Get a Free Valuation
Sell Now

  Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Amazon Music

Episode 155

Bridging the Gender Gap in VC with Delilah Panio

This week on The Exit: Delilah Panio has been in the capital markets for over 25 years, and since the very start of her career, she noticed that VC is a male-dominated industry. Disturbed by the glaring disparity in funding opportunities between women and their male counterparts, she has passionately dedicated herself to bridging this financial divide. Delilah’s current mission revolves around narrowing the funding gap and furnishing founders with practical, purposeful guidance on securing aligned capital for their ventures. Tune in to gain profound insights into the world of venture capital, crowdfunding, and effective fundraising from a genuine industry expert.

Delilah Panio is the founder of Fortuna Funding which provides practical and intentional guidance on accessing aligned capital. She has developed a proprietary Investor Readiness Program for early-stage founders. She partnered with UBS and Coralus on Project Female Founder, a global investor ready accelerator for female founders. Delilah is currently Chair of the Funding Committee for Women Leaders of Octane and an Advisory Board Member for MAPLE Business Council (a trade organization between Canada and Southern California), WE Global (an innovation studio for women entrepreneurs), and TheAllyship (driving change for women in venture capital). She is an Activator for Coralus (formerly SheEO) and led the 2016 US launch for this financing vehicle for female and non-binary founders. Delilah is also the Co-Founder of We Are Enough, a non-profit that educates women on why and how to invest in women-owned businesses and/or with a gender lens, which will be launching a global campaign in late 2023.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delilah-panio/

Website: https://delilahpanio.com/

TSX – us.tsx.com

Fortuna Funding – http://fortunafunding.biz/

We Are Enough – https://www.weareenough.biz/

Flippa’s First Access: https://flippa.com/product/first-access

For a Free Flippa Business Valuation: flippa.com/freevaluation

YOUR HOST

Steve McGarry

An entrepreneur, content creator, and investor based in sunny Tampa, Florida. In 2015, while living in San Francisco, Steve sold his first fintech startup LendLayer to Max Levchin’s (founder of PayPal) consumer finance company Affirm.

You May Also Like

Episode 210

The Exit

Simon Alex Bérubé, app entrepreneur, startup coach, and investor, shares the story of his transition from software engineering to founding a sleep improvement mobile app company that grew to 40 employees before being acquired by Teladoc after an eight-month exit process.

Simon emphasizes the importance of accurate and long-term forecasting, clean financials, organized documentation, and overall maintaining “a clean house” in preparing for an exit.

Regarding when to exit a business, Simon suggests that the best time to sell is during rapid growth with predictable forecasts.
Episode 209

The Exit

Vincent Alessi, a multiple-exit founder and current subject matter expert at OpenAI shares his journey from humble beginnings in Michigan to becoming a successful entrepreneur and AI expert, specifically within the field of biology and chemistry.

He discusses his first venture, Covaron Advanced Materials, which developed innovative materials with a strong sustainability profile. The intellectual property alone was worth $32M and the company was acquired by an industrial consortium after a nine-month process.
Episode 208

The Exit

Paul Shustak, currently co-founder of AsqMe, shares insights from his transition from Microsoft, Sony, and Adobe to founding four of his own startups, one of which was a SaaS platform that helped families provide care for parents with Alzheimer’s.

Paul details the acquisition process, including initial negotiations, valuation considerations, and stress points that can arise at each phase and cause a deal to fall apart if not properly addressed.