Crain’s New York Business: Women entrepreneurs smash an old barrier

September 09, 2012 via Crain’s New York Business by Elizabeth MacBride – In February 2011, Raymond Thek was standing in the 19th-floor conference room at Lowenstein Sandler, ticking off the great companies coming through the law firm’s program for early-stage firms. “Moda, Birchbox, Bauble, Have to Have, GoldRun,” he told Aslaug Magnusdottir, a participant who was there as the CEO of Moda Operandi, first on his list.

“I realized as I was saying it that of the 10 founders of those companies, nine of them were women,” he said.

Mr. Thek recognized the leading edge of a trend that has burst onto the New York City scene: the sudden surge in the number of fast-growth, scalable companies that are being run by women Ms. Magnusdottir is one of them. Her company, which sells designer clothing at an average transaction value of $1,400, raised $36 million in venture funding this spring. Barna and Katia Beauchamp run Birchbox, which has a reported $7 million in revenue. Send the Trend, an accessories subscription service, was sold to QVC just 505 days after its public launch; it has 240,000 fans on Facebook, said its co-founder, Divya Gugnani, a serial entrepreneur.

They are just three companies that have emerged in New York in the past two or three years.

Read lots more about New York’s amazing women entrepreneurs ( several are also First Growth Venture Network graduates) at Crain’s New York Business…