WINS LIST subscriber,
For the past decade, I have supported women founders and executives as a strategic visibility advisor. Together, we have earned our wins: from launches to exits, industry awards to interviews, speaking engagements to original publications, announcements, and high-value partnerships.
Today, I am thrilled to put my journalist hat back on to bring you WINS LIST 2.0, a weekly signal briefing on women founders and venture capital.
Each week, WINS LIST will track the signals women founders are stacking on their path to capital and translate them from an investor lens.
The following will be delivered to your inbox on Tuesday mornings.
📶 Capital Signal: the top stories about women and capital
⚡️ Founder Amplified: female founder building momentum + signal breakdown
💬 Investor Speak: timely commentary from female investors
📊 Numbers & Figures: newly released data on women founders and capital trends
🛜 High Frequency Opps: demo days, accelerators, awards, and calls for speakers
The signals in this digest come from a variety of credible sources. If you have a tip, opp, data point, or story you would like to include, please send it to [email protected].
Thank you for being a valued subscriber of WINS LIST.
Amie
Amie Sheridan | Editor, WINS LIST
Issue #01 | Tuesday, March 24, 2026
📶 Capital Signal
The biggest stories about women and capital this week
Anthropic in PE battle with OpenAI as Pentagon fued continues
OpenAI is reportedly offering private-equity firms a sweeter deal than rival Anthropic (Daniela Amodei) as both companies court buyout firms to form joint ventures aimed at raising fresh capital and accelerating adoption of enterprise AI products. — Reuters.com, March 23, 2026
Legal troubles mount for Kalshi as the company secures a $22 billion valuation.
Kalshi (Luana Lopes Lara), a regulated exchange & prediction market where you can trade on the outcome of real-world events, continues to face legal issues as a 20-count complaint was filed against the company in Maricopa County, Arizona. Days later, Kalshi secured a $22 billion valuation as they raise $1 billion with investment firm, Coatue Management. — Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2026 & Techcrunch.com, March 18, 2026
Project Level fund seeking $1 billion to invest in women’s sports.
Ariel Investments (Mellody Hobson) has set a goal of $1 billion for their Project Level fund, which has already closed $250 million as of February. This fund is set to be “the largest fund to focus on women’s sports; it will target teams and leagues, youth sports and sports-adjacent businesses.” — Sportico, March 16, 2026
Former Andreessen Horowitz partner, Volz, raises $50 million in debut fund.
Pax Ventures Founder and Managing Partner, Michelle Volz, raised $50 million in 12 months in her debut fund where she intends to “invest in startups that are reinventing America’s industrial base.” — Venture Capital Journal, March 10, 2026 & Newcomer, March 9, 2026
⚡️ Founder Amplified
High-signal woman founder building momentum
The Win: Nectir AI raises $12.5 million in Series A led by woman-led venture fund
Kavitta Ghai, founder and CEO of Nectir AI — a startup that is building AI tools for the classroom in a responsible way — announced a $12.5 million series A led by Rethink Impact (Jenny Abramson, Founder and Managing Partner).
The Signal: Kavitta was interviewed by Maggie McGrath of ForbesWomen to share her story, the company’s mission, proof of concept, and traction.
Her Words:
“When I built this product, I was the student at USCB, and I was the kid that sat in the back row, and I never raised my hand because I thought I was going to ask a stupid question. If we can create a culture where asking all of the questions and more is not just ok, but encouraged… imagine the deeper level of learning that every student can get to.”
Signal Breakdown:
In her Forbes interview, Ghai stacks her fundability signals as she discusses:
✅ Nectir’s Series A round and continued traction
✅ their execution model — direct integration with existing higher ed learning management systems — not a new workflow
✅ California Community College system’s use of their product [Fox 2 reported this in December.]
✅ her focus on leadership as she takes her business into future raises
On LinkedIn, with over 7,000 followers, Kavitta continues to stack — sharing her recent appearance on the ChatEDU podcast, a vote of confidence from VC, Josh Muccio, and a recent feature on Nectir in Traded VC.
💬 Investor Speak
Notable commentary from women in venture capital
Is AI becoming another “boy’s club?”
On a SXSW panel, Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D — Founder, Affectiva (exit 2021), now co-founder, GP, Blue Tulip Ventures — expressed concern that AI could become “another boy’s club”. She later posted about her comments on LinkedIn.
Her Words:
“If women are left out — because they’re not founding these companies, because they’re not getting the funding, because they’re not even investing in the funds that are investing in these companies — we’re going to look back five years from now or a decade from now, and… we’re going to have widened the economic gap like crazy. So this is something that really concerns me.”
📊 Numbers & Figures
Newly released data on women, wealth and capital
New report on how women will invest in 2026 and beyond
How Women Invest (HWI) & How Women Lead (HWL) released their Women, Wealth & the Capital Continuum 2026 Report. 67% of the women surveyed say they plan to invest $25 to $49k in venture funds this year.
Less than 1 percent increase in female representation on Forbes Richest list
Forbes published its annual list of the Richest People in the World. On that list, there are 481 women — accounting for 14% of those on the list. Last year, there were 406 women represented at 13.4% of the list — which shows a slight uptick in women’s wealth.
Nearly half of the $73 billion invested in women-led companies in 2025 went to two companies.
Capital investments in female-founded startups nearly doubled in 2025, but total deal count fell for the fourth straight year. Funds going to women-led companies are “pooling at the top” with nearly half of 2025 dollars going to two companies: Anthropic (Daniela Amodei) and Scale AI (Lucy Guo). — Fortune.com March 6, 2026.
🛜 High-Frequency Opps
Founder-centric programs accepting applications
[New and noteworthy] Amy Lin and Andy Chen (Outcast Ventures), announced the launch of Catalyst, “a program for top 1% builders to meet their co-founder.” Applications are open until April 6.
Applications to the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing companies are open — final deadline April 24.
The Pitch by Deel (Shuo Wang) is accepting applications for their regional pitch competition events through April 29.
Time Magazine’s Best Inventions, a paid entry program, is accepting applications through May 26.
🎬 Signing Off
That’s a wrap on issue #01.
WINS LIST tracks the signals shaping venture outcomes for women founders.
We are not just following the top stories. We are trend spotting and amplifying founders who showcase credibility, capability, market, proof, and momentum.
We are unboxing investor perspectives and framing out the fundability metrics they evaluate when considering not only where their investments should go, but also which founders to meet.
We do not represent nor are we compensated by any of the businesses we cover.
Thank you for being a valued subscriber.
See you next Tuesday.
— WINS LIST
