women-led-startup
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CAKES Body
CAKES Body is a Los Angeles-based, women-led direct-to-consumer brand founded by twin sisters Taylor Capuano and Casey Sarai in 2022. It makes reusable silicone nipple covers and bra alternatives from medical-grade silicone that grip to skin using natural body heat instead of adhesive. After a viral organic-content strategy and a December 2023 appearance on ABC's Shark Tank - where it took a $300,000 investment from SKIMS and Good American co-founder Emma Grede - the bootstrapped company scaled to roughly $95 million in net sales in the fiscal year ending June 2025.
Taylor Capuano
Taylor Capuano is the co-founder and chief creative officer of CAKES body, a viral direct-to-consumer apparel brand she launched in 2022 with her twin sister, Casey Sarai. Starting with $5,000 each in personal savings and no marketing budget, the sisters bootstrapped the company from a side hustle into a business that reported roughly $95 million in net sales in its fiscal year ending June 2025. A December 2023 appearance on ABC's Shark Tank, where they landed a deal with Emma Grede, accelerated the brand's rise. Capuano leads creative and marketing, and has become a public voice for bootstrapped, digital-first growth and family-friendly workplace policies.
AIMHI Construction App (AI meets Human Intelligence)
AIMHI (Artificial Intelligence meets Human Intelligence) is a women-led, Mindanao-based construction technology startup building the Philippines' first AI-driven, profit-first project management platform. Its Builder Suite and offline-capable mobile app give contractors, engineers, and project managers real-time clarity on costs, risks, and progress - even on remote job sites where the internet drops - helping them predict target profit early and avoid budget overruns.
Quinn
Quinn is a Santa Monica-based audio erotica platform - often described as a 'Spotify for erotica' - that turns intimate, narrative-driven stories into 15-to-20-minute immersive audio experiences. Founded by Caroline Spiegel and built primarily for women and underserved audiences, Quinn pairs a creator-driven content marketplace with an ever-growing roster of professional voice actors and Hollywood celebrities. With roughly 300,000 users, over 900,000 TikTok followers, and around $5M in annual recurring revenue, it has reframed adult content around imagination, storytelling, and discreet listening rather than the visual mainstream.
Caroline Spiegel
Caroline Spiegel is the founder and CEO of Quinn, a Santa Monica-based audio erotica platform built around female-centered, imagination-first storytelling. She started the company in 2019 as a Stanford senior after her own recovery experience convinced her that the mental, non-visual side of intimacy was a market nobody served well. Quinn has grown into a creator marketplace and celebrity-voiced studio with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, more than $12 million in annual recurring revenue, and a roster of name actors lending their voices to original audio.
Cherryanne Angoy
Cherryanne Lee Angoy is the founder and CEO of AIMHI (AI Meets Human Intelligence), a women-led construction-tech startup based in Tagum City, Mindanao, Philippines. After 16 years in the US tech industry, including leadership roles at Verizon, she returned home and set out to fix construction's oldest headache - projects that run late, over budget, and below profit. AIMHI's AI-powered Builder Suite gives contractors real-time insights, cost tracking, and risk alerts, with an offline mode built for job sites where cell signal disappears. The company has raised grants from DOST-PCIEERD and Accenture and won the E3 Chairman Recognition Award in Kuala Lumpur.
Sara Cullen
Sara Cullen is the founder and CEO of GEM, a Los Angeles wellness company that reinvented the daily multivitamin as a bite-sized chew made from real, whole-food ingredients. After a personal health slump in her late twenties left her disillusioned with the synthetic-filler vitamin aisle, the Oregon farm kid and Cornell graduate built the product she could not find. She validated it inside a private Facebook group of women before raising venture capital, selling more than 20 million bites, and turning 'food is medicine' into a real business.
Christine Williams
Christine Williams is the co-founder and Co-CEO of Foxtrot Services, a women-led, Foundry-native Palantir partner based in Washington, D.C. A Palantir alumna with a background spanning intelligence analysis, national security, and enterprise consulting at firms like Accenture, Peraton Labs, and Victory Six Advisors, she co-leads a company that helps organizations move AI out of the lab and into governed, operator-trusted production. Under her and co-CEO Nicole Sanders, Foxtrot grew from two people to more than 60 employees, posted 9.1x year-over-year revenue growth while remaining bootstrapped and profitable, and closed a Series A in early 2026.