Investor Profile: HearstLab — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Only about 2% of venture capital goes to women founders — a statistic HearstLab was created to change. The strategic corporate venture fund of global media giant Hearst, founded in 2016, provides cash investment and hands-on operational support to early-stage, women-led technology startups seeking funding. To date it has backed 90+ companies with a combined portfolio valuation of US$3.2 billion, supported by a Scout network of 200+ women leaders across Hearst.

Investment thesis & focus

HearstLab invests in Seed and Series A-stage companies (its public boilerplate ranges from pre-seed to Series A) across six sectors: Enterprise Technology, Data and Analytics, FinTech, Healthcare, Media and Transportation. The qualification bar is precise: companies must be women-led (a female founder as decision-maker with equal or majority founder equity), tech-enabled (primarily B2B and B2B2C with a working product and demonstrated market validation), and strategically connected to Hearst — solving problems that align with the expertise of Hearst's 375+ businesses, which span consumer brands like Cosmopolitan and ESPN plus B2B software and data companies across healthcare, finance and transportation.

Cheque size & stage

HearstLab does not publish a fixed cheque size, so treat standard amounts as not publicly disclosed — deal sizes are negotiated per investment at the pre-seed to Series A stage. One concrete, verified data point: winners of its Pitch HearstLab competitions receive a US$100,000 investment plus three months of hands-on support (subject to due diligence and agreed terms). Beyond capital, every portfolio company gets the full HearstLab platform: a dedicated full-time team helping with legal, sales, marketing, finance, fundraising and engineering, plus access to office space worldwide including the flagship Hearst Tower in New York.

Notable portfolio

HearstLab's featured portfolio companies include GlossGenius (salon and spa business software), FreeWill (online estate planning), Wellthy (caregiving support), Status (influencer marketing), Beam Impact (social-impact giving), Priori Legal (legal marketplaces), Highlight and Intella.

Partners & team

Eve Burton, Executive Vice President of Hearst, serves as Chairwoman of HearstLab. What distinguishes the team is depth: a full-time dedicated staff covering UI/UX, DevOps engineering, data security, data science, business development and branding, plus the Scout network of 200+ women leaders across Hearst who open their networks and expertise to founders.

How to apply for funding

Founders can pitch HearstLab directly through its website (hearstlab.com, which carries an 'Apply here' pitch route) and through Pitch HearstLab pitch competitions at pitchhearstlab.com, where winners take home a US$100,000 investment. The fund's own guidance on what wins it over is unusually specific: if your pitch shows genuine eagerness to partner with Hearst companies — and the partnership idea is specific and clear, for example how your product serves Hearst's technology client base — the team says it is '90% sold.' Generic pitches do not.