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Shravanth Vijayakumar · · 6 min readLucy invokes the spirit of the tiger to empower women – The Executive Brief
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Hello reader,
Today, over 2 billion people are celebrating the Lunar New Year and welcoming the Year of the Tiger (specifically, the water tiger), as per the Chinese zodiac. While there isn’t a consensus about the traits of the tiger, as the festival is celebrated by many different cultures with varying traditions, there are general principles around its symbolism.
The tiger is considered the king of all animals in Chinese mythology and culture and, as a Zodiac sign, it symbolizes passion, power, courage, confidence, leadership, and strength. That’s quite a set of characteristics, enough to make one envious. However, people don’t need to wait for the Year of the Tiger to invoke these traits. The folks at women-focused fintech startup Lucy stopped waiting a long time ago.
The company is on a mission to help underserved women by tailoring a range of financial and non-financial services for them and propel women entrepreneurs to the spotlight. Debbie Watkins, CEO and co-founder of Lucy, has worked in over 35 countries in her more than two-decade-long career.
While regularly advising banks and other financial institutions on how to expand their outreach programs to underserved groups, Watkins noticed a particular oddity — something that has become painfully obvious over the years.
She observed that the management of these firms was mostly male and, worryingly, the proportion of business loans they were providing was also skewed toward men. With the goal of tackling this issue, Watkins co-founded Lucy with Hal Bosher, ex-CEO of Yoma Bank and head of Wave Money, as well as Luke Janssen, founder and ex-CEO of Tigerspike.
Today we look at,
- Lucy eying US$5 million in series A funding
- SoftBank’s latest high-profile resignation
- Other newsy highlights such as crypto establishing a place for itself in games and cafes and Ola’s dash to add dark stores
And finally, wishing our readers a happy and prosperous Lunar New Year!
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Unleashing the beast
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Fintech firm Lucy, which aims to support entrepreneurial women from economically weaker sections, tells Tech in Asia that it is currently in talks with investors to raise up to US$5 million in a series A funding round.
“Empowering women entrepreneurs to succeed is one of the biggest potential catalysts for economic growth in the ‘new normal.’ Lucy has been designed from the ground up to help them realize their potential, to grow, thrive, and shine,” Watkins says.
The man who asked his boss for a US$2 billion paycheck
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We analyze a Singapore-based fintech firm’s mission to aid women entrepreneurs and look at SoftBank’s latest high-profile resignation.
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