Connecting to Capital

Celestial is helping women learn, explore and step into their full economic potential as entrepreneurs and investors

Meet Camilla Hessellund Lastein, the Founder of Celestial - a Forbes 30under30, entrepreneur, investor, and a women’s wealth ambassador who started her first company in the education technology space at age 19. During her time there, she raised $10M and ended up managing a 40-person team, before her departure in 2019 when she sold her share of the company. As a female entrepreneur, Camilla experienced the inequality and unconscious bias women meet in the startup and tech world, which led her to founding Celestial Group - a company focused on women's wealth & entrepreneurship. Camilla most recently created a ‘Fundraising 101’ course for female entrepreneurs to learn how to raise investor capital and is the host of The Celestial Podcast where she talks about entrepreneurship and investments for women.

Camilla’s mission is to create a space for women to learn about, explore and step into their full economic potential, as entrepreneurs, investors - and hopefully both.

We dive into distributing your risk and reward as an entrepreneur, seeing yourself as an investor (even as a founder), and how to build and raise capital in a way that it aligned with your true essence.

Eve #WealthWednesday Highlight #15: Camilla Hessellund Lastein, Founder - Celestial

How/why did you get into your space?

My whole journey starts as a female founder in tech. That experience was a roller coaster. I had this perception that I should dress and behave like the guys to be accepted and be part of the group to a point of disrespecting myself at a deep level. After I stepped out of the company, I had a chance to look at the bigger picture on how much women were struggling especially in fundraising where less than 3% of venture capital goes to women. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are amazing in their own right, but you don't have to look like them to be successful. You can be successful in your own terms.

I took an untraditional path of learning. I dropped out of school to start my first company which was in the education space. ?During the process of building that startup I realized I was doing it from a place of wanting accomplishment and seeking recognition. As I connected to the trials of being a female entrepreneur, raising capital and diversifying I realized I could apply my experience as a female founder, my knowledge of the education space and my new awareness around building purpose driven companies to help other women like me. That is where Celestial Academy was born. The missions is to enable women to explore, learn and step into their full economic potential.

What role do you play in the wealth space and why is it important?

My role is to help more female role models step into their power. We need those examples of women that start companies and build empires on their own terms. In my recent article, I highlight the realization that all of the self-made empire builders we’ve seen in the past are from wealthy men. Of the world’s wealthy elite, it is mostly men, and 9 of the top 10 are self-made. The first self-made woman in the list is at the 89th spot. My hypothesis is that when we see more women in the wealthy elite we will start to see wealth cascade in different ways and to different places to what we see today. That motivates me.

What do you believe is the most exciting thing you’ve learned and want others to know?

One thing I want women, especially women leading tech startups or venture backed businesses, is to diversify. People get so caught up in the perception that you need to be all in and start one company with the hopes of a future payday. This is so limiting as a founder because you can end up putting all of your eggs in one basket. The whole time as a founder, I felt that I had an obligation to my investors and my team to only focus on the company.

More founders should talk about wealth and financial strategies when selling a company. It is extremely important to know the details of when you get the payout and what the terms are. Take a step back and look at distributing your risk and reward across different segments of assets. Start looking at yourself as an investor instead of an entrepreneur. You may be making significant investments of your time and money into your company – but diversification still matters.

Also be aware that being a founder and creating a startup is only one small piece of the financial market as a whole. There are many ways, ideas, businesses, business models, and investment models to dive into. And the money you are getting from venture capitalists is coming from their LPs (investors with massive wealth) – where only a tiny percentage of their personal wealth will go into venture capital as a high-risk investment with high potential reward. You are just one piece of a much larger picture. Take care of yourself too…

Who is a person or company that inspires you in the space and why?

In the coaching space is Marie Forleo because she’s not afraid to be herself and express her creativity. She really embraces her own genius which is what I aspire to do myself. Celestial Group was founded on the concept of feminine and masculine balance. For centuries we’ve been doing business from a very masculine place. It’s not a bad thing, but we believe it can be done in a different, more balanced, collaborative and inclusive way. We want to include many people in this wealth and value creation journey.

What advice would you give to someone getting started?

As a founder, spend time looking inwards. Figure out your motives for doing what you do – both in the ventures you create and the investments you make. The reason I started my first company was to prove I was “good” to my parents. We all have these intrinsic motivations and diving into the core of what is driving you (before you start, and throughout the journey) is extremely important. If it comes from the wrong place, it’s just a much more painful process.

Now, I feel much aligned with purpose and myself with Celestial and in the subsidiary companies we are building. I thrive when I am able to build on my own terms. Don’t forget yourself because you are sustaining the business for a long time.

Anything else we should know?

Celestial Academy’s website is in the works now. My social channels are where you can see the latest education and course drops. I also have a fundraising series on Celestial podcast which you can find on both iTunes and Spotify. It's a 10 episode series on fundraising where I basically walked through a very high level version of the course itself.

#wealthwednesday #fintech #womenswealth #futureoffinance #investing #investment #venturecapital

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Have thoughts on this week’s topic or questions for me or Camilla Hessellund Lastein? Post your thoughts in the comment section. Until next week. ??

You can connect with Camilla on LINKEDIN

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