Woman Founder Grant 2021
A bright light at the end of a dark pandemic
There was something in the air after hearing three PNW women founders and CEOs pitch to our panel of judges and the KMG team in hopes to win the first Woman Founder Grant.
After sky-high unemployment rates and plummeting VC backing for women-founded organizations, it’s been easy to feel like the momentum of progress was going in the wrong direction. On top of that, in the throes of day-to-day work and life, we often forget all the good being dreamt up and created in our own backyard.
Despite knowing we were about to hear from three wonderfully ambitious women, we weren’t expecting to walk away feeling as inspired as we all seemed to be.
Enter our three finalists:
Amy King, the founder and CEO of Pallet, kicked things off. Started in Tacoma, Amy didn’t set out to merely clean up the streets, she tackled the homeless challenge by creating a scalable housing concept and programming that instills a rich sense of dignity in its tenants. Through this approach, Pallet communities have an exceptionally high placement rate into permanent housing, compared to the placement standard.
Elizabeth Ruzzo, the founder and CEO of adyn was next up. Following a long stretch with unexplained health problems—later discovered to be caused by her birth control—Elizabeth put her PHD in genome sciences to work to better understand the relationship between certain genetic markers and birth control-induced side effects. adyn is an at-home genetic test that connects women to the right birth control for their bodies, by providing them a prescription from a partner physician.
Bunny Ghatrora, the co-founder and COO of Blume partnered with her sister to create a direct-to-consumer clean and environmentally friendly wellness line for gen-Zers. With a mission to make teens comfortable in their changing bodies, Blume not only develops beauty products that help teens feel better in their own skin, but goes beyond beautiful packaging by creating a modern-day, approachable sex-ed program designed to rid women of the discomfort and shame often felt during these transformative years.
With three impressive women pushing the ground of three salient missions, judges Maria Colacurcio (CEO of Syndio), Ishani Ummat (investor at Madrona Venture Group) and Anthony Kerr (GTM strategy lead at Microsoft & founder of The Collective) had their work cut out for them.
After tallying the scoresheets, we couldn’t be more excited to announce Elizabeth Ruzzo as the first recipient of the Woman Founder Grant—$20,000 of tailored marketing and communications services.
We’re thrilled to be a partner in making sure adyn is known and understood by those who need it, so scientific discovery is not only accessible, but health is abundant.