EPISODE #1000
Naseem Sayani, Clare Baukham, Deborah Sass, Lindsey Mignano, Rajia Abdelaziz, Trixi Castro, Ungenita Prevost
Who Gets the Money?:
Seven Women on Raising Capital, Returning It, and Building Our Own Fund
1000 Naseem Sayani, Clare Baukham, Deborah Sass, Lindsey Mignano, Rajia Abdelaziz, Trixi Castro, Ungenita Prevost: Who Gets the Money?
Why the Numbers Say Invest in Women, and What Founders Say Back to the Investors Who Don’t
A thousand episodes in, what has changed? A lot, and not much. Women’s share of venture capital dropped below 2% this year. And yet women-founded companies deliver 2.5 times the returns, generate 78 cents of revenue per dollar invested against 31 cents for male-founded companies, burn 15% less capital, exit six months faster and in 2024 accounted for 24.3% of all US venture exits. When I started this show it felt like women were succeeding in silence. So today we yell those numbers from the rooftops.
I started Wings almost a decade ago, after an exit, to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from and invest in each other. Conservatively, this podcast has since sent more than $10 million of revenue to the women who’ve been on it. For episode 1000 I brought some of my favorite guests back together to talk about the one thing that still decides who gets to build: money.
Rajia Abdelaziz, CEO and co-founder of invisaWear, heard 99 no’s before she rewrote her pitch and the power dynamic with it. Lindsey Mignano, founder of Silicon Valley’s Mignano Law Group, sees the term sheets and knows what each round actually costs a founder. Clare Baukham, Global Wealth Architect and creator of The Billionaire Woman, sells assets including fractional shares of multi-million-dollar art masterpieces, that “aren’t for everyone” and has turned that line into a closing technique. Ungenita Prevost is on a mission to help 10 million women build social capital and monetize their networks while building her new beauty brand, Ungenita Beauty. Trixy Castro built and sold Genesis Capital to Goldman Sachs and now runs TRX Capital, where her investors are getting an annualized 12% return. Deborah Sass founded SpaceVrse, a global space ecosystem across 150 countries. And venture investor Naseem Sayani, founder and CEO of GCWC and GCWC Capital and host of The Capital Flex podcast, opens and closes the episode with the system-level view: what it would take for women to move billions, not angel checks.
We talk about the worst moments and what they taught (a $52.27 bank balance, a $2 million order that nearly sank a company, a cab ride to Wall Street with an instruction to drop her off “at the bull” with zero meetings booked), the VC who told me he’d have to “talk to my wife” about my AI startup, how to qualify an investor before they qualify you, the alternatives to venture that nobody pitches you, and the moment the conversation turned into a plan: if 100,000 accredited women each put $50,000 into venture, that’s $55 billion. A sports stadium of people. So why not start our own fund?
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
💰 📈 The Numbers Don’t Lie: Women-founded companies deliver 2.5x the returns, generate 78 cents of revenue per dollar invested against 31 cents for men, burn 15% less capital, exit six months faster, and made up 24.3% of US venture exits in 2024 on less than 2% of the funding. As Naseem puts it, “that’s not the takeaway.” Imagine how much bigger these businesses would be if they were funded.
🎯 🤝 Qualify Your Investor as Hard as They Qualify You: After 99 no’s, Rajia flipped the pitch: “I’m going to be as selective about you as you are about me.” Lindsey on why a term sheet is a long-term marriage, “all collaborative until it’s not,” and the five questions to ask before you take the money.
🗣️ 💡 Rewrite the Pitch: How Rajia went from safety statistics to “that could be your daughter, your granddaughter, or your wife,” and sold a quarter of a million dollars in two minutes on Good Morning America. Plus, Clare’s reverse-psychology close: “Don’t put them on a pedestal. It’s not for everyone,” and my enterprise-sales version, “can you see any reason why you wouldn’t want to do this?”
🚪 🛤️ Venture Isn’t the Only Door: Lindsey on founder haircuts of 20% at seed and 16 to 17% at each round, why “an incredibly great, incredibly lucrative business” may not be right for VC, and the alternatives her clients use: crowdfunding, SBA loans, non-dilutive credit lines and revenue-based financing. Her own girlfriends’ fund: 30 accredited women who pooled their money and got into a $300 million fund.
💪 🦋 Resilience, $52.27 and the Fearless Girl: Ungenita on the day she was down to $52.27 (she still has the bank slip), Trixy crying in front of the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street and vowing to be that girl for everyone behind her, Deborah on why she will “always, always support other women in any freaking way I can,” and Clare’s butterfly: “that’s not me anymore.”
🏟️ 💵 The $55 Billion Stadium: Naseem’s math: 100,000 accredited women, $50,000 each, is $55 billion into venture, “a sports stadium of people.” From treasurer to co-CFO of your household, to an annual investing allocation, to female fund managers walking in together instead of as the exception. And why investing in women “is not charity. I’m here to make money.”
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About The Guests:
Rajia Abdelaziz is the CEO and co-founder of invisaWear, a company at the forefront of smart jewelry and life-saving technology. An advocate for women’s and children’s safety, Rajia scaled invisaWear to reach over 100,000 customers, successfully raised millions of dollars, and earned recognition including Forbes’ 30 Under 30 North America, Boston Globe’s Tech Power Players, BostInno’s 25 Under 25, and the New England Innovations Award. Listen to Rajia on Wings Episode 942
Lindsey S. Mignano is the founder of Mignano Law Group, an entrepreneurial Silicon Valley corporate lawyer representing emerging technology companies and industry-adjacent firms and small businesses. Her practice spans technology company business formation and expansion into US markets, M&A, commercial and technology transactions, and venture financing. More from Lindsey on Wings Episode 946
Clare Baukham is a Global Wealth Architect, alternative investment curator, CEO and co-founder of Clear Art Reserve, serial entrepreneur, executive producer of multiple TV series, and creator of The Billionaire Woman platform. Listen to Clare on Wings Episode 977
Ungenita Prevost is on a mission to help 10,000,000 women build social capital and monetize their networks as the leader of a global feminine leadership network, and is building her new beauty brand, Ungenita Beauty. More from Ungenita on Wings Episode 776
Trixy Castro is a visionary entrepreneur in real estate and mortgage finance, having founded, scaled and sold multiple businesses, including private lending company Genesis Capital, bought by Goldman Sachs in 2018. Trixy has founded and invested in over 50 companies across diverse industries and is now the CEO and Founder of TRX Capital. Hear Trixi on Wings Episode 886
Deborah Sass is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and Founder of SpaceVrse, a global space ecosystem connecting industry leaders, innovators, creators, and next-generation talent across more than 150 countries. Her work focuses on shaping how space is communicated, commercialized, and culturally understood. Listen to Deborah on Wings Episode 995
Naseem Sayani is a venture investor and founder and CEO of GCWC and GCWC Capital, a media platform and investment fund focused on tech and AI-anchored innovations across HealthTech and FinTech. She leads the Innovator’s Circle at WHAM, is an Advisor at Tower Capital, and hosts The Capital Flex, a podcast on the fundraising experiences of female founders. Listen here. https://thecapitalflexpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
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