In recognition of Women's History Month, we celebrate some of the extraordinary women of the Wond'ry Founder Program. Each participant embodies the spirit of innovation, resilience, and leadership that has historically propelled women to break barriers and forge new paths. Their relentless pursuit of excellence and commitment to transforming their ideas into reality not only honors the legacy of the trailblazing women who came before them but also paves the way for future generations. Let us take this moment to acknowledge and uplift these remarkable women, whose contributions are not just making history but are also crafting a brighter future for all.
Don't wait for the "right time" to get started. The right time is right now!
What makes me particularly proud is the collection of moments that have led to where our business is today. It's not an easy feat to take a thought and turn it into a reality that people can understand, appreciate, and rally around. And it's the culmination of our many supporters' contributions and our team's hard work that have led to the privilege of influencing the lives of our customers for the better, as we've always dreamed to do, and it makes me incredibly proud!
Before founding Bloom Health, Julia struggled with the side effects of hormonal birth control and various women's health issues for 10 years until her doctor introduced her to a natural alternative. When she shared her story on social media, she went viral with over 20M views, 120K followers and a feature on Buzzfeed. As a result of this experience, she partnered with her doctor, a reproductive physiologist and other experts in the field to create a solution for women seeking natural alternatives to birth control (222 million women worldwide).
Only 2% of venture capital funding goes to women, and I'm proud to be part of the 2%!
Bloom challenges the norm of relying solely on hormonal contraceptives to address birth control and common women's health conditions. At Bloom, we envision a future where women are active participants in their well-being as opposed to passive recipients of medical interventions.
Our long-term ambition is to set a new gold standard for women's health where women are empowered to reclaim their health and blossom into their fullest potential.
Eupalinos is a therapeutic medical device company focused on transforming patient care through innovative vascular solutions. Our core product is an injectable hydrogel, GelCad, that promotes the growth of large blood vessels to improve and restore blood flow to restricted tissues. While our technology has multiple applications, we have been focused on restoring blood flow to the lower extremities of patients with peripheral artery disease to prevent complications such as the need for limb amputation.
The formation of Eupalinos came initially from the discovery and development of our core technology, which was developed by our co-founder, Dr. Ethan Lippmann, at Vanderbilt. As the first postdoctoral scholar to participate in the ASPIRE to Innovate Program, I was connected to Dr. Lippmann and introduced to the technology. After learning more about GelCad, I saw huge opportunity to have a real impact clinically.
Since its inception, our vision for GelCad has grown from a mostly singular use to recognizing that its potential uses in the clinic are many, meaning that we will be able to positively impact even more patients down the road. While initially focused on PAD treatment, our vision has expanded to encompass various additional clinical applications, including orthopedics and wound care. This evolution allows us to positively impact a broader range of patients, improving patient care on a larger scale.
Mentorship and support networks locally and across the country have been instrumental in pushing our efforts forward. Even prior to launching my own company, there were so many female mentors that were paving paths and were great examples of what could be achieved. In graduate school, I interned for a local healthcare startup that was led by a female co-founder and CEO that gave fantastic advice for navigating a male-dominated industry. Then and now, I was also surrounded by strong female leaders in the entrepreneur ecosystem that are either CEO’s themselves or leaders that are providing intentional support to the community. It really is amazing just how supportive the community in Tennessee is – we all want to see each other succeed and that is made clear in the ways we show up for others and continue to try and make the system more friendly for female founders.
One of my goals is to be able to pay it forward in any way possible. Whether it’s taking meetings to mentor new entrepreneurs or those interested in making the leap, making connections for others when I can, simply helping to promote other female-led companies, or making sure to have representation on our company board and team.
As one of less than 23% of female founders in biotech, I hope to see our venture through to a successful entry into the clinic. This will require obtaining substantial funding, which is no small feat considering only ~2% of venture capital funds are invested into women-led companies (still only 16.5% for those with the addition of male co-founders). In the next few years, we will be working to submit an IND application through the FDA and enter into clinical trials, getting us one step closer to being able to effectively serve patients in the clinic.
We're proud to be Nashville's only 100% women-owned whiskey company!
At Happenstance, we like tradition but we’re not so old fashioned. We like our manhattans with a beach, our whiskey not-so-sour and our seven & sevens don’t equal fourteen.
And although we believe many great moments happen by chance, our premium-bourbon is not one of them.
Our founder wanted a brand that pays homage to the tradition of American bourbons that have come before us, but with an unexpected punch of today’s most sought out flavors. So born was our Founder’s Edition straight bourbon whiskey. A complex combination of vanilla, hazelnut, toasted oak, honey and toffee notes.
Double-distilled. Naturally smooth. Barrel-aged to perfection.
I was seeking a more contemporary and premium whiskey experience and when I realized that didn't exist, I set out to create it on my own. Coming from the corporate world at Budweiser, I had an understanding of what the marketplace needed but there was no blueprint to follow in creating my company Happenstance; and only a handful of women in bourbon to look to.Ultimately, the challenge fueled my creativity and curiosity leading Happenstance to become the only 100% women-owned, founded and led bourbon company in Nashville. Pursue your goals with confidence and do not let a lack of role models in an industry limit you from being that role model for someone else.
Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will - as an entrepreneur, you’re constantly overcoming fear and oftentimes there is no roadmap to follow for the path you’re on. The most successful entrepreneurs have learned that regret of not pursuing your dreams is worse than failure ever will be.
Don’t let your thinking limit you – dream big and pursue them with passion, persistence & hard work!
Fathom is a workforce innovation company offering career management solutions for the future of work. Our Workforce Wallet provides students and workers with wrap-around features for documenting real-time skills and work activities, managing existing credentials and resumes, and matching personalized talent profiles with aligned occupations and job opportunities. Additionally, we provide dashboards and other services to workforce and employment agencies to streamline the ongoing documentation, verification, and reporting of employment data.
In 2016, my partner JoAdel and I started Fathom as a local workforce development agency offering career readiness curricula and training programs for young adults across Nashville. As providers, we learned first-hand the challenges of delivering high-quality services while balancing the demands for high volumes of documentation and performance reporting. We also saw a major opportunity to leverage emergent technologies like AI/ML and blockchain to foster more equitable methods for documenting and valuing the talents and contributions of all workers. In 2020 coinciding with the pandemic and a halt to all of our in-person services/contracts, Fathom was fortunate enough to be a part of the Wond’ry’s Pre-Launch/Builder program and was subsequently awarded a National Science Foundation I-Corps grant to conduct customer discovery. Participating in I-Corps allowed us to interview over 200 workforce professionals and uncover a viable market opportunity to leverage technology to scale our workforce expertise beyond the local community. While our mission and vision have not changed since inception, we have continuously pivoted our approach toward achieving it.
At Fathom we believe that individuals’ talents manifest across all domains of life, work, and learning. However, current methods for documenting and accrediting individual knowledge, skills, and work experiences are inefficient, outdated, and biased to privilege those skilled through more formal education and labor market pathways. This means that work outside the traditional labor market is often undervalued or completely ignored altogether, and individuals performing this “nontraditional” work in turn face major barriers to economic and career mobility. For women, these disparities are compounded both within and outside the labor market. Women receive unequal pay for the same work, are overrepresented in low-wage occupations, and often bear the brunt of unpaid domestic, caregiving, and communal labor, such as caring for children or other loved ones. This results in so-called “gaps” in their resumes, and women are in turn more often overlooked for promotions, advanced much slower, and reach a plateau in career mobility compared to their male counterparts.
We have designed our Workforce Wallet with these biases and disparities in mind so that the talents and contributions of all can be more equitably documented and valued. We do this by demonstrating how domains of knowledge, skills, and work experience are transferable across diverse domains of life, work, and learning. By breaking talent down to its core foundational metrics, we aim to challenge these paradigms so that parents are not punished for taking time off to raise their families or care for a sick loved one. On the contrary, these are valuable skills that are comparable and transferable to the labor market and workplace and should be valued as such.
My approach has always been to create connections where they are most needed. When I was an undergrad, I co-founded the Scientific Immersion & Mentorship program to help fellow students find research opportunities. Within our first year, we grew to 500+ members and matched 75+ students to research positions. SIM is still in place today, connecting students to research opportunities almost ten years later. This experience underscored my belief in the power of building bridges—whether it's connecting investors with founders, bridging the gap between academia and industry professionals, or matching students with research labs. At Phase Capital, this philosophy underpins everything we do. We are helping biotech companies go from one phase to the next (pun most definitely intended) by connecting them with the necessary capital, mentorship, and resources.
I get this question frequently, and my answer is always the same. It is not part of our explicit focus, but rather a part of the ethos at Phase Capital. I believe that to make an impact through biotech innovation, a team and company must operate in a way that conveys a strong understanding of diversity in its many forms. This is especially the case when thinking of biotech breakthroughs that impact human health. Many medications have been shown to have varying effects or safety profiles in different populations due to gender, ethnic, or demographic differences. Recognizing and addressing these disparities is not only an ethical imperative but also crucial for the success of biotech innovations aimed at improving human health. At Phase Capital, this focus is woven into the fabric of our approach when identifying and working with portfolio companies. We believe that a team that embraces and understands the complexities of diversity can better navigate the challenges and opportunities in biotech, ultimately leading to more equitable and effective healthcare solutions for all populations.
Don’t think within the lens of ‘as a woman” or “as a girl.” Focus on achieving your goals independent of any societal or demographic constraints, identify the people that are in your corner as early as possible, and stay actively away from those who question your capabilities. There’s a big difference between those who will positively critique your work with the goal of helping you and those that don’t believe you can succeed and therefore continuously criticize your abilities. The way you feel after meeting with people will tell you which of these categories they fall in. My favorite meetings are ones where I leave feeling challenged but ready to take on the world—surround yourself with people that make you feel this way. Your journey is too short to surround yourself with people that make you feel intentionally small. Also, trust your vision. You see the world the way no one else does. As an entrepreneur, by definition, you are creating something that has never been created before. Stay true to your vision and surround yourself with people that will support and challenge you, without enforcing their vision on you.