Julie Wainwright has forged her own path when there wasn't an easy one to follow. The RealReal founder's career trajectory is a testament to resilience, innovation, and breaking barriers. In a career-spanning conversation with Headline, Julie talked through the stops along her journey: 💡 She started as a brand manager at Clorox, but quickly realized the leadership didn't reflect her aspirations. 🇬🇧 At 26, she took a bold leap into the nascent software industry with Software Publishing Corporation (SPC), moved to London, and overcame heaps of gender bias selling personal computer software all across Europe. 🐕 She led Pets.com during the dot-com bust, experiencing (and learning) through a high-profile setback as a woman CEO. She used the challenge as fuel. "I would never be afraid of public failure again," she said. 👜 A decade later, Julie started over, founding The RealReal in 2011, revolutionizing luxury consignment. (Headline was the company's first institutional investor.) 💰 She led The RealReal to a $1.5B IPO in 2019, proving that comebacks are possible with persistence and vision. Julie's journey shows that setbacks can be stepping stones to greater success — and she's now onto her next adventure as Founder & CEO of nutrition company, Ahara. Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/g5Eij5cT
Headline
Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
San Francisco, California 31,382 followers
We help founders win, bigger
About us
Headline is a Venture Capital firm actively on the ground in 7 cities around the world. We invest across geographies, leading rounds at every stage. Once we commit to a team, we go to the ends of the earth to make their success global. Our Early Stage Funds are based in the US, Europe, Asia, and Brazil, and invest locally. Our San Francisco-based Growth Fund invests globally from Series B and beyond, working in collaboration with our Early Stage Teams. The sizes and locations of these funds make it possible for us to see local trends up close, identify winning founders, and lead rounds at every stage. Sonos, The RealReal, Creditas, Sorare, Pismo, AppFolio, goPuff, Acorns, Farfetch, Segment, Bumble and Yeahka are among the stars in Headline’s world.
- Website
-
https://headline.com/
External link for Headline
- Industry
- Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
- Company size
- 51-200 employees
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California
- Type
- Privately Held
- Founded
- 1998
- Specialties
- Venture Capital, Entrepreneurship, Start-up, Growth, Internationalization, Technology, Digital Marketing, and Investing
Locations
Employees at Headline
-
Thomas Gieselmann
Investor at Headline
-
Tilo Bonow 博蒂洛
Helping entrepreneurs get global exposure for their technologies, ideas and impacts is my passion. As an ambassador for innovation and value-adding…
-
Mathias Schilling
-
Romero Rodrigues
Romero Rodrigues is an Influencer Managing Partner at Headline, Co-Founder of Buscapé, Stanford GSB, Poli-USP
Updates
-
This week, we called a former Berlin boathouse bunker home with the friends at Founders Forum Group and their incredible community. Brent Hoberman, Carolyn Dawson – it was a pleasure to share currywurst and minimal DJ beats with you at your welcome reception. Thank you for having us! We hope everyone had the chance to reconnect with old friends and make new ones as we enjoyed the FF Europe x Left Lane Fast Growth Summit. Stay tuned: November is taking us to an even wilder European location 👀 cc. Christian Miele Christian Leybold Jacopo Luperi Dominic Long-Innes Isabel Wrubel
-
-
-
-
-
+1
-
-
Congrats to Headline investor Zehra Naqvi, who was named to TechCrunch's list of New York's Top VCs Under 30! ✨🎊 Zehra told Dominic-Madori Davis that she's bullish on consumer — and Headline is looking for the next generational consumer companies. "History has proven time and time again that now is the best time to double down on investing in the future of consumers," she said. "Be a contrarian.” Check out the full list below! https://lnkd.in/gAASmn2E
-
-
How to best spend an Oktoberfest Monday? With a hearty breakfast and in the company of 60+ startup founders. Last week, Christian, Dominic, Isabel, Dominic, and our friends at Insight Partners hosted a private event at a former Bavarian riding school in the center of Munich. Thanks to everyone who took time from busy #BitsAndPretzels schedules to join us! We look forward to bringing back "The Stable" next year 🦄
-
-
What better way to spend a Monday night than with sushi, sake, and serendipity at Headline? 🍣🍶 Matthew Brown, Jett Fein, and Taylor Brandt hosted a private omakase dinner for PLG SaaS & Consumer Operators to bring the incredible #consumertech ecosystem in San Francisco together. Thanks to everyone who joined us at Headline's HQ in the Presidio; many more to come!
