Louisiana is a place with a long history of influential women making their mark on the world. Just consider CJ Walker, the first black woman millionaire in America, who made a fortune selling her homemade hair care products. But the venture capital space has been painfully slow to respond with only 2% of VC funding going to women. Especially with PitchBook’s research showing that “female founders had lower median burn rates, greater valuation growth at the early stage, and lower valuation declines at the late stage compared to all-male founded companies year-over-year.” But there’s no better time than the present to be a woman founder with the rapid rise in female-led unicorn businesses. All signs are positive, showing that women-led startups are trending upwards.
As a venture capital firm in Louisiana, we found it important to highlight a few women founders in the state that are amazingly innovative, raising serious cash, and growing profitable, long-lasting businesses.
Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.
In a cash-strapped world, hosting your perfect wedding has become harder and more expensive to achieve. And with flowers being one of the most expensive wedding costs, an alternative like Something Borrowed Blooms is inevitable. What if you could rent premium silk wedding flowers that are indistinguishable from the real thing and at a fraction of the price? Inspired by Rent the Runway, that’s what Lauren and Laken have accomplished.
Co-founders Lauren and Laken are cousins who grew up very close and even attended UL Lafayette together. Laken’s background in the corporate sector brought 10+ years of marketing and management experience. But she couldn’t do it without her ambitiously creative partner, Lauren, and her background in Public Relations and Image Management. A former teacher turned stay-at-home mom. Both recognized that the wedding industry’s old traditions were ripe for modernization.
Something Borrowed Blooms is a fast-growing startup that lets you rent and return bouquets, boutonnieres, garlands, and more. Their high-quality and on-trend silk, floral arrangements are a fraction of the cost of traditional wedding flowers. The company’s simple e-commerce platform allows any couple the convenience of customizing their wedding bouquet by mixing and matching our choosing a seasonal design package.
Something Borrowed Blooms has recently partnered with David’s Bridal, a brand name synonymous with the wedding industry.
Solo founders do go on to be grossly successful, and you can look at that across the board.
One industry that has traditionally gotten little attention from venture capital is the nonprofit sector, although Resilia is proving that wrong with SaaS technology that’s making it easier for nonprofits to incorporate, gain traction, and scale. All in part due to an ambitious solo founder, Sevetri, who recently made headlines by achieving the largest raise ever for a solo Black female-founded tech company.
Sevetri is driven by the mantra that businesses can be successful and “do good” too. Her determination earned her a full ride to Louisiana State University through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and studied mass communication and history. Prior to Resilia, she ran a consulting form for nonprofits that led her to create a technology company to support them with access to critical resources. Her accomplishments include a National Nobel Prize for Public Service, a 40 under 40 recipient, and Inc Magazine’s “100 Women Building America’s Most Innovative Companies.” Resilia has also been recognized as a Forbes 100 Cloud Rising Stars and Venture Beat’s Companies to Watch Outside of Silicon Valley.
Resilia’s a New Orleans-based SaaS platform with a goal to “modernize philanthropy for nonprofits and funders” by offering solutions to streamline their day-to-day operations. With over 15,000 nonprofit users, they’re making a dent in democratizing philanthropy with supportive resources that help them apply for grants, raise money, train staff, and collaborate.
Innovation is key to everything we do. So to stand out, you definitely have to innovate.
Going up against big pharmaceutical businesses takes guts, determination, and a lot of ingenuity. That’s just what LeAnn and her founding team have done with Southern Scripts, a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company offering customizable solutions that address the rising costs of prescription drugs.
For many entrepreneurs, having industry expertise leads to innovation by having a broader knowledge of how the business works and seeing the possibilities of improvement. LeAnn is a graduate from the University of Louisiana at Monroe where she received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree. She carries nearly two decades of experience in health care, holding previous roles at Beyond Rx, Pharm Assess, Third Party Station, and RXSolutions. This deep industry knowledge in the pharmaceutical space, along with her co-founder’s background in retail pharmacy, has driven her entrepreneurial innovation in the pharmacy benefit management (PBM).
Founded in 2011, Southern Scripts is provides a simple way for employers and employees to access savings through their all-in-one suite of tools. Not only do they offer an innovative solution to lowering prescription costs, but a way to access needed therapies for staff. Plans are customizable, transparent, and tailored to each individual patient at the lowest net cost.
Fall in love with your problem and not your solution.
Laundry is arguably the most hated chore out there. It’s never-ending, and the last thing you want to think about after a long day of adulting. So, what if you could have it done for you (and help another person out!) in a click of a button with an on-demand laundry app? Laurel and her team have done just that with hampr. Their message is simple, you can “lighten the mental load – one load of laundry at a time.”
Not only has Laurel overcome the challenges of being a female founder with raising 7 figures, but she has surpassed most startups by achieving millions in revenue in only 3 years. Prior to hampr, Laurel started her career in public relations at a large PR firm before founding a profitable digital marketing agency in Lafayette. Her background also includes sales and marketing at the Superdome.
Hampr is tackling problem that all of us experience in a $56b industry that’s ripe for disruption. Launched in 202, hampr is a peer-to-peer marketplace that connects you with someone in the area to wash and fold your laundry. By outsourcing your laundry to a person in your local community, you’re also helping another family along the way. It’s a win-win. Hampr has now grown to over 20 members and expanded into 12 states.
This movement that we are fueling can drive companies to better decision making.
Haven’t you ever wondered if you could directly support that businesses that align with your own values and avoid the ones that aren’t socially or environmentally conscious? That’s where Cluey comes in with informing and educating consumers, driving bottom-line results by holding companies accountable for their actions. The goal is to empower consumers to have an influence in a company’s decisions at the point of purchase.
Maryclaire’s a passionate individual that sees the power of conscious consumerism and how it can change the world (or at least change poor business practices!). Before founding Cluey, Maryclaire led AlphaSights carrying out corporate strategy doing due diligence for the research firm. Prior to that, she was a production journalist with CNN and independent reporter for GVH Live covering political topics.
Cluey’s platform allows consumers to search thousands of brands to quickly make values-based shopping decisions. To put your money where your mouth is, so to speak. The company’s searchable database informs users about a particular company’s impacts and suggests alternative brands that might align better based on their core tenements. By empowering the individual, Cluey’s mission is to create a conscious consumer that encourages better business practices.
It’s important to be flexible and adaptable when you’re starting a company.
Who hasn’t had a negative encounter with a landlord? But nothing is worse than moving out and not receiving your deposit back. That’s what Lydia experienced that led to her founding RentCheck, a startup making it easier to document a residential unit and perform property inspections from your phone.
Lydia has an impressive background, receiving an MBA from Tulane University and a JD from the A. B. Freeman School of Business. Their prior experience includes being a founding team member at Glassbreakers (acquired in 2021), overseeing marketing communications at Whistle, and establishing REEP Now, a support and advocacy service for parolees. In 2018, they became the Co-Founder and COO of RentCheck, a Techstars-backed Proptech company based out of New Orleans, Louisiana.
RentCheck is a property inspection tool for renters, landlords, and property managers. By acting as a trusted third-party, RentCheck makes it simple to carry out comprehensive inspections by renters through their smartphones. Images are time stamped, geotagged and stored in the cloud. Landlords and property managers can then view the content, send reminders, and approve the release of a security deposits.
Currently, RentCheck is being used by hundreds of thousands of landlords and tenants.