FoundHer FundHers June: Natasha Kumar on Why Female Founders Need More Than Just a Pitch Deck
- Lisa Maynard-Atem
- May 29
- 12 min read
Updated: 8 hours ago
Funding is one of the most discussed parts of entrepreneurship, yet for many female founders, it still feels like one of the least accessible. From understanding investor expectations to navigating financial language, the process can often appear opaque long before a pitch deck is even opened. For this edition of STYLISA FoundHer FundHers, I spoke with Natasha Kumar, founder of Lexo, a platform helping early-stage female founders become genuinely investor-ready through financial education, practical guidance and strategic support. With a background in finance, tax and advisory work, Natasha offers a grounded and refreshingly honest perspective on what fundraising actually requires, why sequencing matters, and how founders can approach investment with greater clarity and confidence.
Please note: A glossary of key terms and acronyms used in this interview is included at the end of this interview, for ease and clarity.
You have a strong background in finance, tax and advisory work, but Lexo feels rooted in something bigger than technical expertise. What was the moment, or perhaps the build-up of moments, that made you realise you wanted to create something specifically for early-stage female founders?
A few key moments stand out, though really it was the accumulation of a pattern I couldn't ignore. As a tax advisor to early-stage startups, I kept seeing the same thing: female founders building genuinely brilliant businesses, but growing slowly through bootstrapping or delaying fundraising until much later than they needed to. The reason was rarely the business; it was that the process felt opaque, or they didn't yet feel ready to step into it. That gap between capability and confidence stayed with me.
From where you sit, what do too many female founders still misunderstand about fundraising at the very beginning, not because they lack ability, but because no one has properly shown them how the system works?
The misunderstanding I come back to most often is the idea that an investor is somehow doing you a favour by choosing to invest. It's an easy perception to arrive at — fundraising culture can feel exclusive and opaque; but it fundamentally misrepresents what's actually happening. Investors, in any format, are looking for returns. They need great businesses as much as great businesses need capital.
When founders internalise that, everything shifts. Instead of trying to convince someone to believe in them, they start presenting a genuine financial opportunity; one worth getting into. That's the reframe at the heart of what we do at Lexo. We help founders articulate their business in a way that investors respond to, through a combination of financial storytelling and personalised practical guidance; but the work goes deeper than a polished pitch deck and a set of financial projections. It's about making sure the business is structurally ready to receive investment, not just ready to talk about it. The kind of support, in many ways, that a fractional CFO would provide.
Following on from that, you have spoken about access being one of the biggest barriers. When you say access, what does that actually look like in reality, and where are you currently seeing women being locked out of the process?
At early stage, a huge part of the investment decision comes down to resonance — does this investor connect with the founder, do they understand the problem, do they feel the urgency of it? In isolation that's reasonable. But when the people in the room consistently lack any lived experience of the problems female founders are solving, it stops being a judgement call and starts being a structural barrier.
Lexo is positioned around helping founders become ready, not just visible. What does “investor-ready” actually mean to you in practical terms, and what do founders often assume it means instead?
A lot of founders assume that a compelling pitch deck and solid financial projections will get them to a yes. I often describe those things as the party invitation; they might pique an investor's interest, but the real work comes afterwards. Once an investor moves into the realm of actually committing capital, they're assessing something much deeper, and that's where preparation really counts. In my experience, that assessment comes down to three things.
The first is the founder themselves. How passionate are they about the problem they're solving? How well-positioned are they to solve it; do they bring a specific professional, educational, or personal lens to it? Founders need to be able to articulate, clearly and compellingly, why they are the right person for this.
The second is the depth of the business behind the pitch. Do the fundamentals hold up: accounting practices, tax registrations, any legal considerations? An investor isn't just backing a vision; they're backing the business that has to deliver it. Founders need to be clear on their processes and demonstrate that potential pitfalls have been identified and have a plan behind them.
The third is whether the founder truly understands what taking this investment means. Not just what they'll do with the capital, though that matters enormously, but why these specific investors, and what they bring beyond the cheque. Is it their industry connections, their expertise, their approach to mentoring? Founders who can answer that walk in with a completely different quality of conviction.
That's what investor-readiness actually looks like in practice. And at Lexo, our role doesn't end when a founder feels ready to have that conversation. We support them through the raise itself and beyond the round closing, because the work of building a fundable, sustainable business doesn't stop at the term sheet. It starts there.
For a founder who has never raised before, how should she think about the funding landscape in the first place? How does she begin to understand whether she should be looking at angels, venture capital, grants, debt, or something else entirely?
Before you even begin mapping the funding landscape, there are three questions worth sitting with honestly.
