Fortunis Capital has selected femtech company Clementine for a place in its Top 20 UK Impact Investment fund, starting with an initial investment of £1M. Clementine’s app aims to improve the emotional wellbeing of millions of women all over the world.
The London-based impact investor’s £1million funding will accelerate the growth of Clementine. Founded by Kim Palmer, it provides world-leading virtual professional hypnotherapy sessions as well as a suite of wellness products to empower women to feel more confident, capable and on top of their game.
Kim said: “We are thrilled by this investment by a forward-thinking VC in a company founded by women for women. The VC landscape is traditionally challenging for women, so we are really bucking the trend here. Treasury reports show for every £1 of VC investment, all-female founder teams get less than 1p, all-male founder teams get 89p and mixed-gender teams get 10p. We did not have to jump through hoops with a traditional pitch to secure this investment. With a strong female leadership team, Fortunis instinctively understood that we were delivering a solution to a global problem worth solving.”
Fortunis Capital investment director Emma MacRae said: “We do not look at anyone’s gender when we make investment decisions, we look at innovation. As an impact investor, our mission is to support companies that can make a positive difference to society. We see Clementine offering a solution to a problem worth solving; a solution that will change the lives of women for the better. However, we do recognize that there can be unconscious gender bias in the industry, especially around the pitch process which can be intimidating. Research shows that many investors prefer pitches presented by male entrepreneurs compared with pitches made by female entrepreneurs, even when the content of the pitch is the same. And it is a fact that in a competitive environment, men are more likely to talk up their achievements while women have a more measured pitching style. In Kim, we saw an inspirational businesswoman who has been through difficult personal challenges as a working mother juggling home and career. She has drawn on those experiences to come out stronger and face a real problem head on having discovered the solution. She meets our criteria as an impact investor of addressing a real problem worth solving.”
