Western Mass startup shoots to raise $10,000 in 60 days

Lioness Magazine is looking to raise $10,000 in seed funding on indiegogo.com, a popular crowdfunding site.

“Mainstream entrepreneur magazines are geared toward men – from their style to their content, their publishers admit that more than 60 percent of their readers are males. Even though female entrepreneurship is rapidly on the rise and even though in 2013 female-owned companies generated more than $1.3 trillion, there was still no mainstream magazine for these women, until now,” explained Lioness Founder Natasha Clark.

Lioness launched in August 2011 and since then has been read by more than 3,000 people worldwide. Seventy-nine percent of the readers are women between the ages of 25 and 45. With the launch of the new LionessMagazine.com, the news site is able to provide daily content in addition their regular monthly magazine. Some of the greatest startups such as Facebook and Converse were launched in Massachusetts and Clark is hoping to add Lioness to that list.

“Western Mass is a great place to live and do business and my hope is to grow Lioness and keep it headquartered right here,” Clark shared. From June 2, 2014 to August 1, 2014, Clark is shooting to raise $10,000 in seed money to keep the magazine afloat through 2014. She has primarily been funding the company herself. Working as a program manager at the nonprofit Springfield School Volunteers, Clark works on the all-female staff to bring volunteers into the school district as mentors, academic tutors and participants in their popular Read Aloud program.

When the campaign closes, Clark will transition to running the startup full-time. She thought crowdfunding would be an ideal way to raise funds and educate the public about Lioness’ mission at the same time. “I love that platforms such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter give entrepreneurs like me a fighting chance to raise some capital to get our startups to the next level,” she said. “I just want to do something really awesome for women entrepreneurs around the globe and I want to be able to do it in my hometown,” she added. To learn more about Lioness and its Indiegogo campaign, please visit https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lioness-magazine.