The first episode of feel-good content studio SoulPancake’s new six-part webseries Funded in America is now live on its YouTube channel.
‘Hoops and Hijabs’ is hosted by businesswoman and beauty guru La La Anthony and — like the rest of the series — was produced in partnership with T-Mobile and crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. The installment spotlights female entrepreneurs Fatimah Hussein and Jamie Glover, who are making game-changing athletic gear after crowdfunding nearly $40,000 in startup capital for their company ASIYA.
Each episode of the series will feature a different female entrepreneur who funded her business through Indiegogo as opposed to seeking venture capital funding (which is not a surprising path to take, given that female business founders only received 2% of venture capital funding in 2017). On Indiegogo, 47% of successful campaigns are run by women, and women-led campaigns receive a higher per-person pledge amount overall, the company says.
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SoulPancake, which was founded by Rainn Wilson and has nearly three million subscribers on YouTube, is the digital division of Participant Media (since the latter acquired the former in October 2016) and is run by female CEO Shabnam Mogharabi. It will distribute one episode of Funded in America per week for the next six weeks. Associated women-centered content will be going live on T-Mobile and Indiegogo’s social channels to complement the series.
“As a female entrepreneur with a majority female leadership team, I was so excited to help lead the conversation about the challenges and opportunities of being a female entrepreneur,” Mogharabi says. “We are grateful to have partners such as Indiegogo and T-Mobile that align with our mission to tackle issues like this head on and inspire others to do good.”
Future episodes will spotlight the female founders of lifestyle company EllieGrid, shoe customization app Hi-Tech Heels, The Hot Seat, a device that warns caretakers if they’ve left their child in their car, location-sharing device Athena, and charity food program Food Shift.
SoulPancake also recently produced another advocacy project, The Price of Free, which follows Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi on his global mission to end child labor and trafficking. The 90-minute documentary was acquired by YouTube Premium and will premire Nov. 27.
