Innovate UK Admits Mistake Over Feminine Founder Grants 

Innovate UK, the nationwide innovation company, has U-turned on its determination to award simply half of the 50 grants in its ‘Ladies In Innovation’ funding competitors for girls entrepreneurs.

The organisation acquired 1,452 purposes and had “as much as £4m” in funding obtainable to offer to the successful entrants. However regardless of clear urge for food from feminine founders, it emerged over the weekend that solely 25 of the grants had been awarded, leaving 25 unaccounted for.

On Monday afternoon, the non-departmental public physique launched a press release confirming that every one remaining £75,000 grants will now be awarded. The change comes mere hours after tons of of founders signed an open letter calling for “pressing reform” of Innovate UK.

Innovate UK: “we prioritised wrongly”

In a 376-word assertion on its LinkedIn web page, Innovate UK confirmed yesterday it would 

be funding a complete of fifty awards, representing the unique £4m dedicated. It additionally apologised for “the priority and frustration that now we have triggered.”

Whereas reasoning for the choice has not been revealed, the assertion hints that it might have been because of monetary constraints.

“As public funders, we should handle our budgets rigorously”, reads the publish. “The choice to solely award this quantity was a mistake and we prioritised wrongly.”

In accordance with the organisation, it’ll now set about contacting the subsequent highest-scoring 25 profitable candidates to verify funding, beginning instantly.

It can don’t have any drawback discovering the extra candidates to help. Innovate UK additionally acknowledged that this 12 months’s competitors had acquired its highest response up to now, revealing (sarcastically) that loads of girls innovators are fundraising this 12 months.

Swift motion following marketing campaign

Innovate UK had acquired criticism for a ‘holding assertion’ it shared on its LinkedIn web page on Monday morning. Within the publish, it promised to replace unsuccessful candidates “this week”. This prompted one founder to criticise the Innovate UK response as a “complete comms sh*tshow”.

On Saturday, femtech founder Emma Jarvis wrote on LinkedIn calling on Innovate UK to award the complete 50 awards. The publish attracted over 800 likes and 111 reposts from fellow LinkedIn customers, and gained traction amongst each women and men entrepreneurs.

On Monday afternoon, an open letter appeared on LinkedIn, calling for “pressing reform” to Innovate UK. The marketing campaign is spearheaded by Becky Lodge, who’s founding father of Little Kanga and StartUp Disruptors, alongside investor consultants Zandra Moore and Tara Attfield-Tomes.

Named Let’s Fund Extra Ladies, the marketing campaign resulted in tons of of posts from buyers, founders, and supporters, efficiently placing strain on Innovate UK to behave swiftly.

Supply: linkedin.com/firm/innovateuk

After the Innovate UK announcement, many commented to thank these within the organisation for listening to their issues. “What unbelievable information, and a thanks to these locally who contacted Innovate UK and fed our issues again”, wrote one founder.

Innovate UK “must mirror”

Whereas a constructive consequence has been reached, the very fact is that Innovate UK got here near underdelivering almost £2m in funding for feminine founders. Questions are already being raised about how and why it selected to chop funding for a women-led competitors.

Innovate UK funding for 2020 to 2021 reportedly totalled £885m. If it spends the identical quantity this 12 months, the Ladies in Innovation awards will signify simply 0.4% of its funds.

“Innovate UK must mirror on who participated within the board assembly the place the choice was made on the best way to “rigorously” handle the funds,” one feminine founder wrote in response to the Innovate UK assertion. “Who was it that made these prioritisation selections?”

Accessing early-stage funding as a feminine founder is already a problem. Startups information has discovered that the gender funding hole in 2024 signifies that feminine founders will increase, on common, six occasions much less in funding than male entrepreneurs.

Earlier this 12 months, the federal government tried to roll out modifications to angel buyers that will have made it even more durable for female-led companies to boost cash. Fortunately, in a transfer that Innovate UK has now echoed, it U-turned on the ultimate hour.

On this context, Innovate UK has been important for levelling the taking part in discipline for female-led companies. Because the organisation shared in its publish, one in three profitable purposes to Innovate UK competitions are actually led by girls, in comparison with one in seven in 2016.