#37. Sarah Pinner is the CEO and Co-Founder of Beni, a chrome extension that finds resale alternatives from across the internet in the click of a button. Originally from Santa Barbara and having studied political economy at Berkeley for undergrad, she went on to work at Rabobank Wholesale Banking North America for four years, where her passion for sustainability, agriculture and policy served her through multiple roles working with food and law. Eventually she transitioned to work on innovation initiatives with startups within this company as she wanted to be close to people actively solving problems within the space. Following this period, she took a year off to travel, also learning a lot about circular economy and sustainability during this time through listening to podcasts and passive learning. She returned to work in business operations and strategy and started the sustainability team at Imperfect Foods, a grocery company focused on fighting food waste, before attending Kellogg School of Management for Business School from 2020 to 2022. Beni started a bit as an accident during this time, as Sarah and co-founders tried to find an accessible way to shop secondhand online. The team at Beni raised pre-seed by the end of 2021 and a seed round by the end of 2022, which was spent building out the team. 2023 was spent growing partnerships with resale marketplaces, growing the user base, expanding the platform and maturing the product front. They just hit 30,000 users with 100,000 resale items viewed through Beni, when they had about 2,000 users at the same time last year. They are currently a team of 7 full time employees with 2 part time folks. Beni uses AI and a matching algorithm to compare your search items with items available on resale websites, and generates profit through commission on sales brought about by Beni’s search abilities.
https://www.joinbeni.com/
https://www.instagram.com/join_beni/
Resource on Female Funding Statistics: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2023/08/01/we-can-fix-the-funding-gap----heres-how/?sh=4764cdc12a1e
Resource on Promotion vs. Prevention Based Questions in Fundraising: https://hbr.org/2017/06/male-and-female-entrepreneurs-get-asked-different-questions-by-vcs-and-it-affects-how-much-funding-they-get
https://www.passionprojectpending.com/
https://www.instagram.com/passionprojectpending/
https://www.tiktok.com/@passionprojectpendingg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6F0aDS5efhzgaCtYzI7fsA