-
-
Headline’s Fintech team has seen more and more companies addressing climate change issues through the lens of fintech — but many questions still surround the space. After digging deeper, Headline's Sophia Samutin and Ketul Patel see three sub-sectors that hold the most opportunity. Check out their full analysis of climate fintech below. 👇 🌎 💵 https://lnkd.in/duk7uyem
-
-
Headline Growth Partner Nancy Xiao talks to PitchBook about the firm's new $865M fundraise, why growth investment in Europe is booming, and in which sectors she sees the most opportunity. Check out her full interview below!
-
Nancy Xiao, Headline Growth's newest partner, sat down with anchors Edward Ludlow and Caroline Hyde yesterday on Bloomberg Technology to discuss the launch of Global Growth IV, why the firm sees so much opportunity globally — and why the team is so confident about its ability to find winners in a challenging market. "Headline has got three really unique aspects," Nancy said. "I'd call it the people, the global multi-local presence, and the proprietary tech and process." Check out the rest of her segment below! https://lnkd.in/gVTSpijf
-
-
Calling to all entrepreneurs heading to Bavaria! With our friends at Insight Partners, Christian Miele, and Isabel Wrubel are hosting a strictly founder-only breakfast on Monday. About 40 people, all early-stage, in an iconic 19th-century Bavarian Riding School. We’ve only sent personal invites and have a few spots left pending approval. The RSVP link is in the comments for those who could benefit from this. O'zapft #bits24 🥨
-
-
Congratulations to Headline portfolio company Motion (Creative Analytics) on an incredible $30M Series B! The company will use the funding to accelerate in its bid to become "the command center for creative strategists." Read more in BetaKit: https://lnkd.in/eZcPKGMs Taylor Brandt & Nikki Farb
I’m excited to share that Motion has raised $30M in Series B funding, led by Inovia Capital with participation from Threshold Ventures as well as our existing investors Headline, Abstract Ventures and Sugar Capital. In recent years, as audience targeting on ad platforms became algorithm-based, growth leaders shifted their focus toward creative. Very quickly, creative became the biggest lever for success in paid social. Terms like “creative is the new targeting” were popularized across the industry and we entered a new era of digital advertising. In a sense, it’s a pivot back to the old-school advertising principles of the David Ogilvy era. Conducting customer research, storytelling, and craftsmanship are all essential once again. But while the principles are timeless, the digital world is a very different environment. The creative strategist is the modern-day Ogilvy. They know how to blend art and science to ship winning ads. They are as creative as they are analytical and they bridge the gap between media buyers and creative teams. They live by data but know how to move beyond the numbers and let creativity run. We believe the creative strategist is the most critical role in performance marketing today and will be even more so in the age of AI. Soon enough, AI will drive the cost of new creative production to near zero. Which means that the most valuable question teams need to answer is: what to create? We raised this capital to accelerate our product roadmap and to build the command center for creative strategists. Motion’s customers are the best-of-the-best in paid social, and creative strategy is at the core of their workflow. Our goal is to build the tools that creative strategists need to succeed their craft. Over the last 12 months, we've doubled our team to 50 people and we've grown ARR by 3x. The Motion team is on 🔥 and we're hiring across the board. We are fully remote and looking for the most talented people anywhere in the world. If that's you, please get in touch with me or Libby Moyer and tell us about your superpowers!!
-