Issue #31 | Wednesday, October 21, 2026
✉️ Letter from the Editor
Women are out there talking about money.
In this week’s issue, we’re bubbling up inspiration from Alexa von Tobel and Haley Rosen on the back of their announcements—a $450M Fund IV and an athlete-to-athlete sports technology acquisition.
We are bringing you deeper data observations in our capital signals section around median women-led fund size, round size, and athlete deals.
Since launch, WINS LIST has tracked roughly 577 capital events involving female founders and athletes, accounting for over $35 billion in disclosed capital flow.
Details on these deals live in our WINS LIST database. If you are interested in accessing it, please complete this brief survey.
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Amie
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Amie Sheridan | Editor, WINS LIST
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🛜 Capital Signals of the Week
Leading stories
Roughly $303M in disclosed funding went to 15 companies with one or more verified female founder.
Two women-led venture funds closed a combined $783M in new funds.
Five current and former athletes made capital moves.
Notable data observations*
As tracked in WINS LIST to date:
The median disclosed women-led venture fund is $78.8M.
The median disclosed funding round involving one or more female founder is $8.7M.
As tracked this week:
One mega round accounted for roughly 41% of total funding.
The median disclosed round was $3.3M.
Top sectors by capital:
AI and AI-native software: 46%
Health and wellness: 41%
Food and beverage: 9%
0 of 4 athlete deals disclosed a dollar amount.
Victra’s exit kept the capital inside women’s sports: a former D1 player’s app was acquired by a former pro player’s company.
*These observations are based solely on deals tracked in WINS LIST. Deals are verified using public record and filings, when available. While we endeavor to capture every deal with accuracy, we can not ascertain that WINS LIST deal data is 100% accurate, nor can we guarantee capture of every venture deal involving one or more female founder.
📈 Founder Raises
Funding rounds raised by companies with one or more women founders
Tier 1 — Mega Rounds ($100M+)
Salience Labs (Vaysh Kewada) raised $125M Series B to scale its photonic computing chips for AI inference, led by Bullhound Capital. —The Next Web, Oct 14
Tier 2 — Growth Rounds ($25M–$99M)
Abby Care (Havi Nguyen) raised $82M Series C to grow its platform that pays family members to serve as professional, trained caregivers for relatives with long-term care needs, led by Transformation Capital. —Fortune, Oct 15
Allara (Rachel Blank) raised $30M (round not disclosed) to expand its virtual women's-health platform covering hormonal, metabolic, and reproductive care into insurance-covered markets and to build out its AI technology, with existing backers Index Ventures and GV. —Femtech Insider, Oct 13
EZ Bombs (Tina Castaneda, Nichole Munoz) raised $25M Series A to expand distribution of its shelf-stable Mexican-dish seasoning balls past 8,000 retail locations, led by CAVU Consumer Partners. —Business Wire, Oct 14
Tier 3 — Early Stage (<$25M)
HydRegen (Dr. Holly Reeve) raised £6M (~$8M) Series A to bring biocatalysis to industrial chemical manufacturing, swapping precious-metal catalysts for enzymes, led by Genoa Ventures. —Dealroom, Oct 14
Allswell (Dawn Androphy) raised $7M Seed to expand its insurance-covered behavioral health platform for the LGBTQ+ community, led by Rethink Impact (Jenny Abramson). —MobiHealthNews, Oct 15
Marklo (Jessica Herrin) raised $5M Seed to launch an agentic marketing platform for Shopify merchants, led by Forerunner (Kirsten Green). —Dealroom, Oct 14
Unravel Health (Veronika Bridgman) raised £2.5M (~$3.3M) to launch an at-home saliva hormone test, led by Conduit EIS Impact Fund and Wrightwood. —Femtech Insider, Oct 16
Collective X Health (Dr. Stacy Sims, Lindsey Abramo) raised $3.2M pre-seed to build a women's-health data platform, led by Council Capital and Anthemis Female Innovators Lab Fund. —Femtech Insider, Oct 13
Plinto (Nermina Suljevic) raised €2.9M (~$3.1M) Pre-Seed to help finance teams catch and fix errors with AI agents, led by People Ventures and Emblem. —EU-Startups, Oct 20
Straia (Nikki Dansey) raised $3.1M Seed to build AI that helps colleges spot student dropout risk, led by a16z Speedrun. —Bloomberg, Oct 20
