Two Alberta CEOs have won thousands of dollars in investment through a national competition for women and entrepreneurs of diverse genders.
Shelvie Fernan of Edmonton and Lourdes Juan of Calgary are two of the winners of the HerStory 2022 competition led by Alberta Innovates and The51, an organization that invests in startups and companies led by women and founders of diverse genders.
The presentation competition, held in Banff earlier this month, featured 29 entrepreneurs from across the country sharing stories of how the ideas behind their businesses came about.
Fernan is the CEO and co-founder of Fly & Fetch, a shipping company that aims to offer faster and cheaper international package shipments. Fernan won $ 51,000 for the company through the HerStory contest.
“It definitely surprised me,” Fernan said. “At the same time, you just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people.”
Well, financial feminists,
This is a wrapper. We are incredibly excited to announce the winners of HerStory 2022:
Shelvie Fernan de
Julia Rivard Dexter of pic.twitter.com/WOaPNgbrr8
– @ _ The51
Instead of a traditional shipping process, Fly & Fetch pays travelers with extra luggage space to carry and deliver packages to customers. Fernan said the company covers 50 to 100 percent of the flight costs of passengers, and already has a database of about 7,000 passengers who are willing to deliver packages.
Fernan said the idea for the company stemmed from his own experiences with international shipping. As an immigrant from the Philippines, whenever she sent packages home to her mother through traditional courier companies, deliveries were expensive and usually took more than a week.
It is a common practice in immigrant communities to ask people traveling home to deliver packages for friends and family, Fernan said.
“We’ve been doing this for so long,” he said. “We need to have a business model that works because a lot of other people want it [quick] also shipping “.
Reimagine the launch process
Shelley Kuipers, co-founder and co-CEO of The51, said the idea behind the HerStory contest was to reimagine the submission process in a way that serves women and diverse entrepreneurs.
“Don’t tell us, but tell us your story,” Kuipers said. “Is there an experience behind this? Why did you create this business? Why will this business succeed with you in leading it?”
Kuipers said competition is also intended to be a direct way to increase investment in women-led companies and founders of diverse genders. She knows firsthand how difficult it can be to navigate the risk ecosystem.
“My own experience was extremely difficult to raise capital as a woman entrepreneur and founder,” Kuipers said.
In 2020, women founders received only 2.3 percent of the $ 1 billion in global venture capital funds.
Although originally only supposed to be a winner of the HerStory contest, Kuipers said the contestants were so impressive that four prizes had to be handed out at the end of the event.
“Increasing access to food worldwide”
One such award went to Lourdes Juan, founder and CEO of Knead Technologies, a Calgary-based technology company that helps food rescue organizations manage logistics through an application. Juan earned $ 20,000.
Juan said participating in the contest was one of the best experiences of his entrepreneurial career.
“It was so wonderful to be in the room with that energy, to meet so many people who are doing exactly what I’m doing,” Juan said.
Juan, who has a background in urban planning, has founded several companies and charities, including a spa and the nonprofit organization Fresh Routes, a mobile grocery store and an emerging market that offers products and other foods at a discounted price. .
A Calgarí inspects product quality at one of Fresh Routes’ emerging markets at an LRT station. Fresh Routes is just one of the many organizations that entrepreneur Lourdes Juan has founded. (David Bell / CBC)
Juan said his passion for solving food access problems comes from his own life experiences. His mother, who emigrated to Canada from the Philippines, used to work three jobs, including as a cashier at a grocery store, to put food on the table.
“We were one of the families who wasn’t in a position to waste food,” Juan said.
“Now, I’m really committed to increasing access to food around the world with this new technology.”
Although Knead Technologies was only founded this year, Juan said his team has already received calls from organizations around the world, from Jamaica to Côte d’Ivoire.
Future plans
The various organizations that have invested in HerStory winners will follow up with each company to see how they plan to use their new funds, Kuipers said.
“We will go through a due diligence process to make sure everything is reviewed from an investment standpoint,” he said.
Juan said the money his company earned will probably be used to improve the app to better market to organizations around the world.
Fernan said his company is looking to expand its reach. Although it currently delivers mainly to Canada, the United States, the Philippines and Pakistan, the company expects to reach countries such as Brazil and India.