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A Children’s Book to Draw Them Into Becoming Founders and Investors
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By Brian Gormley, WSJ Pro
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Good day. While children may dream of becoming firefighters or astronauts or teachers, it’s a certainty that far fewer imagine themselves setting up their own business—to say nothing of seeding a promising startup with money.
Men continue to dominate entrepreneurship. Even last year, startups founded solely by women accounted for not quite 7% of U.S. venture-capital deals, according to PitchBook Data. Deena Shakir, a general partner at Lux Capital, wants children—regardless of gender or background—to consider business as their vocation from an early age.
“You can’t be it if you can’t see it,” she said.
So she wrote a children’s book, “Leena Mo, CEO,” which was published last week. Its protagonist, unenthused about shoveling, instead invents a snow-clearing robot, recruits her friends to start a business, and launches her automaton company with funding from her neighbor, Irma.
Shakir said she got the idea in 2019 after she was unable to find children’s books about entrepreneurship to help her explain it to her daughter’s pre-school class, let alone one with a young girl as a protagonist. She is donating the proceeds from her sales to Save the Children, a nonprofit humanitarian organization.
We spoke with her about her book. Here are excerpts of the conversation, edited for length and clarity.
WSJ Pro: How would you describe your experience writing the book?
Shakir: I made this my pandemic project. I didn’t know anybody at the time who had written children’s books. It’s very hard, as it turns out, explaining venture capital even to very well-educated adults who don't know anything about it. It was challenging for me to do it in a book.
WSJ Pro: Were you like Leena Mo growing up?
Shakir: I was. I wasn’t a tinkerer, I didn’t build a robot. I started my first company when I was in college. It was e-commerce. I was a freshman at the time.
WSJ Pro: Your book is aimed at children aged 4 to 8. Why is it important for them to think about entrepreneurship early in life?
Shakir: We want to see more diversity in entrepreneurs and more diversity in venture capital, and we have to start really early. You can’t just address it later when they’re already adults. That’s how we’re going to cultivate the next generation.
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And now on to the news...
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Electric motorcycle and battery startup LAND Energy sources most parts from the U.S., but some battery and wheel components are only available from China. PHOTO: DANIEL LOZADA FOR WSJ
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Defense-tech startups need a new supplier. Defense startups developing weapons to counter China have a problem. They depend on the country for parts. China is the dominant supplier of batteries, motors, sensors, rare-earth materials and other key components needed by U.S. defense companies. The industry’s outsize reliance on China for materials to build everything from drones to ships and missiles has become an untenable reality in Washington. Defense-tech startups face particular challenges building without the most affordable and readily available parts, according to industry executives and national-security experts, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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$130 Billion
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The amount venture capitalists have plowed into defense tech globally since 2021, according to PitchBook.
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California’s Newsom Vetoes Bill to Rein In Healthcare Buyouts
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have tightened scrutiny of private-equity medical transactions, WSJ Pro reports. Newsom, a Democrat, on Saturday blocked Assembly Bill 3129, which the state senate passed by a wide margin in August, following its passage through the lower chamber in May. The bill would have given California’s attorney general power to review and block acquisitions of healthcare businesses by private-equity firms or hedge funds.
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Newsom decided the bill was redundant, since California already has a government body that reviews healthcare transactions: the Office of Health Care Affordability, formed just two years ago.
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OceanSound Raises Nearly $1.5 Billion for Its Second Fund
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OceanSound Partners has hit the upper limit on its second fund to back companies in highly regulated and government-linked industries in a particularly challenging time for private-equity fundraising, WSJ Pro reports. The New York-based firm has collected $1.49 billion for OceanSound Partners Fund II, nearly double the amount raised for its debut pool, which closed in February 2022, the firm said. OceanSound raised the upper limit on its newest fund by $190 million in response to high demand, it added.
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Powell Says Rate Cuts Can Continue to Support Soft Landing
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said officials would continue to reduce interest rates from a two-decade high to maintain solid economic growth, but they didn’t currently see a reason to lower rates as aggressively as they did at their most recent meeting, WSJ reports. “Overall, the economy is in solid shape; we intend to use our tools to keep it there,” Powell said Monday afternoon at a conference in Nashville, Tenn. Because officials have a relatively favorable economic outlook, “this is not a committee that feels like it’s in a hurry to cut rates quickly,” he added.
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Funds
Fintech venture firm Restive Ventures, out of San Francisco, has made a registration to raise its third fund that would total $70 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing the firm made.
Deals
Dragos, a cybersecurity provider for operational technology (OT) environments, acquired Network Perception, a network visualization platform for OT networks. Terms weren’t disclosed.
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New York-based Eon, which is developing cloud backup technology for enterprises, said it raised $127 million across three funding rounds, all done this year. Most recently, Greenoaks led the company’s $77 million Series B round with participation from Quiet Ventures. Sequoia Capital led its seed round in January, followed by Lightspeed Venture Partners leading its Series A.
Tel Aviv-based Qodo (formerly CodiumAI) has raised $40 million in Series A funds for its technology that develops AI tools for software code generation and testing. Susa Ventures and Square Peg led the deal, with participation from Firestreak Ventures, ICON Continuity Fund, TLV Partners and Vine Ventures.
Convergence, a London-based startup creating personal AI agents, secured $12 million in pre-seed funding led by Balderton Capital.
San Francisco-based technology startup Wispr said it has raised a $12 million investment to fuel the launch of Wispr Flow, a voice-first productivity tool. Wispr, founded in 2021, has raised a total of $26 million.
Lucky Energy, an Austin, Texas-based energy drink startup, raised nearly $11.8 million in Series A funding led by Brand Foundry Ventures.
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‘Fortnite’ gamers competed in Saudi Arabia last year. PHOTO: YAZED ALDHAWAIHI/ZUMA PRESS
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