Historic milestone for women on corporate boards, Bitcoin, and the top VCs of 2020
Happy Holidays from In The Money 💜
It has been an unusual year, to say the least. Nevertheless, I hope you will get time to unwind and relax over the Holidays. In this week’s newsletter, you’ll get to read about a historic milestone for gender diversity on corporate boards and dive into the world of cryptocurrencies, among other things. For this weeks’ edition of Woman of the Week I had the opportunity to reach out to her with some questions. I’m sure you’ll find her as inspiring as I do.
Historic milestone for women on corporate boards 👩💼
Every S&P 500 company board has now at least one woman. This is the first time this has happened since Spencer Stuart started tracking this data in 1998. Of the new S&P 500 board members that were appointed this year, 47% were women – the highest percentage seen in a year. Women now consist of 28% of board representation, up from 26% in 2019. However, when it comes to directors who identify as Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, or Asian, there was a slight decrease from last year. In 2020, 22% of new directors are from minority groups, down from 23% last year.
Women in finance have to ask for a promotion, men don’t 🤦🏻♀️
A study found that women in finance aren’t promoted unless they ask for it while men are offered a promotion without requesting it. There’s also a huge gender pay gap. For example, male quantitative research analysts are paid 43% more than women, and men in compliance roles received an additional 76%, based on 2019 data.
“Evidence of culture that things come to men without asking. It can’t all be on women to act differently to fix it”
Rihanna hires Goldman Sachs
Listed as one of the world’s most powerful women, the popstar and founder of lingerie company Savage x Fenty, Rihanna has hired Goldman Sachs to raise $100 million to grow the lingerie empire. Rihanna started the company in 2018 aiming in at a broader range of body types.
The Duchess startup diaries 👸 …
The Duchess Meghan Markle made her debut as a startup investor. She invested in Clevr Blends, a female-founded startup that makes instant oat-milk lattes. In a statement announcing her investment, Meghan emphasized her interest in supporting female-founded companies, which received only 2.7% of venture capital funding in 2019. “This investment is in support of a passionate female entrepreneur who prioritizes building community alongside her business,” she stated.
… and podcasts 🎧
In a true startup ecosystem fashion, the Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markel, The Duchess of Sussex, and the production Archewell Audio they have founded signed a multi-year podcast deal with Spotify. The financial details haven’t been disclosed but given the profile of the names and the cost of previous exclusives, it seems safe to suggest Spotify paid a pretty penny. The first full podcast series is expected to arrive at some point in 2021.
Top VCs in Europe 🏆
This week the fourth annual Forbes Midas List Europe was released. The Midas List is essentially a ranking of the top venture capitalists in Europe and Israel. In 2020, Europe has seen seven new billion-dollar companies, and a new so-called “decacorn”, which is the definition for a 10-billion-dollar company (compare with the term unicorn that is used for a billion-dollar company) in the Swedish fintech company, Klarna. The list includes the VCs’ most prominent deals and is topped by Jan Hammer, one of three partners at Index Ventures. Four of the twenty-five listed investors are women 👇
Pin this 📌
The image sharing and discovery in the form of pinboards and social media service company, Pinterest was faced with allegations of racism and discrimination by two former employees in June this year. The lawsuit alleged that one of the employees was “brazenly fired” after complaining about gender bias at the company. On Wednesday this week, the company agreed to settle the lawsuit for $22.5 million, which includes a $2.5 million investment "to be used towards advancing women and underrepresented communities in the tech industry”, said in a company statement. The settlement closes one of the most high-profile gender discrimination cases in Silicon Valley.
HOLD.. sorry I mean HODL 💎
For the first time ever, Bitcoin passed the $20,000 level as it on Wednesday traded at a price of around $20,600. The rally is driven by institutional investors buying into the world’s most valuable currency. The joke with my title above is that the misspelling of hold, hodl has become the established slang word in the cryptocurrency community for holding the cryptocurrency rather than selling it.
The question investors are now starting to ask is, could Bitcoin replace gold? This week Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd suggested that bitcoin should be worth $400,000 based on its scarcity and value relative to gold. Also, this week, Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s largest asset manager Blackrock stated that bitcoin “can evolve into a global market.” Moreover, the cryptocurrency has a “real impact on the U.S. dollar,” making the need for the USD “less relevant for international holders. The statement comes after Blackrock’s Chief Investment Officer said Bitcoin could replace gold.
