Welcome to the first episode of the Raise the Bar, the new podcast from Next Chapter Ventures. Hosted by Amanda Williams, the strategy lead at Next Chapter Raise, a platform for female founders with a very simple mission – get them funded faster.

Women are running successful businesses – tech startups, consultancies, agencies, ecommerce shops. Side hustles and full-time pursuits. One-woman bands and fast-growing empires. However, statistics show that female-led businesses are less likely to get funded, and less likely to seek funding in the first place. This severely limits their business’s potential for growth and impact. Why is this a particular problem with female founders? Are investors just biased? Does the system not work for women? Or are women founders not working hard enough? Well, we know that last one can’t be it! Failure to invest in women is not a new problem, and it is not limited to one market or region. However, there have been painfully few attempts at a practical, sustainable solution. Lucky for us, Nicole Denholder has found one. Nicole is launching Next Chapter Raise this month, an online platform to give female founders the right tools to plan and execute their funding pathways and rally those that are working to change the system to work better for female founders.