How a ‘Wonder Women’ party and an Amazon vet helped this e-commerce startup raise fresh funds

New funding: TheWMarketplace, an e-commerce platform promoting women’s businesses, has raised $1.4 million.

The round was led by Erika McKitterick, who worked at Amazon for seven years, most recently as the head of U.S. Third Party Account Services. The role included helping companies grow their sales in the Amazon store, making McKitterick’s insights valuable to a startup that says it’s eager to take on the e-commerce behemoth.

“Erika brings deep knowledge of the growth opportunities and pain points for a marketplace like ours and will help us to grow more quickly and with fewer speed bumps,” said Susan Gates, TheWMarketplace co-founder and chief marketing officer, by email. “She has joined our board and already has provided fantastic advice and perspective.”

The round was raised via the crowdfunding site Wefunder. Sherri Yukel, founder and CEO of online party supply company Big Dot of Happiness, also invested.

Super women: Gates and co-founder Kate Isler connected with McKitterick at a “Wonder Women party” — a series of invitation-only dinners being held in multiple cities worldwide to help women network.

This particular dinner took place last year at Fast Penny Spirits, a woman-founded amaro distillery in Seattle.

The stats: TheWMarketplace features more than 500 vendors offering more than 4,500 products and services.

The startup’s total funding is $1.9 million.

The backstory: Gates and CEO Isler launched TheWMarketplace in May 2020 in response to the economic devastation caused by COVID-19, which hit women harder than men. The duo have backgrounds in marketing and technology companies. They’re billing the company as “the economic engine for women.”