Apparently, there exist gold-backed cryptocurrencies too. These are a type of crypto stablecoins where the token is backed with physical gold… but let’s not complicate things too much, I just found this interesting.
Even early Wall Street skeptics seem to have changed their minds about the cryptocurrency. In 2017, Ray Dalio, the legendary founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds said that bitcoin has now become a “gold-like asset alternative”. Also, Fidelity CEO, and one of the world’s most powerful women (#9 on Forbes 2020 list), Abigail Johnson has been making big bets on the cryptocurrency within the firm already for some time. On Thursday Coinbaise, a cryptocurrency exchange announced its intentions of going public.
If you’re curious to learn more about bitcoin as an investment, I highly recommend Ark Invest’s, White Paper.
Woman of the Week
Meagan Loyst
This week I’m so excited to feature an inspiring young investor who I’m so proud to call a friend. Meagan is a VC at the early stage New York City-based fund, Lerer Hippeau. With only a couple of weeks into the job, she wrote an article on Gen Z investors. The interviews and the massive interest around it led her to start the Gen Z VC community, a Slack group that now consists of almost 3,000 young investors, founders, and startup enthusiasts. In the middle of a pandemic and with everybody working from home, Meagan has been able to connect people from around the globe in an inspiring and inclusive way. Her kindness, creativity, and go-getter attitude continue to inspire me. I reached out to Meagan for a couple of quick questions:
How are you feeling?
I'm feeling incredibly grateful. 2020 has been a tough year in a lot of ways, but it was also the year that I joined the team at Lerer Hippeau and started my career in VC. I've also made so many incredible friends from all over the world (including Marianne!) as a result of this new role. So all in all, I'm very grateful to love my job & coworkers, and to have met more of my amazing peers in VC who are also starting out! And of course to get to work with founders who are building the future every day.
Looking back at 2020, what are you most proud of?
I'm most proud of Gen Z VCs! I started in VC about 3 months ago without knowing many people in the early-stage scene, but especially young VCs who were also starting out. So I put out a tweet which turned into conversations with 71 of my peers from around the world, and eventually an article amplifying the perspectives of Gen Z VCs under the age of 25. Many of my new friends felt the same way I did, that it was difficult to meet people in a virtual environment and they were also looking to make more young friends in VC, so I founded Gen Z VCs. It started as a Slack group for ~30 of my friends, and in a month's time has grown into a global community of 2,800+ young VCs, founders, angel investors, and aspiring VCs. So I'm most proud of this Gen Z VCs community and what it's growing into -- a place that makes VC more transparent and welcoming for the next generation of VCs, and somewhere where young people in VC can collaborate and build real friendships.
We're already helping young investors write their first angel investments through our syndicate, Gen Z Ventures, bringing Gen Z founders & investors together through our bi-weekly Deaflow Roundtable Series, bi-weekly Clubhouse conversations feat. Gen Z investors, and having global meet-ups to bring everyone together. And many more exciting things in the works in 2021! I'm so proud of this community and all of my friends who are building it alongside me to make a positive impact on our industry.
Here's the link to join the Slack as well in case you're in VC or want to learn more about it!
What are you excited about in 2021?
I'm really excited to meet the rest of my team at Lerer Hippeau in person! I did mostly virtual recruiting, so have only met 5 of the 19 people on our team in real life. So I'm excited for us all to be back in NYC, hopefully sometime in 2021 when it's safe to do so. I also just love NYC and can't wait to see it come back to life in the new year.
Your go-to song for boosting your mood?
This is a tough one! I do have to say any ABBA song typically does the trick -- Dancing Queen is my anthem!! I'm also a sucker for anything Ariana Grande or Lizzo. If I'm out with my friends (pre-pandemic of course haha) and 7 rings comes on, I lose it!!!! Same with Good as Hell and Truth Hurts.
A Holiday wish for In The Money readers
Gosh, I love the holidays so much! My holiday wish to all of you is to just enjoy this special time with your families and loved ones. I think if 2020 has brought anything into perspective, it's that living in the moment and appreciating the people we love the most always comes first.
Thank you so much for reading this week’s newsletter. I wish you and your loved ones a happy and safe Holiday. Take care and see you next week 💜