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Tech Topics In This Article: venture capital, Atlanta pitch competitions
New York-based HearstLab, a firm investing in early-stage, tech-enabled, women-led startups, was in Atlanta this week to hear pitches from five early-stage founders building ecommerce, marketplace, AI, and HealthTech startups during its first Pitch HearstLab event in the city.
The Shark Tank-style competition, hosted at Google Atlanta’s headquarters on Tuesday, ended with HearstLab writing $100,000 investment checks into two companies: Atlanta-based Zinnia and Birmingham-based Croux.
Get To Know The Pitch HearstLab Winners
Birmingham-based Croux is a temporary staffing marketplace that connects trusted talent with flexible work opportunities in the hospitality industry. Co-founder and CEO Jennifer Ryan started the company in 2022 and previously served as a Vice President at Goldman Sachs.
Ryan said the HearstLab investment is “validation that we’re not only doing something meaningful but also game changing.”
The second winner of the night was Atlanta-based Zinnia and its founder and CEO Lauren Goodell. Zinnia is no stranger to Hypepotamus readers, who have followed the startup’s journey into a growing AI co-pilot for sales representatives.
“We’re very excited to work with HearstLab and the entire team because they come with so much industry expertise and work with brands we know Zinnia can help, partner with, and learn from,” said Goodell in a press statement.
Cosmopolitan Magazine profiled all the finalists before the pitch competition, which is a great read for those looking to better understand the early-stage venture journey.
Why It Matters
Despite the growing number of female entrepreneurs across tech industries, female-founded companies continue to struggle to raise venture capital. Such companies accounted for less than 2% of VC funding invested in Europe and the US, per Pitchbook data.
HearstLab is looking to change the statistics through investments and pitch events across the US and Europe. To date, HearstLab has invested in 14 early-stage startups through Pitch HearstLab. It also has over 70 women-led startups in its portfolio which is valued, in aggregate, at over $2.4 billion.
Southeast-based startups in the portfolio include Barn2Door (Nashville), Junum (New Orleans), Narratize (Covington, Kentucky), SecondKeys (Memphis), and SupportPay (Charlotte).
Want In On The Action?
While this pitch competition is done, female founders can apply for HearstLab investment (ranging from $500K to $1M+ checks) throughout the year. Details on how to apply can be found here.
