Plus, Why Billionaire Wendy Schmidt Is ‘Doubling Down’ On Climate Science In The Age Of Trump |
Today in America, roughly one in seven birthing parents are affected by perinatal depression—either during pregnancy or in the first year after birth. This math works out to more than 500,000 people experiencing this specific mood disorder every year, yet many of these folks fail to get a formal diagnosis or appropriate treatment for their condition.
Tina Keshani, the cofounder and CEO of maternal mental health startup Seven Starling, is trying to change this reality. And today, Forbes is reporting that Keshani and her company have raised $8 million in fresh funding in a round led by ReThink Impact, the largest VC firm dedicated to investing in female-led tech companies. The capital will help Keshani expand Seven Starling’s specialized therapy to more people who need it, she told me.
“Only 20% of OBGYNS are [screening for perinatal depression] because they don’t have a reliable referral resource for those patients,” Keshani says. “And there’s a major shortage of therapists and mental health providers, let alone specialized therapists.”
Jenny Abramson, founder and managing partner at ReThink Impact, joined us for the conversation and noted that she and her team get a lot of pitches for mental health startups but were moved to invest here because “maternal mental health is at crisis levels” and “it’s rare to see a business that deeply understands the data and has an approach to that data that actually works.”
To see the full conversation—and to hear why Keshani and Abramson think Seven Starling can help the U.S. healthcare system save $14 billion in costs associated with untreated perinatal depression—click through here!
Cheers,
Maggie |
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| With Donald Trump back in the White House and a second wave of federal rollbacks targeting climate funding and scientific independence, the stakes for private science funding have never been higher. Billionaire philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, however, isn’t backing down from her mission to support “science in service of everyone.” She and her husband (former Google CEO Eric Schmidt) have directed more than $450 million to the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and amid rising political headwinds, Schmidt is not retreating. Instead, she’s scaling existing programs, accelerating timelines and backing scientific researchers whose work might otherwise stall without support. |
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ICYMI: Stories From The Week |
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Wendy Schmidt is one of the 50 people recognized on the new Forbes Sustainability Leaders list, which our team published today. Among the other leaders on the 2025 list—which seeks to highlight people setting the pace for a just, sustainable economy and defining what climate leadership looks like today—are Barbara 'Wáahlaal Gíidaak Blake, for her efforts co-leading a global effort of 1,000 scientists to demand an industrial fishing pause in the Central Arctic Ocean; Karen Blanks Ellis, who leads FedEx’s efforts to be carbon neutral by 2040; and Keefe Harrison, founder of The Recycling Partnership.
Speaking of people defining leadership and fighting for a more just world: 95-year-old civil rights icon Dolores Huerta spoke at the Forbes Power Women Summit last week and while she was at the event, she sat down with ForbesWomen editor Maggie McGrath to reflect on her legacy and give advice to younger changemakers who might be feeling discouraged in this very turbulent political moment.
During Sunday night’s Emmy Awards, women over the age of 50 dominated: Jean Smart, 74, Jamie Lee Curtis, 66, and Katherine LaNasa, 58, all took home awards, while Kathy Bates, 77, Catherine O’Hara, 71, and Sharon Hogan, 55, were also nominated. While this recognition may make it seem like age bias against women in Hollywood is becoming a thing of the past, a new study reveals that these actors are exceptions and that roles for women over 40 years old remain scarce.
President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to let him fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, calling on justices to pause a lower court ruling that blocked the termination, as the president continues his efforts to fire Cook despite reports showing she did not have the improper mortgage applications the Trump administration claimed. |
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 | 2. Prevent career identity theft. Jolissa Skow learned about career identity theft the hard way. “In June, I found out that someone was pretending to be me in order to work as a contractor for an upstanding company,” she says. “She was writing for them. She used my name. My portfolio. My bio. Photos of me.” Here’s how to protect yourself against a similar fate. |
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| GAMES | | QUIZ | | In one of the more perplexing acquisitions this year, early 2000s music sharing platform LimeWire acquired the rights to the infamous Fyre Festival in an auction this week. But the festival’s brand, which gained notoriety from its spectacular failure in 2017, had also attracted a bid from a celebrity entrepreneur, who was it? | | A. | Gwyneth Paltrow | | B. | Jay-Z | | C. | Kylie Jenner | | D. | Ryan Reynolds |
| | | FRASE BY FORBES |  | | Unscramble today’s anagram to solve this hidden phrase! |
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