Issue #18 | Wednesday, July 22, 2026
💸 Approximately $1.83B was raised this week by 18 companies with one or more female founder.
The largest raise was 🥇 Fireworks (Lin Qiao) — $1.5B Series D at a $17.5B valuation.
5 new women-led funds were announced this week, representing $2.06B in fresh institutional capital.
The largest fund was 🥇 Citation Capital (Tiffany Hagge & Lydie B. Hudson) with their inaugural $1.2B private equity fund.
This week's 🏆 Athletes on the Cap Table highlights Maria Sharapova joining Neko Health's $700M round, Bluestone Equity's $55M investment in Poolhouse… PLUS capital moves by David Beckham, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Aryna Sabalenka, Ollie Bearman, and Thierry Henry.
💡 Key Insight from Issue 18
Investors are backing the systems that power industries—not just consumer products.
📝 Take notes:
1️⃣ AI infrastructure continues separating from AI applications.
2️⃣ Women's health is becoming a durable investment category.
3️⃣ Women are now managing institutional-scale capital.
📋 Participate in our Subscriber-Only Survey: Are LinkedIn DMs resulting in venture investment? Submit your response for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Inc. article.
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].
Thank you for being a valued subscriber of WINS LIST.
Amie
Connect with me on LinkedIn | Read my Startup column for Inc.
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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+)
Fireworks (Lin Qiao) raised $1.5B Series D to expand enterprise AI infrastructure for training and serving custom foundation models, co-led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures, and TCV.
Tier 2 — Growth Rounds ($25M–$99M)
Draig Therapeutics (Ivana Magovčević-Liebisch) raised $65M Series B to advance neuropsychiatric therapeutics, led by Deep Track Capital.
Fora (Henley Vazquez) raised $60M Series D at a $1B valuation to expand its AI-powered travel advisor platform, co-led by Forerunner (Kristen Green) and Tactile Ventures.
Auger (Leigh Anne Clark) raised $50M Series B to build autonomous operating systems for supply chain operations, led by Eclipse.
Sable (Linda He) raised $45M to expand AI-powered customer communications, co-led by Sequoia Capital and 8VC.
Corner Health (Lava Sunder, Anne Gifford) raised $32.5M Seed & Series A to help nurse practitioners launch primary care practices, led by Oak HC/FT (Annie Lamont, Patricia Kemp).
Tier 3 — Early Stage (<$25M)
Rime (Lily Clifford, Brooke Larson) raised $24M Series A to build enterprise voice AI, led by M13.
Apothékary (Shizu Okusa) raised $16M ($10M equity + $6M debt) to expand its herbal wellness platform.
Kind Designs (Anya Freeman) raised $10M Pre-Series A to scale 3D-printed coastal infrastructure, backed by Mark Cuban, Adrian Fenty, and Kyle Kuzma.
EverSettled (Arum Kempster) raised $5M Seed to modernize estate settlement, led by Emergence Capital.
SiftMed (Holly Hill) secured $5M Seed to automate medical claims review with AI, led by Staircase Ventures (Janet Bannister).
En Carta Diagnostics (Margot Karlikow) raised €5M (€3M equity + €2M non-dilutive) to develop at-home molecular diagnostics, led by Blue Forest Ventures.
Juno Bio (Hana Janebdar) raised $3.8M to expand its precision vaginal microbiome platform and women's health clinical infrastructure.
Visibuilt (Line Kloster Pedersen) raised €3.34M Seed to develop low-carbon construction binders, co-led by Unconventional Ventures (Thea Messel, Nora Bavey) and EIFO.
Doctorsa (Nadia Neytcheva) raised €1M to expand its global telemedicine platform for travelers, led by PranaVentures (Lisa Di Sevo).
Chiron (Carron Manning) raised £900K Seed to build AI tools supporting patients between clinic visits, led by THENA Capital (Dr. Pamela Walker Geddes, Esther Reynal de St Michel Richardot, and Tatum Getty).
Muun Health (Kerli Luks) secured a €700K grant to advance continuous hormone monitoring technology for women.
Avni Wellness (Sujata Pawar) raised approximately $470K Seed to expand its women's wellness brand, led by Proteus Partners.
TOSS (Grace Devlin, Sophie Devlin) closed a Seed round to grow its premium salad dressing brand. Amount undisclosed.
