Four North Texas Entrepreneurs Named to 2024 Inc.’s 250 Women Founders List » Dallas Innovates

From left: Piersten Gaines, Jessica Miller Essle, Susan Gruppi Miller, Amber Wenz Box.

Inc. Magazine releases its 7th annual Women Founders 250 list, highlighting “the most dynamic women in business,” and four North Texas entrepreneurs make the list .

The list recognizes entrepreneurs whose innovations and ideas “rewrite the rules of business” and “push boundaries.” Criteria for creating the list include “quantitative metrics such as earnings, sales, revenue growth, funding, and viewership” and “qualitative metrics such as social media momentum and influential stories.” It was.

The four North Texas women on the 2024 list are:

Piersten Gaines
Founder & CEO :: Presto Roots :: Dallas

Piersten Gaines, Founder and CEO of Pressed Roots

Gaines was cited by Inc. as the first black female entrepreneur for a Dallas-based textured hair salon chain to raise $3.1 million in VC funding in 2023. Despite the fact that VC funding for Black entrepreneurs “fell to 0.13% of total invested capital” in 2023, “Gaines has raised $3.1 million from the likes of Slauson & Co and RevTech Ventures, as well as Naomi Osaka. “We also raised $3.1 million from leading investors,” the company wrote. , Howard Schultz, Meg Whitman. ” Gaines was further cited by Inc. as a “pioneer” who broke barriers in a male-dominated field.

“In difficult markets, you have to overcompensate,” Gaines told Inc. [success], point to someone else’s and show that investor how to get their money back. ”

Susan Gruppi Miller and Jessica Miller Essle
Co-Founder :: M2G Ventures :: Fort Worth

M2G Ventures co-founders Susan Gruppi Miller (left) and Jessica Miller Essle [Photos: M2G Ventures]

The identical twin founders said the company has “increased sales by approximately $8 million in 2023 and achieved our $1 million donation goal to UT Southwestern’s Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care.” It is listed in At M2G, the co-founders invest in mixed-use and industrial real estate development projects.

One of their efforts is to “turn places into landmarks,” as they did with Archetype, an industrial development near the Dallas Design District. But their socially minded efforts are a big part of their shared mission. In 2022 alone, the co-founders raised more than $260,000 for him at his third annual fundraising event, “Art of the Mind,” benefiting the UT Southwestern Center. At that time, he totaled over $700,000 in funding for the center.

Like Gaines, M2G’s co-founders were cited by Inc. as “pioneers” for breaking barriers in male-dominated fields.

amber wenz box
Co-Founder and President :: LTK :: Dallas

LTK Co-Founder and President Amber Wenz Box [Video still: LTK]

Venz Box was cited by Inc. as “building an e-commerce platform that connects more than 7,000 small brands with more than 30 million monthly shoppers.” Last year, Fortune magazine told the story of how Ven’s Box launched an influencer marketing platform in 2011 with just $236 in the bank account. Ten years later, after securing a $300 million investment from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, LTK is valued at $2 billion, making it a company on the list of high-tech unicorns.

Her company is continually pushing the boundaries of increasing the value of influencer marketing, from adding virtual in-store checkout to the LTK app to launching social media advertising for brands.

Go here to see the complete list of 2024 Inc.’s 250 Female Founders.

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