Founder Focus

​About Laura

Laura Clise began as a corporate intrapreneur, holding various roles leading sustainability, corporate responsibility, supplier diversity, and external communications. However, her passion to drive social and environmental impact led her to become the founder and CEO of the Intentionalist.

Laura is a regular speaker on sustainability, climate change mitigation, and diversity and inclusion, as well as serving on the board of directors for Athlete Ally and IslandWood. She has also won several awards such as the LGBT Leadership Award issued by the National Diversity Council.

​The Intentionalist: What do they do?

At the Intentionalist, they believe that small businesses are important to the social and economic fabric of our communities as they bring cultural diversity, contribute philanthropically, and simply make each community better. That is why they created an online directory that helps you spend like it matters in your local community.
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The Intentionalist is powered by a small but mighty team that is truly diverse in both identity and experience. They make it easy for you to find local restaurants, bars, gyms, shops, and more owned by women, people of colour, veterans, LGBTQ, families, and differently-abled people.

​Not only does the Intentionalist serve as a directory, but it also fosters community connection through business profiles based on interviews with local business owners, and meet-ups that provide the opportunity to meet them and learn about the stories behind their businesses.

​We are so proud to feature Laura and  the Intentionalist on  InvestHer Directory, the world’s first global directory of companies founded or co-founded by women.

​About Vivienne & Why She Created Socos Labs

Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur, author and mother who has been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Atlantic and Quartz Magazine. She has been widely recognised for her hard work and dedication, receiving numerous awards such as Berkeley’s Chamber of Commerce Visionary Award, and has also been named one of the Ten Women to Watch in Tech by Inc. Magazine!
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In 2005, Ming came out as a trans woman. Eight years later, she and her wife, Norma, founded Socos Labs, a science incubator dedicated to solving some of the world's most pressing problems.

​What they do: Using Machine Learning to help Maximise Potential

Did you know that skills like collaboration and creative problem-solving help improve students’ and workers’ performance? However, little is done to reinforce them. This is where Socos Labs comes to play.
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Socos Labs combine machine learning with naturalistic data to assess and provide relevant feedback to educators on what they can do to support children’s development through research-based activities.

​Incubator

Via their incubator, they also invest intellectual capital in the form of time and experience in projects, ideas and startups that they believe have the potential to make a true, meaningful difference in the world. This can be a prototype or simply a better understanding of the problem space that reveals why others have failed. Importantly, this means inventing solutions that actually solve problems, meaning people will use it (and, for startups, investors might actually back it). Some startup projects they have supported include Optoceutics, Cognixion and humm.

To support that mission, Socos Labs communicate their research across a broad range of channels such as peer-reviewed scientific journals, conferences, thought pieces and op-eds for the public. They also use their research to inform both policymakers and business leaders.

​We are so proud to feature Vivienne and Socos Labs on InvestHer Directory, the world’s first global directory of companies founded or co-founded by women.

About Leanne & Why She Created Lesbians Who Tech & Allies
It all started with a clear mission 🎯: to increase the much-needed visibility and intersectionality within the technology community for underrepresented queer women in tech and their allies🏳️‍🌈. 
After falling in love with tech while working at Equality California, Leanne Pittsford decided to make it happen,  founding Lesbians Who Tech & Allies, her Queer, Inclusive and Badass Squad!

Mission:
Based in the U.S,. Lesbians Who Tech & Allies is the largest LGBTQ community of technologists in the world. The community is changing the face of technology with 100,000 non-binary, LGBTQ+ women, and queer women of colour (and allies) across various races and ethnicities, abilities, and ages.

What they do:
Today Lesbians Who Tech has four main goals;

• (1) to be more visible to each other,
• (2) to be more visible to others,
• (3) to get more lesbians and allies into technology, and
• (4) to connect Lesbians Who Tech to other LGBTQ and Women's organizations who are already doing work for the community.

They host the Annual San Francisco Summit and Pride Summit bringing together over 30,000 people, making them the largest professional event of this type worldwide. Speakers include Stacey Abrams, an inspiring author, serial entrepreneur, nonprofit CEO and political leader. Annual Pride Summit is takes place 6th - 10th June 2022, so if you are interested in going, make sure you register here!
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We are so proud to feature Leanne and Lesbians Who Tech on InvestHer Directory, the world’s first global directory of companies founded or co-founded by women.

That's why they also offer the Eddie Windsor Scholarship, named to honour the extraordinary work of Edie Windsor, including her work as a computer programming pioneer at IBM. This scholarship makes it possible for non-binary and LGBTQ women to learn how to code, kickstarting their careers in technology. Through this scholarship, Lesbians Who Tech hope not just to create communities but push the tech sector to be more inclusive. 

Follow Her,  Support Her, Buy from Her, Promote Her:

Interested in joining the community, attending a summit, applying for a scholarship or buying their merchandise?
Find out more on their website - https://lesbianswhotech.org/about/
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Instagram: @lwtech,
Facebook: @lesbianswhotech
Twitter: @lesbiantech

#CommunityChangesEverything 🏳️‍🌈

Welcome to this post showcasing the African and Asian women founders from the First 50 featured founders from our InvestHer Founder Directory. Check out the full list in our previous post here.

Let's start by saying that these great founders are only some of the founders that we feature in the Directory and there are many, many more women founders featured in the whole Directory.  To check out the full list of founders from each region please check here and note that we update the directory weekly.

​- African Founders from InvestHer Founder Directory
- Asian Founders from InvestHer Directory 

Want to take a quick peek at the founders via Insta? Click below, otherwise, enjoy a more detailed information about each founder below. 

Meet the Asian Founders by clicking on READ MORE below! 👇🏽​

How it all began.
When the pandemic first hit and the world closed down, we wanted to find a way to help women entrepreneurs stay visible to customers to help them keep their businesses growing and potential investors if they were fundraising. We checked the existing directories of women entrepreneurs around the world and didn't find a truly global, diverse one, that catered to both potential customers and investors and covered more than just a few tech or beauty sectors.
​So we built one and made it accessible to all and InvestHer Directory was born! 

From humble beginnings and our first curated 200 founders, we are proud to share we now feature over 1325 companies founded or co-founded by women entrepreneurs and nonbinary founders) from over 50 countries and 75 sectors! (updated weekly).

InvestHer Directory is the first truly global directory of businesses founded or co-founded by women.

"Our definition of “woman” is the broadest possible and includes any
​female-identifying, nonbinary founders."

Here's a quick look at who and what you'll find inside:

• We cover 75 different sectors, more than 50 countries and investment stages ranging from seed to Series C with a few unicorns in there as well
• You'll find over 200 Black women founded or co-founded companies, representatives from the  L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community and founders of Indigenous heritage, all breaking down barriers in more ways than one.
• Over 700 companies from the North American region, followed by a high representation across Europe.
• Excitingly we've seen an 5% increase in companies from Australia and New Zealand since the start of the InvestHer Founder Directory
• We continue to see a steady influx of Middle Eastern female founded or co-founded companies.
• More positive news from the Asian region, as representatives from here now comprises approximately 7% of the total number of entries.
• Finally, countries across the African continent continue to show strength as we have are close to 50 entries from here.* 

​Want to see all the first 50 featured founders in one go? Then click on your preferred link below.
​* As the founder directory is updated weekly, these numbers will only go up in future!

Read the rest of the post by clicking on READ MORE below! 👇🏽​