IFundWomen Entrepreneur of the Year: More funding for women entrepreneurs in 2022
At IFundWomen, we are on a mission to close the funding gap, which is why we are thrilled to announce the return of our biggest funding program, IFundWomen Entrepreneur of the Year.
That’s right! We are back again to reward and celebrate extraordinary women entrepreneurs in 2022 who have proven product-market fit, driven growth, and demonstrated a meaningful impact through their businesses!
In 2021, we launched our first-ever IFundWomen Entrepreneur of the Year Program to provide unprecedented access to capital—which 72% of women entrepreneurs site as their greatest hurdle to launching and growing their businesses. We also took our support for women founders to the next level by making our first equity investment as a company.
Here’s what set’s this funding opportunity apart from the rest: IFundWomen’s Founder & CEO, Karen Cahn, along with our founding team, built this program because they know first hand how hard it is to raise, and—more importantly—how much easier it would have been to achieve profitability if there had been a more efficient path to equity funding. As an “all-women-founded team”, they didn’t have the luxury of getting hooked up by their VC buddies with a $1M seed check because they had a dope idea and a cool pitch deck. Herein lies the problem that IFundWomen has set out to solve and in true IFundWomen fashion, we didn’t just talk about it, we did something about it.
Among the nearly 3,000 women founders that applied for the 2021 program, 36 outstanding entrepreneurs were selected to receive one-year of coaching services from IFundWomen and were given the opportunity to pitch their business in front of an all-star lineup of judges—and they did so, flawlessly.
Our 2021 program culminated with a celebratory live event hosted on Women’s Entrepreneurship Day where, out of those 36 semifinalists, six business category honorees were selected to receive a surprise $20K equity investment. One entrepreneur was named IFundWomen Entrepreneur of the Year and awarded a $100K equity investment into their business. We are so proud to look back at our inaugural IFWEOY program and the hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding and coaching resources that were provided to these groundbreaking women entrepreneurs.
They say you can’t be it if you can’t see it, so meet our 2021 IFundWomen Entrepreneur of the Year and Category Honorees:
IFUNDWOMEN ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR 2021
Arion Long, Founder, Femly
After experiencing a cancer-scare and learning that 80% of women lack feminine care access at some point in their lives, Arion launched Femly. Femly is a hi-tech feminine care company that increases access to healthier personal care alternatives. In 2018, they launched their first line of pads and panty liners made with 100% certified organic cotton that's grown sustainably in the United States.
2021 CATEGORY HONOREE, ART, MEDIA, & ENTERTAINMENT
Keely Cat-Wells, Founder, C Talent
C Talent represents high-profile Deaf and Disabled artists, athletes, and influencers globally with the goal of normalizing disabled people being experts in subjects beyond disability. C Talent also provides disability and accessibility consulting for the entertainment industry and Fortune 500 companies.
2021 CATEGORY HONOREE, LIFESTYLE
Kim Roxie, Founder, Lamik Beauty
LAMIK Beauty is a tech-enabled clean color cosmetics company focusing on women of all diverse backgrounds. They have created an entire makeup line made with safe ingredients that fit every different skin tone. They have developed software with partner Algoface, that allows customers to virtually try on makeup for shade matching and best recommendations.
2021 CATEGORY HONOREE, STEM
Kristina Jones, Founder, Guardian Lane
Kristina Jones a 2x tech founder built Guardian Lane, the first on-demand content platform for children's counseling to help the 14.3 million children affected by adverse childhood experiences. Guardian Lane sources counselors and therapists from across the country to create content children, families, schools and hospitals can use the moment they need it.
2021 CATEGORY HONOREE, FOOD & BEVERAGE
Amy Hsiao, Founder, Kitsy
Kitsby is a baking kit company, with an Asian-inspired dessert bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Their kits and mixes are sold on their website, with a selection of original recipes for desserts that are more adventurous than your typical brownie, with Kitsby, you can make cookies and cream puffs, matcha brownies, maple bacon pecan praline cookies, and more!
2021 CATEGORY HONOREE, SOCIAL GOOD
Wanona Satcher, Founder, Makhers Studio
Makhers Studio is a green manufacturing and design-build firm that specializes in modular shipping container real estate, and revitalizes blighted properties into micro-manufacturing facilities. Their impact focus is solving the affordable housing crisis with sustainable construction and providing local workforce opportunities to marginalized communities.
2021 CATEGORY HONOREE, BUSINESS SERVICES
Cheryl Ingram, Founder, Inclusology
Inclusology is the only all-in-one DEI, (diversity, equity, and inclusion) platform on the market. They help companies reduce bias in the workplace and increase employee retention through eLearning, assessments, benchmarking, and strategic planning.
Today at IFundWomen our mission remains the same, and our #1 KPI is still funding for women, which is why we were so proud to announce the launch of our 2022 IFundWomen Entrepreneur of the Year program on International Women’s Day this year. Applications are being accepted now through June 8, 2022, so head over to learn more and apply!