Issue #20 | Wednesday, August 5, 2026
💸 Approximately $1.99B in disclosed startup funding went to 20 companies with one or more verified female founder this week.
The largest raise was 🥇 Antares (Julia DeWahl), securing a $470M Series C to accelerate deployment of nuclear microreactors.
Our ⚡ High Signal Founder is Lainie Yallen of Simile, sharing her personal commentary on her startup’s $200M Series B.
Three new women-led funds were announced this week. The largest was 🥇 Highland Europe (Irena Goldenberg), which closed its €1.1B Fund VI to back European technology scaleups.
This week's 🏆 Athletes on the Cap Table highlights the rebrand of Serena Williams’ venture firm and capital moves by Marell Evans, Kirsten Toth and Kawhi Leonard.
📝 Take notes:
1️⃣ Capital continues concentrating around infrastructure, from nuclear energy and cybersecurity to enterprise AI and preventative healthcare.
2️⃣ Women's health continues to appear week over week as a durable theme— this week surfacing investments in mental health, hormone monitoring, diagnostics, and preventative care.
3️⃣ Athlete investors are building institutions with venture firms, ownership stakes, and founder-backed investment networks.
The signals in this digest come from a variety of credible sources. If you have a tip, opp, data point, or story you would like to include, please send it to [email protected].
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Amie
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Amie Sheridan | Editor, WINS LIST
📶 Capital Signal
Funding rounds raised by companies with 1 or more women on the founding team
📈 Founder Raises
Tier 1 — Mega Rounds ($100M+)
Antares (Julia DeWahl) raised $470M Series C ($370M equity + $100M debt) to accelerate deployment of nuclear microreactors, led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital.
Function Health (Pranitha Patil) secured $450M growth financing to expand its preventative healthcare platform, backed by General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund.
Simile (Lainie Yallen) raised $200M Series B at a $2B valuation to build AI-powered digital twins for market research, led by Greenoaks.
Spur Intelligence (Riley Kilmer) raised $200M to expand its internet intelligence platform for cybersecurity and fraud prevention, backed by Insight Partners.
ThreatLocker (Sami Jenkins) raised $190M Series F to scale its zero trust cybersecurity platform, led by Elephant.
Tier 2 — Growth Rounds ($25M–$99M)
Claros Technologies (Michelle Bellanca) raised $55M Series B to eliminate PFAS "forever chemicals" from the environment, led by Treehouse Family Capital.
Fish Audio (Rissa Cao) raised $52M Seed to build AI voice foundation models for creators and enterprises, co-led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today.
DataBahn (Nithya Nareshkumar) raised $40M Series B to develop an agentic data control plane for enterprises, led by Insight Partners.
Greyparrot (Mikela Druckman) raised $27M Series B to expand its AI waste intelligence platform for the circular economy, led by Omar Mir.
Flourish Health (Dr. Natalia Birgisson) raised $26M Series A to expand mental healthcare for children with complex behavioral needs, led by B Capital, F-Prime, and Cherryrock Capital.
Tier 3 — Early Stage (<$25M)
Xeltis (Eliane Schutte) raised €20.5M to advance restorative cardiovascular implants, led by Horizon 3 Healthcare.
Intropy (Franziska Kirschner) raised $11M Seed to build an AI-powered marketplace for industrial spare parts, led by Felix Capital.
Metr (Dr. Franka Birke) raised €10.5M Series B to improve building energy efficiency through IoT technology.
DITTO (Alice van der Schoot) raised $6M Seed to expand menstrual health research and evidence-based supplements, led by FoodLabs.
Aurenar (Jenna Gorlewicz, Anna Huguenard) raised $5.7M Seed to develop a non-invasive neuromodulation device for ICU patients, led by Go Red for Women Venture Fund and Solas BioVentures.
Biota (Dr. Rose Byrne Nash) raised $3M Seed to modernize environmental water testing with healthcare-grade diagnostics, led by Burnt Island Ventures.
Fincart (Nihal Ali) raised $2.8M Seed to simplify logistics, financing, and payments for e-commerce merchants, co-led by Launch Africa and Antler MENAP.
EVERSION (Julia Zimmermann) raised €2.3M Seed II to commercialize corrective insole technology, led by Kammerer Holding.
Masaj (Scarlet Amies, Alice Vaughan) raised £1.5M to expand its luxury massage studio brand, backed by FIGR Ventures, Sorven Capital, and angel investors.
Kāhu SiliconBio (Teuta Pilizota) secured a £1.2M grant to advance continuous hormone monitoring technology for women's health.
Sensesbit (Maruxa Quiroga) raised €1M to develop AI-powered sensory intelligence for the food industry, backed by Clave Capital and Eoniq Fund.