Bare Beans (Michelle Huff) raised $2.79M Seed to launch direct-to-consumer, bringing fresh, one-ingredient, vacuum-packed beans to fridges nationwide, led by Raven Indigenous Capital Partners. (Green Queen, Oct 9)
Sprout Family (Jackie Hanson, Suzanne Mason) raised CA$3.55M (~$2.6M) Seed, led by BDC Thrive Venture Fund. (The SaaS News, Oct 16)
Relace (Lyubomira Dimitrova) raised $1.6M (£1.2M) pre-seed to automate financial compliance with AI, led by Boost Capital. —CityAM, Oct 15
sAInaptic (Kavitha Ravindran, Rajeshwari Iyer) raised £1M (~$1.3M) Seed to grow its AI-assisted marking, feedback, and analytics platform for apprenticeship exams and other assessments that go beyond multiple-choice questions, co-led by Cornerstone VC and Ufi Ventures. —Tech Funding News, Oct 13
💸 Fresh Capital — New Venture Funds
Inspired Capital (Alexa von Tobel, Penny Pritzker) closed its $450M Fund IV, bringing the firm's total committed capital past $1.3B. The firm will continue leading Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A investments in founders tackling the world's most consequential challenges. —Inc., Oct 20
Pear VC (Mar Hershenson) closed its $333M Fund V — the firm's largest fund to date, pushing total assets under management past $1.1B. The fund backs very early-stage technical founders across AI, fintech, and enterprise infrastructure. —Tech Funding News, Oct 14
“There has never been a moment in history when more is possible. It takes just one person with exceptional ambition to take on the world’s problems and change billions of lives for the better.
Seven years ago, we made a simple bet: founders who bend the world to their vision deserve a partner who brings far more than capital. At Inspired, we invest our time, our unparalleled network, our operating experience and, most of all, our full commitment to helping them build faster and execute better.
That decision is starting to compound. Our portfolio includes 10 unicorns. Ten companies have passed $100M in revenue, and four of those have passed $400M. We’ve had 10 exits, including a recent Nasdaq IPO and acquisitions by some of the most respected names in tech.
NONE of that happens without the founders who trusted us first, many of whom have become our most fulfilling friendships. To everyone already building with Inspired, thank you for some of the most fun years of our lives! And to the next generation of 0.01% founders, we are ready to leave it all on the field with you.”
🏆 Athletes on the Cap Table
Athlete-backed capital moves that caught our attention this week
This section is contributed by Christie Lenox.
Victra, a women’s sports app founded by Anna Malepeai—former NCAA D1, USC Women’s Soccer—was acquired by Just Women’s Sports (Haley Rosen—founder and former NCAA and professional soccer player). JWS’ broader investor and cap table network includes Billie Jean King, Kelley O'Hara, Elena Delle Donne, Hilary Knight, Arike Ogunbowale, & Sam Mewis.
Maxx Crosby—current NFL, LV Raiders—has launched Washtenaw Ventures, a dedicated vehicle for deploying capital across private equity, venture capital, and opportunistic private strategies.
Belinda Bencic—current Swiss professional tennis—made an undisclosed investment into Swiss supplement brand KA-EX.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander—current NBA, OK City Thunder—officially acquired a minority ownership stake in Atlético de Madrid. Financial terms were undisclosed.
“When we started thinking about the JWS app, the question wasn’t: how do we give people another way to consume our content?
It was: How do we become more useful?
That meant creating not just an access point but a true destination that can serve as an everyday touchpoint for fans.
It's only V1, but our app already has everything the women’s sports fan needs to stay plugged in: scores, stats, schedules, and non-stop coverage from the JWS team.
This is how we continue building from media company --> infrastructure.”
🎬 Signing Off
Every week, we track the capital flowing to and from women founders and investors and unpack the capital moves of elite athletes.
WINS LIST Cumulative Impact
Since launch, WINS LIST has tracked…
~$16.41B
Founder Raises
~$19.55B
New Fund Capital
427
Companies
71
Funds
31
Weeks
88
Athlete Deals
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Thanks for reading! See you next week.
— WINS LIST
Get the WINS LIST every week.
Sign up to receive the weekly signal digest tracking the capital flowing to and from female founders and investors, delivered to your inbox every Wednesday.