The first is: what growth pressure can your business actually handle, and what can you handle as a founder? Venture capital is often treated as the default ambition, but not every business is built for it. VC firms are investing on behalf of their own clients and need high-growth, fast-return businesses to justify that. Angel investors, by contrast, are typically deploying their own capital, which tends to make them more patient and more genuinely invested in the potential of a business over time. Family offices can operate similarly. Being honest about the pace and pressure your business model can sustain isn't a limitation; it's just a good strategy.
The second is: what are you willing to give away? If the answer is nothing, then bootstrapping or a grant, where one exists and fits, is likely your most natural path. If you're open to giving up equity in exchange for capital and support, then angel or venture funding becomes a real conversation.
The third is: what do you actually want from an investor relationship? Some founders want a mentor, a connector, someone actively involved in shaping the business. Others want capital and autonomy. Neither is wrong, but knowing which you are will shape not just the type of investor you look for, but which specific investor you choose. Every founder-investor relationship is different, and the ones that work tend to be the ones where that question was asked early.
A lot of women are building strong businesses, but still feel intimidated by investor conversations because finance language can sometimes feel like a barrier. How do you help founders build real financial confidence without making them feel they need to become something they are not?
Context is everything for us. There's an almost infinite number of financial terms and concepts you could spend time learning, but nobody has the bandwidth for that, and frankly you don't need to. What you need is to understand the metrics that matter for your specific business, in the specific conversations you're going to be having.
That's why we build financial education into the process rather than making it a prerequisite. As founders navigate the platform, the relevant language and concepts come up naturally, in the moment they're actually useful. A simple example: if you've grown to fifty customers without spending anything on marketing, you might not realise that's a story worth telling in financial terms. But your Customer Acquisition Cost being effectively zero is something an investor will sit up and pay attention to, because it points to strong margins and organic traction. We help founders see what their numbers are already telling them, and give them the confidence to say it out loud.
We're also very conscious that confidence isn't always linear, so everything is easy to access again if someone needs a reminder at any stage of the process.
When founders are preparing to raise, what are the most common weaknesses you are seeing in how they present their business? Is it usually the deck, the numbers, the clarity of the ask, or something deeper in how they are positioning the business?
Honestly, it's rarely the deck that's the problem. What I see most often is something more fundamental in how the business is being positioned. Female founders tend to lead with purpose and mission, which is understandable, these are businesses they've often built around something they deeply care about. But investors are primarily looking for a return on their capital, and if that return isn't made explicit and compelling at every touchpoint, the strength of the mission alone won't carry it. The opportunity has to be as visible as the vision.
Based on the work you are doing with founders, how important is sequencing in a raise, and what tends to go wrong when it is approached in the wrong order?
Sequencing is everything, and getting it wrong is one of the most common and costly mistakes I see. Founders often dive straight into building their pitch deck or attending investor networking events before they've done the foundational thinking that should come first. Before any of that, there are more fundamental questions to answer: who do you actually want investing in your business, what type of investment makes sense for where you are, and is the business genuinely ready to receive it?
Skipping that groundwork doesn't just waste time; it can mean walking into conversations you're not ready for, with investors who aren't the right fit, before you've had the chance to properly shape your narrative or your numbers. The pitch deck and the networking have their place, but they're much further down the sequence than most people assume.
Building on that, you have written about what angel investors are really looking for, and also about the importance of founders assessing investors, not just the other way round. At what point do women need to stop thinking purely about getting a yes, and start thinking more seriously about whether the investor is actually right for them?
From day one. The urgency of needing capital can make founders feel like any yes is a good yes, but the wrong money can be genuinely fatal to a business. A misaligned investor creates friction that compounds over time, around growth expectations, involvement, decision-making and by the time that becomes apparent, it's very difficult to undo.
So I always encourage founders to run their own due diligence in parallel. Ask for references from founders they've previously backed. Ask for a small favour early, like an introduction through their network. It sounds simple, but how an investor shows up before the deal closes is usually a reliable indicator of how they'll show up after it
There is often a lot of conversation around the funding gap itself, but not always enough around what investors actually respond to. In your view, what do investors most want to see from an early-stage founder that too many women either underplay or overcomplicate?
Early-stage investors want to understand the founder and the way they think. Early stage businesses will almost always pivot, evolve and completely transform from where they started and so early-stage investors are really assessing, can this founder standing in front of me deliver something that is going to be financially viable even if it moves from where it is currently? There are lots of ways that founders can do that, and every interaction should reinforce the message, that this founder “can do it”.
