Having the ability to entry funding can have an enormous affect on new enterprise success – but it surely’s way more troublesome for feminine entrepreneurs to supply than male.
Simply final week, The Alison Rose Evaluate of Feminine Entrepreneurship 2023 discovered that solely 14% of angel buyers within the UK are feminine. Unsurprisingly, this determine is having an affect on the variety of ladies with the ability to begin a enterprise.
In 2022, unique Startups knowledge confirmed that women-led startups working within the first 5 years get, on common, seven instances much less funding than male-owned corporations.
Fortunately, a brand new wave of female-focused enterprise funds are actually rising within the UK, and hoping to steadiness the scales. Led by skilled feminine entrepreneurs, they’re dedicated to connecting extra ladies to the fitting funds and offering expertise to the subsequent era of ladies in enterprise.
So in case you’re a feminine entrepreneur that’s trying to increase capital to your startup, learn on to search out out concerning the prime 5 women-only enterprise funds and awards in 2023:
1. Girls in Innovation Awards
Every year Innovate UK, as a part of UK Analysis and Innovation, presents at the least 20 Girls in Innovation Awards to feminine entrepreneurs throughout the UK as a part of a government-backed funding competitors.
Profitable candidates are given a £50,000 grant and a bespoke bundle of mentoring, teaching and enterprise help. This grant is then used to fund a year-long undertaking to develop your agency that may start in April 2023.
Functions often open in August and shut in October, with the winners being introduced in direction of the tip of the 12 months.
2. HATCH help programmes
HATCH is an internet and in-person UK enterprise group that’s an awesome selection for many who wish to develop or scale their current enterprise. Specifically, Hatch Feminine Founders has a number of programmes to help feminine founders.
These embody the Hatch Accelerator Programme, which was designed to assist female-led companies develop 10x over 10 years utilizing enterprise teaching, mentoring, and coaching. Graduates can apply for as much as £1,000 in funding.
Plus, in case you’re within the early levels of launching, The Launchpad Programme helps you develop expertise in enterprise modelling, finance, communications, and advertising and marketing.
3. Feminine Founders Fund
The Feminine Founders Fund (FFF) presents funding to transformational expertise corporations within the pre-seed stage (the earliest stage of startup funding) which were based by ladies.
It was first began by the skilled entrepreneur Anu Duggal in 2014, and has since helped a whole lot of ladies throughout industries together with B2B, finance, healthcare and client, to grasp their enterprise ambitions.
Over the previous 8 years, the fund has additionally developed right into a wide-spread ecosystem of assets, occasions and feminine expertise leaders nationwide.
On common, the fund makes round 6-8 investments per 12 months ranging between £400,000 to £650,000, so it’s a aggressive software course of. You will discover out extra about making use of for the FFF on their web site.
How is the gender funding hole affecting entrepreneurs?
Alena Golden, founding father of Rap Fame, a cellular recording studio for rap artists mentioned that being in a male-dominated business may make accessing funding tougher.
“It was a problem discovering and being accepted onto the fitting accelerator, which inevitably performs a component in the way you then fund the enterprise. As a first-time feminine founder beginning a rap-focused app, it’s not essentially one thing the folks making selections can perceive.”
4. Astia
Astia is a world fund that invests in women-led, various companies. The corporate accepts functions all 12 months spherical from high-growth corporations with at the least one girl ready of great fairness and affect.
Its specialist funding course of, Astia Professional Sift™ is a prolonged endeavor that usually takes 4-6 weeks. Nevertheless all through the steps, which embody investor and business screening, corporations additionally obtain entry to priceless connections and recommendation. Qualifying candidates are requested to create a profile and apply by means of the Astia Join platform.
One disadvantage to Astia is that the agency invests in corporations which are past the idea stage, which implies it’s solely appropriate for more-established startups which have demonstrated traction or market validation.
Whereas it won’t strictly be a grant organisation, the Anita Borg Institute runs the Abie Awards, which rejoice excellent ladies working within the tech business.
The Abie Awards boast a lot of completely different award classes together with the ‘Go it On’ awards for ladies in coding.
Most of those classes promote a money prize to the winner – plus an bills paid journey to the awards ceremony within the US. For instance, the 2022 awards programme provided prizes of as much as $50,000 (£37,000).
The 2023 Abie Awards nominations will open quickly. If you wish to get began in your software early, take a look on the Abie web site now to be taught extra concerning the course of and qualifying standards.
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