Even in 2023, female founders continue to face challenges in accessing opportunities and funding. For instance, across Europe as a whole, female founders have secured just 1.3 per cent of all venture capital funding available since 2017.
Outfund provides non-dilutive funding to founders across the globe, and our data-driven approach removes the bias from traditional decision-making. Since 2020, we’ve strived to democratise access to funding and, to date, we’ve provided over £10m to women-led businesses.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, we’re sharing the stories of some of our female founders to help inspire the next wave of great businesses.
Dog’s Lounge is a UK based dog supplements brand who Outfund has had the pleasure of supporting since 2021. We’re thrilled to introduce founder, Paulina Szymanska to share her story…
I started Dog's Lounge in 2017, after losing my beloved 16-year-old family dog. The reason behind launching the brand was to help dogs lead happy and healthy lives through nutrition, and to educate dog-owners on the significance of proper nutrition.
The biggest challenge has been establishing trust with customers. When you have a dog, you treat it as a family member and want what’s best for them. And so when it comes to giving them something to eat (supplements in our case), you want to make sure the quality is the best and that you trust the brand. We overcame this by providing outstanding customer service, working only with trusted manufacturers who adhere to the industry’s standards when it comes to manufacturing process and quality control, as well as supplying our customers with the product information they ask for.
From this point, I want to continue spreading the word about the importance of proper nutrition. After seeing time and time again how such small changes can have a massively positive effect on dogs' well-being, I’m now even more determined to reach more dog owners and educate them about it. Outfund has been helpful with spreading awareness via our digital marketing. We were self-funded for the first three years, but additional capital meant we didn't have to worry about how we funded our marketing. We were able to advertise our products to more dog owners, building that brand recognition and trust.
As the brand continues to grow, I am incredibly proud of the fact that every day, our products help thousands of dogs live their lives to the fullest.
Paulina