When investing, your capital is at risk.
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We have a number of exciting businesses go live on the platform every year, and with that comes the opportunity for us to work closely with the entrepreneurs building them.
Over 150 of those businesses were founded by women, which is not only indicative of an improvement in the investment landscape for female-founded businesses, but a chance for us to ensure that the companies built by women are getting as much exposure as possible in a traditionally male-dominated space.
&SISTERS recently went live on Seedrs and has since surpassed their funding target with the support of over 230 investors. Not only is the brand built by power mother-daughter duo Claire and Lucy Lettice, it has the needs, values and health of women at its core. They’ve built one of the country’s widest ranges of all-natural organic period care products, and have big ideas for the future of data-driven menstrual and sexual health.
Those who menstruate use an average of 11,000 period products in their lifetime – and a lot of those products are more harmful to our bodies and our environment than we’re led to believe. Most of us are unaware that the mainstream products we resort to are laden with chemicals and plastic which is harmful to our anatomy, and catastrophic for the planet at scale. To put it bluntly, a person who menstruates will throw away about 180kg of packaging from their period care products, translating to a mass of harmful, non-biodegradable plastics sitting in landfills, sewer systems and waterways around the world.
&SISTERS is combatting global period poverty and delivering a range of products that are kinder to our personal health, and the health of our natural ecosystem. About 30% of our workforce at Seedrs is female, so we thought, why not try their products ourselves?
Over a dozen of our female employees received a beautiful care package, courtesy of &SISTERS, so we could see first hand how it feels to take better care of ourselves and the planet, by choosing ethical products.
Here’s what they had to say:
“&SISTERS has really woken me up to the fact that, until now, I’ve been paying shockingly little attention to something I use so often and so intimately. I’m glad that I’ll now be better to myself and better to the environment each month.” – Jasmine Lynn, Investment Manager
“Growing up, tampons were something you didn’t talk about, and something you hid up your sleeve on the way to the bathroom. The &SISTERS packaging is so pretty that there’s definitely no need to hide it! I love that all of the packaging is sustainable and it’s been eye-opening to learn how many chemicals are usually in something we put inside our bodies! Most importantly, they work – I’m a fan!” – Katherine Gilroy, Business Development Associate
“Buying tampons is something you do without thinking, because you’ve been doing it for years. But when it actually comes down to it, we should be putting as much care into that decision as we do to our skincare, or what we feed ourselves, or where we shop. I never fully grasped the extent of the environmental impact, and it feels good to do something that you know is better for you and isn’t putting the earth at risk.” – Julie Trench, Compliance Manager
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Only 10% of global investment goes into female-founded businesses – and the majority of femtech businesses are female-founded. We’re working toward more equal gender representation in this space, and are proud to support the kinds of businesses like &SISTERS that are contributing to a sustainable future, for women and for all.
To find out more about &SISTERS, visit their pitch.