Sowilo (Heiðrún Ósk Sigfúsdóttir) raised a Pre-Seed round to build an AI-powered fashion product intelligence platform, led by Kría Fund. (Amount undisclosed.)
Krème (Juliette Lailler, Marie Belile) secured funding from IRIS Ventures to expand its dermocosmetics brand for ultra-sensitive skin. (Amount undisclosed.)
Tolicious (Cassandra Sonma Ukaobi) secured investment from the North East Accelerator Fund, supported by Mercia Ventures, to expand its wellness product portfolio and workforce. (Amount undisclosed.)
⚡High Signal Founder: Lainie Yallen | Simile
Adjacent to Simile’s $200M Series B, Co-founder and CEO Lainie Yallen shared her startup’s backstory and forward momentum signals…
Today, we’re announcing Simile's Series B.
We’ve raised more than $200 million at a $2 billion post-money valuation, led by Greenoaks. Index Ventures doubled down, alongside returning investors Hanabi Capital, A*, Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), and CVS Health Ventures.
Not long ago, most enterprises did not have a centralized analytics function.
Analysts had existed for decades. But as data became increasingly useful for forecasting and decision-making, analytics evolved into an enterprise-wide capability - centralized, operationalized, and ultimately represented in the C-suite.
Soon, it will be equally difficult to believe that, before 2026, enterprises did not have simulation functions.
Every major enterprise will have a function dedicated to forward-looking, counterfactual exploration: testing strategies in a low-risk environment before introducing risk to customers or the business.
“How will today’s flight cancellation or poor hotel experience affect loyalty and bookings a year from now - and what can you do to change the outcome?”
“Which intervention will keep a patient on treatment six months from now?”
“How will customers respond to a market shock?”
These are simulation questions.
In just five months since launch, Simile has:
• Grown revenue 5x
• Built a new foundation model for human behavior
• Run tens of millions of simulations for Fortune 100 organizations
• Grown from a small team in Palo Alto to more than 50+ people worldwide
We will use this capital to invest deeply in the data and modeling capabilities that will continue to shape how enterprises make decisions.
We are proud to be partnering with some of the top companies in the world.
I'm excited to connect with ambitious leaders, feel free to ping me, or book a demo here - https://www.simile.com/
🏦 VC Signals
Highland Europe (Irena Goldenberg) raised €1.1B Fund VI to invest in European technology scaleups.
Index Ventures, whose senior leadership includes Nina Achadjian and Hannah Seal, raised $2B across new venture, seed, and growth funds.
Marram Ventures (Mariya Filipova) launched as an independent healthcare-focused venture capital firm.
🏆 Athletes on the Cap Table
Athlete-backed capital moves that caught our attention this week
This section is contributed by Christie Lenox.
THE TEAM, formerly Wasserman, is being acquired by Providence Equity in a deal reportedly valuing the global sports marketing and talent agency at $3.4B.
Serena Ventures (Serena Williams, Beth Ferreira), the venture firm behind 16 unicorn portfolio companies, rebranded as Starfire Ventures, signaling its evolution beyond Serena Williams' personal brand and positioning the firm for long-term growth.
Ellis raised $10M Seed to build an AI-powered operations platform for private credit firms. The round included Marell Evans' Exceptional Capital alongside angel investors Mellody Hobson and Mercedes Bent.
Free Agent (Kirsten Toth) raised $1.7M USD ($2.4M CAD) in angel funding to launch a private career network for elite athletes. Notably, 97% of the company's cap table is made up of former college, professional, Olympic, and national-team athletes, including representatives from more than 100 sports and multiple Olympic gold medalists.
NBA superstar Kawhi Leonard revealed a previously undisclosed minority stake in a Rhode Island soccer project. The revelation surfaced amid the NBA's ongoing salary-cap circumvention investigation involving the LA Clippers and prompted renewed public scrutiny over transparency surrounding the club's taxpayer-funded stadium project.
In her own words…
On the rebrand of Serena Ventures to Starfire Ventures…
"I felt like Serena Ventures is great, but I wanted it to be bigger than me. There are so many amazing people on the team, and there's so much that we do. I felt like when you put a name on something, it can limit what you do. I want it to live on. I want this to be something that people look at years and years from now.
It's going to live on in a different way. I think it just gives us some freedom to do so much more. And we kept the SV, so it's still SV, because we also internally always say 'SV'.”
🎬 Signing Off
Every week, we track where capital flows to women-founded companies. We also look for the patterns beneath the headlines.
This week's signals point to three longer-term trends:
• Foundational technology is winning.
• Healthcare innovation is broadening.
• Ownership is becoming the new influence.
Thanks for reading.
See you next week.
— WINS LIST
