Putting $1 Billion in the Hands of Female Founders with Sarah Chen-Spellings

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Technology

5 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on The Exit: Sarah’s path to entrepreneurship has been one of many twists and turns, eventually leading her to co-found an investment fund with the goal of putting $1 Billion in the hands of female founders. At the age of nine, Sarah was working as a TV host in Malaysia where she learnt the value of earning a salary, self-promotion and an enterprise mentality. She took these skills with her through life, and after college, planned to become a M&A lawyer. But during an internship at a legal firm in Chicago, Sarah found herself gravitating towards the entrepreneurs she was working with to plan their exit strategies, rather than the legal work behind the deals. After exploring different opportunities and industries, Sarah found herself working in venture capital. It was here that Sarah saw the gender disparity in corporate leadership, so she decided to do something about it. Beyond The Billion was founded and today, Sarah has achieved the goal of putting $1 Billion dollars in the hands of female founders and business owners, including Canva and Everly Health, with no plans of slowing down. Listen to learn more about Sarah’s journey, and the advice she has for founders looking for funding. Based in Washington DC, investor & entrepreneur Sarah Chen-Spellings is Co-Founder of Beyond The Billion® (launched as The Billion Dollar Fund for Women®), the world’s first and largest global consortium of investors that have pledged to invest and are actively deploying beyond $1Bn towards women-founded companies. Previously, she was on the pioneer team of a corporate venture capital unit within a $13BN publicly traded Asian conglomerate, investing in later-stage biotechnology companies. Named Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and Forbes Under 30 VC, Chen-Spellings is a recognized strategist, speaker and commentator on venture capital, startups and women in leadership. She sits on multiple boards including 131 & Counting, a bipartisan effort encouraging more women to run for office in the US; and Lean In Malaysia, a platform accelerating women into leadership in Malaysia. She has been featured on Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg, Der Spiegel and at the United Nations, and is a host on the podcast Billion Dollar Moves. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahchenglobal/ Instagram @Sarahchenglobal : https://www.instagram.com/sarahchenglobal/ Website: https://sarah-chen.com/ Podcast: https://sarah-chen.com/billion-dollar-episodes/ Flippa’s First Access: https://flippa.com/product/first-access For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation -- The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, and welcome to the exit presented by Flipup, the number one platform to buy and sell online businesses.
0:06.0	Flipup manages over a billion in deal value annually, and combines expert buy and sell side advisory with its market leading valuation tool,
0:14.0	deal room, off market offering, market insights, and an AI based deal by deal matching engine. Now for the exit.
0:22.0	The exit is a 30 minute podcast featuring awesome entrepreneurs who have been there and they have done it.
0:27.0	The exit talks to operators who have bought and sold businesses of all different sizes. You learn how they did it.
0:32.0	Why they did it and get exposure to the world of exits. It's a world occupied by a small few but accessible to many on this special episode of the exit.
0:41.0	I sit down with Sarah Chen spellings. She's the co founder and managing partner of beyond the billion.
0:48.0	Now this is the world's first and largest consortium of venture funds that pledged to invest over a billion dollars into women funded companies and founded companies.
1:01.0	Now an incredible part to this story is that they got those contributions from these firms all over the world in nine months.
1:12.0	A remarkable achievement and she talks through the entire story of how it happened, how it started and her journey as to how she got there.
1:21.0	This story is really unique because it takes a whole new approach to bridging the gap to get more venture dollars into the hands of awesome women entrepreneurs out there.
1:32.0	So if you are listening to this and you know a woman entrepreneur that is looking for funding, this is one of the most powerful episodes that they can listen to with advice as to how to overcome aspects of fundraising as a woman and just the overall take of the landscape when it comes to fundraising as a woman and some of the barriers there.
1:55.0	So without further ado, let's sit down and talk to Sarah Chen spellings and she is also the host of the billion dollar moves podcast.
2:05.0	So you guys should definitely check that out as well. So let's sit down and have a great conversation here on the exit with Sarah.
2:11.0	All right, I am here with Sarah Chen spellings and she is the co founder and managing partner at beyond the billion. How's it going Sarah?
2:33.0	Going good every day is a good day and I'm excited to specifically you know ending Friday with podcast with you.
2:41.0	Yeah, yeah, this is the winding down time of Friday. So I love kind of having a motivational end of the week and I'd love to start this off with your background.
2:51.0	What got you into business in the first place?
2:54.0	Oh, big question. What got me into business? Usually people ask me what got me into this line of work.
3:00.0	So I guess my unique edge is that I started as a TV host in Malaysia as a kid at nine years old.
3:08.0	And that I guess was a first foray into business because I was being paid a salary as a tell TV host.
3:14.0	I was very much my own talent. You know, you think about an entrepreneur and thinking about balancing the key requirements of you know,
	...

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