EmpowHerMent story: Christine Fraser, Co-founder & COO of Brighter Signals, on fundraising for deeptech and building gender-balanced teams

Find out how Christine got her start as an entrepreneur, the challenges of fundraising
for deep tech startups and why she thinks gender-balanced teams lead to better 
companies. 

Could you briefly tell us about your background and about how you got started as an entrepreneur? 

I am Christine Fraser. I am one of the co-founders of Brighter Signals, which is pioneering a new, high-depth sensing technology that gives objects and machines human-like abilities to touch. We only founded the company this year, but I've previously founded or been a part of a number of other startups. 

My whole professional career has been working in startups or scaleups, often commercialising a brand new tech, something that has just been invented or is coming out of a PhD study, and then turning that into an actual product and company. 

That stems from what I studied. Back at university, I did a full Mechanical Engineering degree, but I also went to art school at the same time – the course was actually called Product Design Engineering. So, you continuously have to balance addressing a need and building something that really works, but also make it deliver at a certain cost.  

And the need to balance these two things means that I’ve always worked on startups commercialising new products. That’s where it all started. 

What led you to start Brighter Signals with your co-founders? 

Brighter Signals has three co-founders, and we started the company together. One of us, Edward Shim, actually invented the technology almost 10 years ago, but didn’t really know what to do with it for the first few years, until he tried to find a way forward. 

He actually got a reasonable amount of funding through grants and managed to take it from an idea into something with a really good evidence base. In general, this type of technology benefits large companies, and those companies don’t like to deal with individual people – they want you to build a real organisation. So, he was advised to find good co-founders to start the company with.  

For the past two years I had a robotics startup together with a private research centre. They had a change of heart and wanted to take the company in a different direction than I did and we agreed to stop trying to commercialise the technology. I had just sold back my part of that startup and was starting to look for a new opportunity. That is when I met Edward and Andy, and we all immediately saw the benefit of collaborating with each other. 

Our third co-founder, Andrew Klein (Andy), comes from a much more finance and business-oriented background. The three of us make an extremely powerful combination, and we’ve all been making our own entrepreneurship journeys for quite a long time. We are a well-balanced and diverse team. 

As a woman who has co-founded several companies, have you ever felt a gender bias on the side of the investors? 

Funding is interesting – when I first started working in startups the whole Venture Capital (VC) scene was not nearly as active as it is now. So, on the whole, raising for startups is easier in the last 5-10 years, no matter your gender.

I often work with hardware and deeptech, such as robotics, and I would say that's actually a bigger limitation to receiving funding than my gender. If we look at the overall VC landscape, only about 25% may be interested in investing in deeptech and about 3 out of 4 conversations could be a waste of time, depending on how you approach them.

But there have been occasions in which I’ve gotten past the first screening phase and when it gets to a face-to-face meeting, you can tell that they don’t see you as one of them. In that case, you’re basically fighting against a wall that’s already there. I’ve faced that a couple of times, though not very often. 

Would you say that the obstacles in your fundraising journey have been more related to working in deep tech than to gender bias? 

Yes, there's always a couple of interactions in which there’s a little bit of bias and the investors may not even realize that. But I’ve had so many people who are just so focused on the company and the energy that we have and are very positive towards it. 

I also believe in a diverse, gender-equal leadership team. In almost all of my businesses, we’ve had a mix of male and female team members. I’ve been in other women-led startups that have been able to raise money. I also find that, as a strong female founder, it’s much easier to hire female staff, often for technical roles. People sometimes ask me advice on building a team, but almost all of the teams I build end up being quite gender-balanced.

I think there are big advantages to being a female founder. Unfortunately, there might also be some investors who don’t reply or don’t take the opportunities forward because of that. There might be stuff I don’t see. 

Do you think that there's still a problem in sourcing female talent, particularly in deeptech and for more technical roles? 

I believe that there are many talented women out there, but they are very careful about the companies they choose to work with. If you go to a presentation and you put up a picture of 12 white balding men, it's not very attractive to many people in that audience. 

If you go and you put up a slide which shows a really nice, well balanced leadership team, those are the types of companies that women want to work for. Women want to see opportunity, not a glass ceiling. 

You also have to be serious about having strong women in your leadership team. They don’t have to be co-founders, but they have to be at the table. And all-male environments have been proven not to be the most creative or forward thinking. There are many studies that show that a gender-balanced team leads to a better company. I fully believe that – and I’m always sitting at the decision table. 

And what advice would you give to aspiring female founders in deeptech? 

For me, a lot of it is about self-belief. What you’re doing is hard and you’re not choosing an easy road. There are simpler ways to make money, to get a job at a company and lead an easy life. You’re already two or three steps ahead of other people because of the choice you made, so you need to believe in what you are doing and really focus on it. Don’t dilute your focus by doing anything that’s not 100% aligned with your goals. 

Believe in yourself, surround yourself with positive people who believe in you and your mission and then go for it. 

About the Matchmaking on Digital Technologies 

What were the highlights of the event for you? 

I really enjoyed the event, it was extremely well-organised, including the preparation and feedback provided on the deck. I think the mix and seniority level of the female founders was inspiring, I liked the diversity of digital technologies with broad applications and at different stages. 

I found all the pitches really inspiring to listen to. The investors who asked questions had listened, their understood our model, and were very clear about their priorities. Their questions also told you a little more about what they were interested in. 

 

What motivated you to apply for the Matchmaking on Digital Technologies? 

I'm a big believer in networking and thought leadership. When you put yourself out there, these opportunities come to you, and then you go for it. It was a great opportunity for us to have a stage for investors across Europe, for five minutes, in a very professional forum. 

It not only raises awareness about Brighter Signals, but also get us in front of investors who may not be relevant to us, but who also have a network. So what often happens is that investors will say that out technology is not right for them, but that they can introduce us to someone who is more relevant. And that is the way  real business is often done. 
 

What would you say to entrepreneurs who may be considering applying for upcoming WomenINvestEU Matchmaking events? 

I think this is a really nice platform, through which you get more exposure than you would be able to raise yourself. As an entrepreneur and as a startup, any way you can get your message out there and to the decisions makers is great. This is a good way to get your voice heard, so if you have the opportunity, take it. 

About the EmpowHerMent Stories 

From now on, WomenINvestEU will be publishing regular stories on women entrepreneurs, women in leadership roles in the investment sector and representatives of wider organizations on gender-focused investing.  

Thorough these stories, we are celebrating the achievements of remarkable women at all levels of the supply chain and inspiring you on your journey to raise capital or become a gender-conscious investor. 

About the WomenINvestEU Matchmaking Events 

As a part of its effort to expand the gender-focused investment ecosystem across Europe, WomenINvestEU is organizing online matchmaking events to connect women-led startups with members of its European Network of Gender-Conscious Investors. 

Representatives of women-led startups, as well as startups with women in C-level positions, can apply for the chance to participate in these events through regular open calls. The selected startups will also receive pitching support on strategic topics, in order to prepare for their interactions with the gender-conscious investors in attendance. 

Visit our Events page and stay tuned for upcoming opportunities.