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

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/