Women With Impact #47 - Takeaways from my RiseUp Summit panel at Google
Welcome to Women With Impact, a newsletter all about the journeys of mission-driven women and how they have a positive impact in our world.
I’m Clara Richter and this is the 47th edition of Women With Impact. If you enjoy this issue, please share it with a friend and like it above.
On October 4th, I had the incredible honour to moderate a session at RiseUp Summit 2024 at Google in Zurich, Switzerland. The topic of the fully booked session was Entrepreneurship for Social Good: Building Impactful Ventures. It was a pleasure to share the stage with two dynamic Switzerland-based founders: Sabina Gasser, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of ethical body wear brand MOYA KALA, and Alex Plaza, Founder and CEO of pioneering fem-tech startup Moonchy.
Thank you to the organising committee at Female Founders Initiative Switzerland, STARTUP CAMPUS Switzerland and Impact Hub Zürich for bringing this event to life. It was inspiring to see so many engaged founders during this event and learn from thought-leaders across different fields.
This edition is a summary of the key takeaways of our discussion. Wishing you a pleasant read!
Best,
Clara
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About Sabina Gasser
Sabina has worked in the fashion industry for many years and is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO at MOYA KALA, a Swiss fashion label for ethical body basics and loungewear. She is in charge of product development and, as an economist, of the finances of the venture. Last year, Sabina did crowd-investing for MOYA KALA through the Oomnium platform, as the only female founded company next to the fintech ellexx. She wrote her bachelor's and master's thesis in the field of fashion at university of Zurich, combining her passion for this industry – which dates back to her childhood – with sustainability. Prior to MOYA KALA, Sabina worked for Hugo Boss and Calida.
About Alex Plaza
Alex is the Founder and CEO of Moonchy, a pioneering fem-tech startup focused on transforming women's health by leveraging the power of nutrition and a profound understanding of the female body's natural cycles. With a master's degree in strategic entrepreneurship, Alex combines a passion for nutrition research with a deep commitment to enhancing female founder representation in the startup world. Through Moonchy, she harnesses the concept of food as medicine, delivering innovative solutions to enhance women's health and wellbeing.
Building companies with a strong commitment to social responsibility
Although in very different industries, both startups have a strong commitment to social responsibility, which we spoke about in our panel.
MOYA KALA stands for ethically produced body basics, which are aesthetic and durable. The key values are those of high quality, sustainability and fairness throughout the entire textile chain. MOYA KALA combines elegance and finest fabrics with responsibility. The label raises awareness for the fight against abuse of women, with 1% of its yearly revenues goes directly to the seamstresses as a bonus, offering them a secure livelihood and thus protection from exploitation. At MOYA KALA, the versatile clothes are produced in Bulgaria and starting this autumn, customers will have the the opportunity to tip sewers with the Tip Me. The fundamental message Sabina reiterated is the one around the need for consumer to buy less but with higher quality.
Alex shared during the discussion how the Moonchy journey started: during the corona pandemic in 2020, where she read research on the female cycle and how to use nutrition to best support oneself through the different stages. She realised that the awareness around this topic was limited and decided to start producing functional food products that help women increase their wellbeing. After a couple of product iterations, Alex now provides the first line of products, chocolate bars, targeted at different stages of your cycle and based on the seed-cycling concept. Packed with nutrients and different ingredients for each phase, the chocolate bars are designed to support your body’s natural hormonal balance and keep your blood sugar levels low. At Moonchy, not only the ingredients are sourced sustainably; the packaging of the bars and transport are plastic-free, and compostable materials are being used.
On fundraising, scalability and staying true to one’s values
Sabina spoke about how well the crowd-investing experience developed last year with MOYA KALA. The team decided itself for crowd-investing due to the nature of the fashion industry and the importance to stay independent. When asked what helped during the campaign, Sabina recalls that their resellers across the nation promoted the campaign heavily. Sabina emphasised the importance to have an engaged community who knows and loves one’s products, before starting a crowd-investing campaign. This was essentially the fundament for their success. As MOYA KALA grows, the focus is to develop the partnerships with the production sites in Bulgaria and find new partners to continuously deliver on its mission.
Alex shared that the Moonchy team is currently looking for funds to be able to grow further. The team is looking for investors who understand the core values of the startup and mostly looks at angels as well as the possibility to do a crowd-investing campaign. Alex mentioned that the difficulty she sees with angel investors however is that structurally, the majority are men, and therefore the knowledge and framing of the topic might be challenging when pitching the startup. Moreover, Alex urged the need to balance one’s outlook as an entrepreneur when it comes to being driven by vision versus being driven by monetary incentives. From her point of view, the mindset on these can have large implications on the development, and (potentially) success of a startup. One of the next steps for Moonchy will be to work with researchers to increase awareness around the topic of cycle syncing and essentially close the data gap when it comes to female health.
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