⚡High Signal Founder: Henley Vazquez | Fora Travel
This founder surfaced in both our Founder Raise tracker and Athletes on the Cap Table this week.
Adjacent to her startup’s $60M Series D, she shared the announcement in her own words…
Before Fora Travel, I ran my own travel agency. I loved the work — but it was difficult to grow my business, chase down commissions, support a team, and use increasingly outdated tech. The barriers to entry were so high that becoming an advisor only made sense as a full-time career, and usually one that required a long financial runway.
We started Fora to break those barriers down. We built the technology that strips away the admin so advisors can focus on what actually matters: curation, discernment, and the human relationships no algorithm can fake.
In 2025, LinkedIn named travel advisor the fifth-fastest-growing job in the country. We're proud of the role we've played in that — and we're just getting started. Next up: doubling down for our industry, our community of advisors, and their clients.
Here's to another 5!
🏦 VC Signals
Citation Capital (Tiffany Hagge, Lydie B. Hudson) closed its inaugural $1.2B private equity fund focused on North American middle-market buyouts.
Morgan Beller is raising $500M for the debut fund at Decimal Capital, her new venture firm with Ashton Kutcher.
Lightspring Capital Partners (Meghan Otis, Susan Gohman) closed its second fund at $218.1M to invest in lower middle-market businesses.
Acurio Ventures (Kate Cornell) closed €115M for Acurio Secondaries I, expanding its European secondaries strategy.
Panakès Partners (Diana Saraceni) closed a €22.8M fund to invest in early-stage therapeutics companies across Italy.
💬 Investor Speak: Tiffany Hagge | Citation Capital
Adjacent to the close of her firm’s inaugural $1.2 private equity fund…
"From the outside looking in you can never understand; from the inside looking out you can never explain"
This is my favorite quote to describe the experience of the best teams I have ever been a part of. Thank you to all of our partners, mentors, advisors and friends who believed in our team and backed us.
I am deeply grateful and so incredibly proud of our Citation team..."fate favors the brave"...LFG!! 💚 🚀 🤜
🏆 Athletes on the Cap Table
Athlete-backed capital moves that caught our attention this week
This section is contributed by Christie Lenox.
IM8 Health (David Beckham) takes $1B from General Catalyst’s CVF Fund with no ownership diluted. Athlete investors include Giannis Antetokounmpo, Aryna Sabalenka, Ollie Bearman.
Neko Health, a Stockholm, Sweden-based health tech company, raised $700 million in Series C funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners and O.G. Venture Partners led the round and included Maria Sharapova and Thierry Henry.
Fora (Henley Vazquez) is a new female-founded unicorn. The travel agent platform just raised a $60 million Series D at a $1 billion valuation, led by Forerunner (Kristen Green) and Tactile Ventures. PLUS Capital—an LA-based venture fund and artist/ athlete collective—invested alongside Amy Schumer.
Bluestone Equity Partners (Elaina Norman) has made a $55 million growth equity investment in Poolhouse, a technology-enabled cue sports company.
Syntetica, a Paris, France-based developer of textile recycling technology, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Ecotechnologies 2 led the round and was joined by SWEN Capital Partners, lululemon (Meghan Frank), and others.
Hockey Stick Ventures launches $3M Fund exclusively from past and present NHL players and others in the hockey community.
Kind Designs (Anya Freeman) raised $10M Pre-Series A to scale 3D-printed coastal infrastructure, backed by Mark Cuban, Adrian Fenty, and Kyle Kuzma.
Refr Sports, a referee management platform, has raised $1 million from Minnesota-based firm Traction Capital (Ellie Pigott).
Ronin Capital (Nicole Vallianatos) has made the largest single investment in Detroit City FC in club history. Financial details were not disclosed.
🎬 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 issue highlights three signals worth watching:
• AI investment continues shifting toward infrastructure rather than applications, with investors backing the platforms powering enterprise adoption.
• Women's health is maturing into a broad, investable category spanning diagnostics, preventive care, primary care, and biotechnology.
• Women are managing larger pools of institutional capital than ever before, with more than $2 billion in new funds announced this week alone.
The companies change every week. The signals reveal where markets are headed.
Thanks for reading.
See you next week.
— WINS LIST
