networks. European angel investment increased by 89.9% from 2020 to 2021, setting a new record with 1,456 Million Euros of investments made last year (source: EBAN Statistics Compendium 2021)

2/ However, the % of women in Europe within the angel investment asset class has been stagnant at about 10% on average over the last decade (source: The Recursive)

3/ Despite the demonstrated higher success rate of women-led startups, these still represent around 1% of the overall capital invested. One of the reasons is that women don’t have equal access to capital and it’s because the venture capital world is usually a men’s world. Only 10-15% of partners in funds are women. But, this is where women angel investors should play a significant role on the tech scene.

4/ Tech with impact is here to stay, as impact is becoming a core ingredient of every investment (finally!)

Bucharest, Cluj, Romania (4 July 2022) ~
People say “it takes a village to raise a child” and this also applies to tech startups. To launch a project and make it skyrocket to the business cosmos, you need to sync up with the market and build a symbiotic relationship – based on trust and capital – with business investors.

Do you know what role angel investors play? Their purpose is to guide and support. Like a godfather, they offer answers during challenging times and help shape ideas into projects with early-stage financial aid.

The Recursive dived into the Romanian market to see which cities host the most angel investors and what niches or solutions are they interested in. Some investors are active in Romania, others keep a global reach; while a few Romanians living abroad are giving back to the local ecosystem.

Rux is an active angel investor of the Diaspora. For more details, click here

Bucharest, Romania (5 May 2022) ~
“Helping women to build confidence in making investments and to gain financial independence are the most important outcomes for me,” angel investor Ruxandra Muys-Stoian, a Romanian living in Silicon Valley, shares with us.

She is the co-founder of the Bucharest-based Women Invest in Tech (WIT) Angels Club, launched last year along with her partner, Andreea Saia. The community aims to grow to over 50+ female investors in its first year. Their thesis is tech with purpose and their first €100K investment has been in Romanian MedTech speech app VoxiKids, with plans to make a couple of similar investments by the end of 2022.

Ruxandra Muys-Stoian has a background in public health and health services management, but in the early 90s, she had the opportunity to change tactics as she frankly puts it. After her medical studies, the business world was opened to her.

What motivated you to launch the Women Invest in Tech Angels Club?

Ruxandra Muys-Stoian: I moved to California a couple of months before the start of the pandemic. My professional plans changed, so I decided to focus on investments. I began with the stock market, but soon startups and early-stage investments piqued my interest.

Silicon Valley is a rich place with both opportunities and challenges. I experimented as a relatively timid angel investor. Then, the idea of a club for women interested in becoming angel investors came in a discussion with Andreea Saia. It was triggered by our shared experiences in two areas that are generally seen as male-dominated: technology and investments. I have always felt that when entering a field for the first time, women benefit more from learning and experience with their peers.

For more details, click here