SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On Tuesday,
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) venture fund M12,
in partnership with EQT Ventures and SVB Financial Group, announced
the two winners of the Female Founders Competition: Acerta and
Mental Canvas. The companies and their founders, Greta Cutulenco
(CEO and co-founder, Acerta) and Julie
Dorsey (founder and chief scientist, Mental Canvas) beat out
several hundred applicants to receive $2
million each in venture funding, along with access to
technology resources and more to help progress the future of
their businesses.
Earlier this year, M12 and its partners kicked off the global
event in a bid to not only find and fund innovative female
entrepreneurs, but also to spotlight the funding gap that exists
and the need for more equitable distribution of capital. Hundreds
of startups across North America,
Europe and Israel applied, providing a glimpse into the
potential opportunity and untapped talent in the market.
"Our goal for this competition was to clear a path to funding
for more women entrepreneurs," said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of
Business Development, Microsoft. "We were thrilled by the
response we received and feel confident that we'll see great
returns on our two newest additions to our portfolio, but we also
know there's much more work to do. We plan to continue exploring
other ways to close the funding gap using the lessons we learned
from this competition: There's no shortage of women entrepreneurs
building for the enterprise, there's more than one way to source an
investment, and networking is essential to women founders' growth
and success."
In early November, the VC firms narrowed the selection down to
10 finalists. Teams from each startup then pitched their company to
a group of judges from M12 and the partner VC firms for one of two
chances at the top prize: a total of $2
million in venture funding from M12, EQT Ventures and SVB
Financial Group, and access to Microsoft technology. The
winning companies include:
Waterloo, Ontario-based Acerta,
founded by CEO Greta Cutulenco, provides an AI platform that
ensures vehicle systems' quality and reliability throughout a
vehicle's lifecycle.
New York-based Mental Canvas,
founded by chief scientist Julie
Dorsey, reimagines sketching for the digital age by
augmenting it with spatial strokes, 3-D navigation and free-form
animations, all drawn with the ease of pencil and paper.
"At SVB, we have the good fortune to work with some of the most
innovative companies around the world," said Tracy Isacke, head of Corporate Venture at
Silicon Valley Bank. "This partnership provided the
opportunity to meet some incredible female founders, and we
were truly inspired by the depth and breadth of innovation that
they are bringing to the enterprise technology market. We are proud
to support Acerta and Mental Canvas as they pursue their ambitious
business goals."
"The quality and number of submissions for the competition was
incredible, and the EQT Ventures team would like to congratulate
both Acerta and Mental Canvas," said Alastair Mitchell, partner and investment
advisor at EQT Ventures. "Our fund is dedicated to backing founders
with the ambition, drive and vision to build a global success
story, and this competition not only provides a great launchpad for
Acerta and Mental Canvas, it highlights the fact that far more
needs to be done to close the funding gap between male and female
founders. The EQT Ventures team is proud to play a part in bridging
that gap."
Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and organization
on the planet to achieve more. With the help of its partners and
competitions like this, the company is pushing forward in its
efforts to ensure women are afforded an equal opportunity when
raising capital.
More on the Female Founders Competition can be found on the
Official Microsoft Blog.
About EQT Ventures
EQT Ventures is a European VC fund
with commitments of just over €566 million. The fund is based in
Luxembourg and has investment
advisors stationed in Stockholm,
Amsterdam, London, San
Francisco and Berlin.
Fueled by some of Europe's most
experienced company builders, EQT Ventures helps the next
generation of entrepreneurs with capital and hands-on support. EQT
Ventures is part of EQT, a leading investment firm with
approximately €50 billion in raised capital across 27 funds. EQT
funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia
and the U.S. with total sales of more than €19 billion and
approximately 110,000 employees.
About SVB Financial Group
For 35 years, SVB Financial
Group (NASDAQ: SIVB) and its subsidiaries have helped innovative
companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB
Financial Group's businesses, including Silicon Valley Bank, offer
commercial and private banking, asset management, private wealth
management, brokerage and investment services and funds management
services to companies in the technology, life science and
healthcare, private equity and venture capital and premium wine
industries. Headquartered in Santa Clara,
California, SVB Financial Group operates in centers of
innovation around the world. Learn more at www.svb.com.
About M12
As the corporate venture arm for Microsoft,
M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures) invests in enterprise software
companies in the Series A through C funding stage with a focus on
big data and analytics, business SaaS, cloud infrastructure,
machine learning and artificial intelligence, productivity, and
security. As part of its value-add to portfolio companies, M12
offers unique access to strategic go-to-market resources and
relationships globally. The company has offices in New York, San
Francisco, Seattle,
London and Tel Aviv. Visit https://m12.vc/ to learn
more.
View original content to download
multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/m12-and-vc-partners-award-4-million-to-two-women-led-companies-transforming-enterprise-tech-300763199.html
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.