From a pitch deck, pitch video and financial projections that shows clear, logical thinking that can tie every facet of the business to the goal of revenue generation and scaling.
From an ability to answer all due diligence questions thoughtfully and precisely and present the evidence to support it, and their commitment from the outset to keeping investors in the loop and informed of how the business is growing and developing.
Raising capital can be a very exposing process. It can test your confidence, your clarity and your resilience. What have you learnt, either through building Lexo or through working with founders, about staying grounded while asking other people to believe in your vision?
Preparation, more than anything else. When you know your business, your numbers, and your story inside out, you walk into rooms differently. Confidence in that context isn't about bravado; it's about being so clear on what you're presenting that uncertainty from the other side of the table doesn't destabilise you.
But beyond preparation, I think there's something important in accepting that not every investor will get it, and that's not a verdict on the business. Vision, by its nature, requires people to see something that doesn't fully exist yet, and not everyone will be willing or able to do that. Learning not to internalise a no, to receive it as information rather than rejection — is one of the most protective things a founder can do for herself across what is often a long and exposed process.
Lexo brings together education, tools, events and, in time, investor matching. As you continue to build, what is the bigger ambition for the platform, and what would success look like for you in terms of changing outcomes for female founders in real terms?
At its heart, the ambition is about access to belief as much as access to capital. There are women out there building businesses that deserve to be funded, who haven't yet let themselves think that funding is something they could actually achieve. That gap, between capability and confidence, is what Lexo is trying to close.
Success looks like a woman who came to the platform not knowing where to start, and who goes on to close a round she once thought was out of reach. And then another, and another. If we can change that trajectory at scale, we start to move the needle on what the funding landscape actually looks like for the next generation of female founders.
Finally, for the woman reading this who knows her business has potential but still feels unsure about stepping into rooms where money is being discussed, what would you want her to understand now about funding, and about her own right to pursue it?
I would want her to know that her uncertainty is not evidence that she is not ready. It is evidence that she has not yet been given the tools to feel ready, and those are very different things.
She is just as capable of raising funding as any founder in any room. The process can feel opaque and exclusive, but it is learnable, and once you understand it, it becomes far less intimidating. What looks like confidence from the outside is almost always preparation on the inside. Start there. The rest will follow.
A massive thank you to Natasha Kumar, for agreeing to be interviewed for FoundHer FundHers, and becoming a part of the STYLISA FoundHers community. If you’re interested in finding out more about her work:
Connect with Natasha on LinkedIn
Discover Lexo
FoundHer FundHers Glossary: June Edition
Because understanding the language is half the battle.
Capital Money used to fund and grow a business.
Family Offices Private wealth management firms that invest the money of high-net-worth families, often with a longer-term, more flexible approach than traditional investors.
Venture Capital A form of funding where investors provide capital to high-growth businesses in exchange for equity, expecting a significant financial return.
Venture Capital Firms Organisations that pool investment funds from multiple sources and deploy them into high-growth startups, typically in exchange for equity and a seat at the table.
Bootstrapping Building and growing a business using your own money, without external investment.
Angel Investors Individuals who invest their own personal capital into early-stage businesses, often bringing expertise and networks alongside their money.
Grant Funding Non-repayable funds awarded by governments, organisations or institutions to support specific types of businesses or projects, equity-free investment,but usually with eligibility criteria attached.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) The total cost of winning a new customer. A low CAC signals an efficient, scalable business; a high one raises questions about long-term profitability.
Due Diligence The process an investor goes through to verify everything a founder has presented, financials, legal structure, market claims and more, before committing capital.
Equity Ownership in a business. When you take investment in exchange for equity, you're giving an investor a percentage stake in your company.
Financial Projections A forecast of your business's future revenue, costs and growth. Not a guarantee, but a demonstration of how clearly you understand your own numbers and trajectory.
Fractional CFO A senior finance professional who works with a business part-time or on a project basis, giving early-stage founders access to high-level financial expertise without the full-time cost.
Investor-Ready / Investor Readiness Being genuinely prepared to receive investment, not just having a polished deck, but understanding the process, knowing your numbers, and having the foundations of your business in order.
Pitch Deck A concise visual presentation that tells the story of your business to a potential investor, covering the problem, the solution, the market, the team and the financials.
Sequencing Doing things in the right order. In fundraising, this means completing the foundational work before approaching investors, rather than jumping straight to pitching.
Term Sheet A document outlining the key terms and conditions of an investment offer. Not the final agreement, but the starting point for negotiation.
Traction Evidence that your business is working, whether that's customers, revenue, growth rate or partnerships. It shows investors that the market has responded, not just that the idea is good.
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