How Procter & Gamble Ventures is helping women-led start-ups get off the ground

P&G Ventures's Betsy Bluestone and The Vinetta Project's Vanessa Dawson join Yahoo Finance to talk about getting more women-led businesses off the ground.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: P&G Ventures is a startup studio that lives inside of Procter & Gamble. It has teamed up with the Vinetta Project, which is a high-impact capital platform that focuses on female founders, in particular.

Joining us to talk about this is Betsy Bluestone, P&G Ventures' Director of Scouting and Partnerships, she is in Chicago, and Vanessa Dawson, Vinetta Founder and CEO. She is in Hawaii. And they're both joining us as part of our Women and Money segment sponsored by USAA.

Thank you both for joining us. Betsy, I want to start with you, because P&G, obviously, big consumer products giant, why did you do this partnership? What made you interested in female-founded startups, in particular?

BETSY BLUESTONE: So P&G Ventures is, as you said, a startup studio within P&G, and the-- sort of the object of the game within Ventures is to build businesses and categories where P&G doesn't already compete. And so the partnership with Vinetta actually started because we weren't seeing the quality and quantity of leads that we needed coming from female founders. So this-- this partnership gave us incredible access to just a goldmine of technology and products from female founders.

JULIE HYMAN: And Vanessa, I've had a number of conversations with female founders over the years, where they talk about not necessarily having the same tools or the same networks as men do, particularly women of color having these types of challenges. So how does Vinetta find these folks and sort of bring them into that, I won't call it a boys club, but an insiders club, for lack of a better term, within the startup world?

VANESSA DAWSON: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, capital definitely remains one of the largest barriers for women and then-- and access to these networks. So Vinetta really focuses on being kind of the boots on the ground in particular cities, prior to when we were-- prior to COVID, and sourcing these founders at the-- at the spot.

So we really looked to that-- great women entrepreneurs, understand their businesses, understand their hurdles, and then connect them strategically with investors, and mentors, and the networks that they traditionally didn't have access to. So it's a pretty on the grounds type style movement that includes vetting, and then events, and networking, and connecting in that way.

RICK NEWMAN: I have a question for Betsy. Hi, Rick Newman here. What kinds of innovations have you come across? I mean, can you tell us about some of the product ideas you might be getting from these founders?

BETSY BLUESTONE: Yeah, we're working in-- in a bunch of different spaces. One of the things that's so-- so important about having access to female founders is that they're actually solving different problems, right. They're-- they're interested in problems that haven't been solved yet, or haven't been solved to the consumer's satisfaction.

And so we're working in-- in areas like women's wellness, and menopause, sleep. We're doing work in active aging, something that disproportionately women end up caring for the older folks in their families. So we are finding innovation across these areas through our partnership with Vinetta and other networks as well.

DAN HOWLEY: It's Dan Howley. And I have a question for both of you guys. And basically, I want to know, you know, is there any real reason why women wouldn't be getting the additional kind of capital? Is it just the fact that it's traditional discrimination? What-- what really is the main issue here?

JULIE HYMAN: Vanessa, I want to give you that one.

VANESSA DAWSON: Yeah, I can jump in on that, for sure. There's a lot of-- there's a lot of unconscious bias and stereotypes that exist in society against women and their ability to spend funds accordingly to scale businesses fast enough to-- that they're seen as a higher risk investment, in general. So I think that that-- those are some core reasons, too, and the lack of support networks that they have when dealing with kind of those issues.

So yeah, it's-- it's kind of a deep-rooted problem that isn't always something that we're aware of, but that is very unconscious. And it's also the way that women are kind of critically quizzed, even when they're asking for funding or when they're trying to receive venture capital. They're just assessed in kind of a different way traditionally than men are as an investment opportunity.

JULIE HYMAN: So it's good that you guys have this partnership, then, to hopefully try to repair some of that oversight, if it's that. Maybe that's too kind a word. Betsy Bluestone is P&G Venture's Director of Scouting and Partnerships, and Vanessa Dawson, Vinetta Founder and CEO. Thank you both very much.

BETSY BLUESTONE: Thanks, Julie.