SHEEO provides more than funding to women-identifying entrepreneurs
For decades, women entrepreneurs have been woefully underrepresented when it comes to accessing financing. But thanks to the efforts of organizations like SHEEO, women-identifying entrepreneurs around the world are banding together to improve their odds.
SHEEO is a global community of radically generous women whose goal is to build a $1 billion perpetual fund to support women-led businesses. Each of these businesses must address one of the UN’S sustainable development goals. SHEEO calls it “working on the World’s To-do List.”
Eligible women-owned businesses can be for profit, not-forprofit, or charity and span across sectors, including wellness, AI, education, food sustainability, waste reduction, energy efficiency, inclusion and biotech innovation.
With the support entrepreneurs have received from SHEEO since its inception in 2015, many have increased not only their profits, but their global impact.
Ilana Ben-ari of Toronto, for example, was working on a design-school project at university when she saw a market need for tools that developed 21st century learning skills not taught in the classroom.
“That’s where I thought, ‘We need to be teaching skills like empathy, failure. And we aren’t going to be able to teach that with textbooks,’” she says. “So that was the first dare.”
She went on to found Twentyone Toys, a learning and development toy company initially funded through bootstrapping, Kickstarter campaigns, and design award proceeds. But while her Empathy Toy concept was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the six new technologies shaping the future of classrooms, mass production presented a cash flow hurdle.
Applying for SHEEO funding marked an important turning point. An injection of funding would improve her cash flow and allow her to employ contractors on payroll to build momentum.
But she says she also gained other unexpected benefits from SHEEO.
“What I didn’t expect was just the incredible community that I was invited into,” she says. She notes the funding and mentorship combined “completely changed our trajectory.”
Over 5,000 Activators have loaned over $5 million at a zero-percent interest rate to womenowned and led businesses, like Ben-ari’s, with a 95 per cent pay back rate, creating the first perpetual fund of its kind. The SHEEO global community is 30,000 strong with over 1,200 businesses that have been supported through the ecosystem.
Recognizing the power of SHEEO, Mastercard recently partnered with the organization to help them continue to create a whole new playing field for women-identifying and gender non-confirming entrepreneurs.
“Mastercard believes in the power of women’s ideas and the idea that ‘her ideas start something priceless,’” says Sasha Krstic, president of Mastercard in Canada. “The Ventures, who found and build their companies, and the Activators who support them, are clearing the way for talented women who strive to create a more equitable and sustainable world.”
For Hayley Mullins, involvement in SHEEO provided not only valuable mentorship but led to a new professional partnership. The Toronto-based entrepreneur invented the Joeyband, a hands-free skin-to-skin support system that prevents infant falls, after her own infant daughter experienced a fall.
“I designed it based on what I wanted as a new mom,” she says. “What the market was lacking was something simple that you could use in those first few weeks of life with your baby where the baby wants to be on you nonstop.”
Through SHEEO, Mullins met Sarah Cox, the VP of a health tech company and a SHEEO Activator who was intrigued by her company. Cox initially offered to advise Mullins, and after a year joined Joeyband full-time as president.
Today Joeyband is used in more than 250 hospitals across North America, and is patented in 12 countries, with more in process.
“To have that support and that hands-on in the trenches [partnership] everyday with me, I wouldn’t have gotten that without SHEEO,” Mullins says.
Barbara “BE” Alink of Montreal similarly emphasizes the significance of support gained through SHEEO. BE is working to transform the “sick care” industry through design of The Alinker, an innovative walking bike for people with disabilities who want to lead an active lifestyle. The business has gained international attention and BE is now operating in Canada and the U.S., the Netherlands, U.K., New Zealand and Australia.
When BE’S business was selected by the Activators as one of the SHEEO Ventures, it was a moment that proved to be a true eye opener to the power and value of the SHEEO ecosystem.
“There I was in a big room full of radically generous women. I thought, now I’m being held by a group of women that believe in me. It gave me wings and allowed me to be the leader that I am right now,” BE says. “I could have never done that without the SHEEO network.”
There I was in a big room full of radically generous women. I thought, now I’m being held by a group of women that believe in me.” BARBARA “BE” ALINK