Daniella Pierson didn’t follow the traditional Silicon Valley startup playbook. At 19, she launched a newsletter called The Newsette from her college dorm room — a side hustle that blossomed into a media and brand studio now valued at $40 million in annual revenue.
But her story doesn’t end with entrepreneurial success. Instead, she’s using her platform, wealth, and influence to fund and mentor other women who’ve been historically left out of the startup narrative.
📩 From The Newsette to the Boardroom
Built during her time at Boston University, The Newsette began as a curated daily email for women interested in business, beauty, and culture. It quickly gained traction for its clean format, relatability, and sharp voice — growing into a major media platform with brand partners like Ulta Beauty, Amazon, and Walmart.
What set Pierson apart was her savvy understanding of brand storytelling and audience loyalty. She didn’t chase scale for scale’s sake — she built a business rooted in authenticity and consumer trust.
🚀 Launching CHASM: Bridging the Funding Gap for Women Founders
In 2024, Pierson announced her next venture: CHASM, a mentorship and funding collective aimed at what she calls the “uninvestable women” — founders who are constantly overlooked by traditional VCs due to race, background, lack of networks, or unconventional pitches.
Backed by Spanx founder Sara Blakely, Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd, and other powerhouse investors, CHASM is more than a grant program. It offers strategic coaching, emotional support, and a first funding cheque — often the hardest to secure.
🧠 The Why Behind the Mission
Pierson has been open about her struggles with mental health and ADHD — and how those experiences shaped her resilience and leadership style. She’s now a vocal advocate for neurodiverse and BIPOC women in entrepreneurship, arguing that the funding ecosystem needs less pattern-matching and more open-mindedness.
“The women I want to help aren’t broken. They’re brilliant — they just don’t come wrapped in the packaging VCs are used to,” she told Business Insider.
📊 Addressing the Systemic Gap
Less than 2% of VC funding still goes to all-female founding teams. CHASM and Pierson’s work directly challenge that, proving that entrepreneurial brilliance is everywhere — it just needs to be seen, believed in, and backed.
Through storytelling, platform power, and smart capital deployment, Pierson is building not just companies — but a pipeline of future female CEOs.
✨ Why It Matters for the Hub
Daniella Pierson embodies the Invest in Women Hub’s mission in motion:
- She started scrappy and scaled smart.
- She built wealth and turned it into community capital.
- She’s redefining what a founder looks like — and who gets funded.
She’s proof that you don’t need a VC pedigree to be a powerhouse — just vision, grit, and someone to believe in you.
🔗 Read more:
A 29-Year-Old Entrepreneur’s Side Hustle Brought in $40 Million. Now She Helps ‘Uninvestable’ Women