Resources & Initiatives Supporting Female Founders

It’s been tough for female founders to get access to capital and receive funding for their businesses. They’ve been receiving less than 10% of the global VC money with a slight increase in the last few years. Now, given the situation with COVID-19, it’s become even harder for them as most of the investors gather all forces and focus on supporting portfolio companies. A lot of founders experience difficulties, no matter the gender or where they are based, it is global slow down. However, there are still a lot of initiatives that support Female Founders in particular, they organize pitching sessions, office hours, still consider investment opportunities and it’s amazing how difficult times make people act accordingly and embrace the situation to keep the ‘normal’ development cycle as much as possible. Here are a few initiatives Female Founders may find helpful. It may give you ideas, guidance, encourage you to keep working on the business while taking part in events, coaching sessions, coffee chats, angel groups or pitching competitions. Community, communication and support have hardly ever been more important than now.

Emergency Funding for Female Founders

The Helm put together ‘Your Complete Guide to Emergency Funding‘: Everything Female Founders Need to Know about:
1. Country-wide:
-Government Resources
-General Funds
-Additional Information & Resources
2. State/local related advice.

All Raise will run few events about:
–Fundraising in Uncertain Times: Whether or How to Raise Right Now (Enterprise Early Stage Track)
–Fundraising in Uncertain Times: Whether or How to Raise Right Now (Enterprise Seed Track)
–Fundraising in Uncertain Times: Whether or How to Raise Right Now (Consumer Seed Track)
–Communicating During a Crisis with Confidence
-All Raise VC Summit 2020

All Raise collected resources for Female Founders about coping with the Covid-19 and keeping the business up and running here.

We run global Female Founders Club where you can submit your business idea to our database. We have more than 700 investors registered with us and we will try to match your startup with the most relevant ones 🙂

Take a look at WOMEN FOUNDERS NETWORK ANNUAL FAST PITCH COMPETITION (applications open from May 1 until June 30)

Also, there is great ‘Funded, Fearless Females: Surviving and Thriving Through the Downturn‘ webinar available – watch replay.

Female Founders has a lot of opportunities where you can share your business idea, show your product and network with other founders and investors.

WomenEmpowerX organize Female Founders Pitch Competition and applications are now open.

Eligibility:
Early-Stage Startup: Startup phase (1-3 years); generating revenue (no minimum); you are not required to be profitable
Female Owned: Your company must be at least 51% woman-owned
Demo-Ready: Your product or service must be demonstrable with a completed MVP or pilot
Pitch Live: All selected participants must be available to pitch their company live on Saturday, February 29th at WEX in Los Angeles

Ways to Support Female-Founded Businesses During COVID-19 by Female Founders Fund

Check out the finalists for the She4All pitch competition organized by Luminary. It supports female-founded brands that have community at the heart of their products or services.

Networking meetings and experience sharing during the upcoming events.

The Vinetta Project is a capital platform and deal flow pipeline that supports high growth female tech founders. We source high potential female founders with proven business models, offering them unprecedented access to proprietary events, resources, exclusive networks and capital from vetted investors.

iFundWomen is a startup funding platform providing access to capital through crowdfunding and grants, expert business coaching on all the topics entrepreneurs need to know about, and a network of women business owners that sparks confidence, accelerates knowledge, and ignites action.

FemTech Insinder brings a lot of resources for female founders focused on femtech and women’s health innovation. You can find there events, Femtech & Healthtech Accelerators, Investors list and a lot more.

Women of Weareables is a global organisation for women of wearable tech, fashion tech, health tech, IoT, VR and AR.

Female Founders Alliance offers 6 weeks of high-impact coaching to get you ready to raise. Ready Set Raise is an industry agnostic national startup accelerator, consciously created by and for women and non-binary founders.

Sara Blakely is giving $5 million directly to female entrepreneurs to help support their businesses, families and employees. This donation will provide 1,000 female business owners here in the United States with $5,000 in funding each. My hope is that this gift will help alleviate some of the pressures caused by this horrible pandemic. I know first hand what it’s like to be a small business owner. As a woman it can be lonely and scary, especially during a time like this. Small business is the backbone of our culture and I want to help. It’s been my greater mission in life to empower and elevate women, and when you help a woman fulfill her potential… magic happens. 💪Special thanks to GlobalGiving, MasterClass and the entire Spanx family.

Women 2.0 is offering Free 60-day job posts this month and organizing a pitch session for women and underrepresented startup founders.

Founder Institute, well known, world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, invites women to apply for Female Founder Fellowship.

Violet Society just opened applications for the 5th Violet Society Founder Fellowship, this time fully remote! The Founder Fellowship is a part-time program designed for very early-stage female & non-binary founders with huge ambitions. If you’re looking for help building your MVP, preparing a launch strategy, getting your first 100 customers, or closing your first investor, they are here for you!

Chloe Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm they are moving capital in each city they visit! They’ve just started new virtual program. Take a look!

Project W’s Virtual Workshop Series on Succeeding in Difficult Times

Pitch summit is an opportunity for invited women and non-binary femme social entrepreneurs to present their for-profit social ventures for a chance to secure funding.

This competition is open to any female-led startup with a Minimum Viable Product applicable to the Mobility industry. All aspects of the program take place virtually.

Female-Founded, Female-Led helps to increase the visibility, numbers, revenue, and funding of Female Founded, Female Led, and Female Owned businesses.