M12 and VC partners award $4 million to two women-led companies transforming enterprise tech

Microsoft Corp. venture fund M12, in partnership with EQT Ventures and SVB Financial Group, announced the two winners of the Female Founders Competition: Acerta and Mental Canvas. The companies and their founders, Greta Cutulenco (CEO and co-founder, Acerta) and Julie Dorsey (founder and chief scientist, Mental Canvas) beat out several hundred applicants to receive $2 million each in venture funding, along with access to technology resources and more to help progress the future of their businesses.

Earlier this year, M12 and its partners kicked off the global event in a bid to not only find and fund innovative female entrepreneurs, but also to spotlight the funding gap that exists and the need for more equitable distribution of capital. Hundreds of startups across North America, Europe and Israel applied, providing a glimpse into the potential opportunity and untapped talent in the market.

“Our goal for this competition was to clear a path to funding for more women entrepreneurs,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of Business Development, Microsoft. “We were thrilled by the response we received and feel confident that we’ll see great returns on our two newest additions to our portfolio, but we also know there’s much more work to do. We plan to continue exploring other ways to close the funding gap using the lessons we learned from this competition: There’s no shortage of women entrepreneurs building for the enterprise, there’s more than one way to source an investment, and networking is essential to women founders’ growth and success.”

In early November, the VC firms narrowed the selection down to 10 finalists. Teams from each startup then pitched their company to a group of judges from M12 and the partner VC firms for one of two chances at the top prize: a total of $2 million in venture funding from M12, EQT Ventures and SVB Financial Group, and access to Microsoft technology. The winning companies include:

Waterloo, Ontario-based Acerta, founded by CEO Greta Cutulenco, provides an AI platform that ensures vehicle systems’ quality and reliability throughout a vehicle’s lifecycle.

New York-based Mental Canvas, founded by chief scientist Julie Dorsey, reimagines sketching for the digital age by augmenting it with spatial strokes, 3-D navigation and free-form animations, all drawn with the ease of pencil and paper.

“At SVB, we have the good fortune to work with some of the most innovative companies around the world,” said Tracy Isacke, head of Corporate Venture at Silicon Valley Bank. “This partnership provided the opportunity to meet some incredible female founders, and we were truly inspired by the depth and breadth of innovation that they are bringing to the enterprise technology market. We are proud to support Acerta and Mental Canvas as they pursue their ambitious business goals.”

“The quality and number of submissions for the competition was incredible, and the EQT Ventures team would like to congratulate both Acerta and Mental Canvas,” said Alastair Mitchell, partner and investment advisor at EQT Ventures. “Our fund is dedicated to backing founders with the ambition, drive and vision to build a global success story, and this competition not only provides a great launchpad for Acerta and Mental Canvas, it highlights the fact that far more needs to be done to close the funding gap between male and female founders. The EQT Ventures team is proud to play a part in bridging that gap.”

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. With the help of its partners and competitions like this, the company is pushing forward in its efforts to ensure women are afforded an equal opportunity when raising capital.

More on the Female Founders Competition can be found on the Official Microsoft Blog.

About EQT Ventures

EQT Ventures is a European VC fund with commitments of just over €566 million. The fund is based in Luxembourg and has investment advisors stationed in Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco and Berlin. Fueled by some of Europe’s most experienced company builders, EQT Ventures helps the next generation of entrepreneurs with capital and hands-on support. EQT Ventures is part of EQT, a leading investment firm with approximately €50 billion in raised capital across 27 funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia and the U.S. with total sales of more than €19 billion and approximately 110,000 employees.

About SVB Financial Group

For 35 years, SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ: SIVB) and its subsidiaries have helped innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB Financial Group’s businesses, including Silicon Valley Bank, offer commercial and private banking, asset management, private wealth management, brokerage and investment services and funds management services to companies in the technology, life science and healthcare, private equity and venture capital and premium wine industries. Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, SVB Financial Group operates in centers of innovation around the world. Learn more at www.svb.com.

About M12

As the corporate venture arm for Microsoft, M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures) invests in enterprise software companies in the Series A through C funding stage with a focus on big data and analytics, business SaaS, cloud infrastructure, machine learning and artificial intelligence, productivity, and security. As part of its value-add to portfolio companies, M12 offers unique access to strategic go-to-market resources and relationships globally. The company has offices in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, London and Tel Aviv.

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Microsoft increases commitment to eliminate the US rural broadband gap - Microsoft Certifications

More than 19 million people living in rural America do not have access to broadband, a service as necessary as electricity in today’s digital economy. Today, at an event in Washington, D.C., Microsoft President Brad Smith reiterated his call for a national strategy to close the rural broadband gap and highlighted that this is a problem the country can solve. Smith also announced a significantly increased commitment by Microsoft to help tackle the problem.

The Microsoft Airband Initiative launched in July 2017 with the goal of working with partners to make broadband available to 2 million Americans in rural communities who lack access today and to help catalyze an ecosystem to connect millions more. After the success of the initiative’s first year, Smith announced that Microsoft is raising its goal for the program and increasing the company’s commitment. The program will reach 3 million Americans in rural communities by July 4, 2022, and is adding additional states, bringing the total to 25 states served by this time next year. The new states include California, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

“Without a proper broadband connection, these communities can’t start or run a modern business, access telemedicine, take an online class, digitally transform their farm, or research a school project online,” Smith said. “You see this dilemma play out in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data, which shows the highest unemployment rates are frequently located in the counties with the lowest availability of broadband. As a nation, we can’t afford to turn our backs on these communities as we head into the future. Given our early progress, today we are raising our goal and increasing our commitment. Microsoft will pursue work to extend broadband access to 3 million Americans in rural areas by July 2022.”

The event featured a precision-agriculture demo, a discussion with representatives from two internet service providers who are partnering with Microsoft — Packerland Broadband and Declaration Networks Group — and a discussion with representatives from the National 4-H Council and National FFA Organization, which also are partners in the Microsoft Airband Initiative. The event has been webcasted, and Smith’s blog about the event can be found here.

The Microsoft Airband Initiative partners with internet service providers that are using a mix of technologies to close the rural broadband gap. This includes TV white spaces, which provides an economical wireless solution for rural areas. Microsoft is also working with hardware manufacturers to substantially decrease the price of TV white spaces devices. These lower-cost devices are critical to lowering costs for rural broadband and expanding access.

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