Venture Capital Investing in Female-Founded Wellness Brands

Rachel Hirsch: 

Thank you for having me. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Absolutely, Rachel. So, to kick off the conversation, tell us a little about the firm and how you got to where you are today. 

Rachel Hirsch: 

Yeah, so Wellness Growth Ventures is a seed venture fund that focuses on female founders in the wellness space. I define that as better-for-you CPG, call it food, bev, beauty, as well as women's health. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

And given your focus on VC investing in female-founded wellness brands, I would love to hear your high-level outlook for this space right now. 

Rachel Hirsch: 

Yeah, well, I think it's a really interesting time. A portion of our portfolio falls into the consumer category, which has almost become a dirty word, but the spaces within that that we play in are actually really exciting. Most female founders are underfunded. Their valuations are a bit suppressed. They receive less than 2% of VC funding. So, what we're seeing is that they have had to be thrifty over the years. They've had to make more with less capital. And so, these constraints that we've seen over the past call it 6, 12, 18 months within especially the consumer space, female founders are thriving because they're familiar with this landscape and it's nothing new to them. So, we're seeing continued up-rounds in this space. We're seeing a lot of growth, and I think it's a really strong outlook that we have for female founders. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

And Rachel, more specifically, what are some of the greatest opportunities you see in your space and why? 

Rachel Hirsch: 

So, I smile really big because there are so many exciting and interesting ones. I'm super intrigued in the white space of women's health. It is a very immature market, but it's not niche. I mean, women are half of the population. The NIH estimates that by 2030 half of the female population will be in menopause. And really, we have some diagnostics, but we don't have loads of solutions. And so, there is so much opportunity and it's exciting. There's a lot of innovation happening. The endometriosis market is the same size as the entire oncology market. And so, there's just so much that can be done when you look at the sizing of women's health and the lack of solutions really out there. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman:

Rachel, on the other hand, what are some of the greatest challenges you face in your space and why? 

Rachel Hirsch: 

I think that we face just challenges from a high level, from the perspective of female founders only receive 2% of VC funding. And when you look at female partners within the funding space, we receive a smaller amount of capital as well. So, it's almost like a vicious circle of how do we invest more equitably? And part of that begins with having a more diverse group of allocators. That is one piece of it. I think the infancy of some of the markets, i.e., women's health is still really in its infancy, creates questions around it and people start to wonder what will work, what won't work. But I think that also the other side of that is it's really exciting. There's so much opportunity and there's so much demand. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Rachel, let shift gears a bit, love for you to touch on ESG and see how your firm's addressing that topic. 

Rachel Hirsch: 

So, we only invest in female founders, so it's a huge part of our ethos. I wouldn't call us an impact fund, but by design we naturally are. And so, it's been wonderful to have support from both, maybe the ESG side as well as traditional investors. And really, it's an and. You don't have to invest and expect lower returns because it's impact, it's you're investing and expecting the results and making an impact. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Rachel, being a woman in this business is clearly very admirable and love to hear your thoughts on that and what you're doing to inspire others to foray into this space. 

Rachel Hirsch: 

I am lucky that there are plenty of trailblazers ahead of me who have made this so much easier than I imagined 10, 20, however many years ago. So grateful for all of those incredible women who are my North Star in this space. But I love that I get to work with women all the time, which is so different than when I started on more traditional Wall Street 15 plus years ago. So, it's just a huge honor to get to do what I do and engage with the people that I do, and hopefully that's encouraging to others that they can also participate in this. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Rachel, we've covered a lot of ground today and wanted to see if there are any final thoughts you would like to share with us. 

Rachel Hirsch: 

We're building a firm, not just a fund right now. So that means building out our team, building out our networks, building out our ecosystem. And I'm really lucky to have support from so many incredible individuals and that will just continue to expand and grow. And I look forward to in five or ten years, hopefully you'll have me back and I can tell you about Funds 3, 4, 5, and 6 and how excited we are to continue to build and grow the impact that we're making and the strong returns that we have been able to share with our LPs. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

Rachel, I wanted to thank you so much for joining me today. 

Rachel Hirsch: 

Thank you for having me. 

Elana Margulies-Snyderman: 

And thank you for listening to the EisnerAmper podcast series. Visit EisnerAmper.com for more information on this and a host of other topics. And join us for our next EisnerAmper podcast when we get down to business. 

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