2023 was a tough year to fundraise. Almost all venture-backed founders felt the toll of being in a  down market this past year. 

But when you're a female engineer, on top of that a female founder of a tech company - it almost always feels like a tough year to fundraise. 

For Heather Shoemaker, Founder and CEO of Language I/O, she never expected to fundraise. She ran a profitable company and was growing steadily each year from her headquarters in Cheyenne, Wyoming! 

But as we know - things change. Competitors come, and there's things you have to do in order to keep moving forward. In Heather's case that meant going out to raise her first venture round. 

It took awhile, and she met some very interesting VCs along the way, but eventually she ran into the right people and closed her seed round. 

In this episode, we get to dive into Heather's fundraising journey and how that ultimately led her to raise Language I/O's $8M Series A in July of 2023.

Stick around towards the end and you'll also get to hear from some of Heather's investors from Wyoming VC! 

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