2022年10月4日

本文是《企業家》評選的2022年100位有影響力的女性之一。點擊這裏查看其他榜單。莎莉·克勞切克從不恐高。她在華爾街步步高升，先後擔任花旗私人銀行、美邦、美林和桑福德·伯恩斯坦等公司的首席執行官。她創辦了自己的金融科技公司，旨在幫助女性積累財富。她籌集了1億美元。然後，突然，她出現了明顯的下降，這是很少有人知道的，但很常見。她稱之為" B輯克裏夫"克勞切克的公司是Ellevest。如果說她在金融行業25年多的工作中學到了什麼，那就是金錢就是力量——她想邀請所有的女性，不管她們的經濟狀況如何。 At Ellevest, there is no investment minimum, and memberships begin at $1 a month. The platform uses an algorithm based on the way women relate to finances (focused on life goals, for example, versus risk tolerance), offers money coaching, and has a separate tier for private wealth management. To build the costly infrastructure, Krawcheck hurdled the 2.3% odds of getting venture capital as a solo female founder. At least, she did for seed and Series A funding rounds. "But these asset-based businesses take time to get to profitability," she explains. She'd need to raise a Series B. So Krawcheck approached endowments, pension plans, and traditional VCs — many of whom had been vocal about their intent to help women — only to find meetings going nowhere. As she soon learned, she was running up against a lesser-known statistic: Once a woman founder steps into the world of growth rounds, her odds plunge to 1%. That's without factoring in that 99% of VC money for fintech companies goes to men — and, on top of that, the revelations of a new study which found that female entrepreneurs who receive early funding from women are two times less likely to raise additional financing. (The implicit assumption: They weren't competent enough to get buy-in from men.) That's the Series B Cliff. But Krawcheck knew there had to be a way. And eventually, she found it. Somewhere between traditional venture and crowdfunding, she came up with a novel solution: Through special purpose vehicles formed by existing funders, she brought in a number of accredited investors, the majority from underrepresented groups. The checks were smaller, but on April 6, Ellevest announced a $53 million Series B round. Two months later, Krawcheck testified about the Series B Cliff to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services . Now, with $1.44 billion in total assets under management and 666,000 registered users, Ellevest will use its new capital to deepen its offerings and march toward becoming profitable. "One thing I've learned is to have the discipline — which I won't, I'm sure, if I raise again — " she says, laughing, "to find out how a firm makes its decisions. I know I can convince two or three folks. But if they then have to go in to convince their all-male partners, I might as well not waste my time." And the biggest lesson? "Lean on my network and my wolf pack and my gals. This is why I'm doing what I'm doing — helping women invest so they can get more wealth, have more power, and change the whole money industry." Entrepreneur Editors' Picks