The system was not built for women raising capital, so Melissa Wallace built a new way forward.

Melissa is the founder of Fierce Foundry, the first femtech venture studio in the United States. Long before she was reshaping how female founder funding works, she was sorting babysitting money into labeled envelopes and selling handmade greeting cards door-to-door with her dad's old briefcase. The instinct to build was always there, even before she had the language for it.

With host Syama Bunten, Melissa shares the personal story behind the mission. She talks about a marriage in her twenties that ended with her ex-husband emptying her bank accounts after she asked for space, and a divorce process where she was willing to give up everything just to walk away clean. She shares how she went on to build a marketing agency, learned to lead instead of carrying every task herself, and kept seeing the same funding gap show up for women in health tech.

Investors wanted proof of customers. Founders needed help getting customers. Too many had no early capital to make either happen.

That loop is what Fierce Foundry was built to break. As a venture studio for women, it acts as a co-founder from day one, not a short-term program with a graduation date. It brings early capital, skilled operators, and support from idea through exit. This conversation offers a clearer path for any founder trying to understand how to raise pre-seed funding without relying on the usual gatekeepers.

Women raising capital in femtech startups should not have to prove they belong before they even get started. Melissa is building the infrastructure to help more women build, fund, and scale what the world has been missing. If this conversation moved you, keep it going. Find a Wealth Catalyst Freedom Tour salon near you, or claim your seat at the Wealth Catalyst Summit in San Francisco on October 16, 2026.

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Meet Melissa Wallace, Founder of Fierce Foundry

02:59 Growing Up With Money: What Her Father Taught Her Without Saying a Word

05:54 Her First Business at Age 10 and the Pricing Lesson That Stuck

09:19 The Exchange Year in Brazil That Changed How She Saw the World

16:40 Early Career, a Bad Marriage, and the Cost of Conformity

18:55 Losing Everything in a Divorce and Choosing Freedom Over Financial Security

23:45 From Employee to Entrepreneur: The Pattern She Finally Broke

29:50 Building a Marketing Agency and Learning to Step Back From the Work

35:04 Women Raising Capital: Why Less Than 2% of VC Funding Goes to Female Founders

38:00 How the Fierce Foundry Venture Studio Model Works From Idea to Exit

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