Georgia Barkell’s Post

🚀 Breaking Through Barriers: European Female Entrepreneurs Soar to New Heights in Funding! 🌍 2023 marks a monumental year as female founders and fund managers defy odds, clinching €5.9bn in investments - one of the highest annual tallies to date. Big wins continue with a 45% surge in average Series C round size for female-led startups, hitting a stunning €80m. Plus, female general partners are revolutionizing the funding landscape with a massive 76% leap in capital raised. 💥 Join the celebration of this extraordinary progress and resilience in the face of adversity. #FemaleFounders #InvestmentTrends #WomenInBusiness #Innovation #StartupFunding

Are you a Queensland female founder or an organisation supporting female founders? Advance Queensland have two incredible initiatives which look to support female entrepreneurs with their innovative business. ⚙Accelerating Female Founders program – grants of between $50,000 to $200,000 are available to organisation who are committed to helping female founded and led businesses to grow and excel with their business support initiatives. Applications close on Monday 15 April. Apply here 👉 https://buff.ly/3yB5Y13 ⚙Female Founders Co-investment Fund – with grants from $50,000 to $200,000 available, this initiative aims to support innovative female founded businesses beginning a new early-stage capital raise. Apply here 👉 https://buff.ly/432szAJ This is a great opportunity to accelerate female founders so don’t wait and apply today. #FemaleFounders #AcceleratorProgram #FemaleLeaders #WomenEntrepreneurs

🚀 Yesterday, FundMyPitch hosted our second virtual pitch event, and I’m proud to say that 3 out of the 4 opportunities were led by female founders. This isn’t new for us – since day one, FundMyPitch has been committed to supporting female-led businesses. Recently, there were concerns about Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation awards, but thanks to community efforts, all 50 awards will now be issued, rather than the 25 initially planned. While this is a positive outcome, the broader issue of funding disparity for female founders remains, and it's something we’re dedicated to addressing. At FundMyPitch, we believe in levelling the playing field. Our network of investors actively seeks female-led opportunities, and we will continue to advocate for greater funding and support for these talented entrepreneurs. Yesterday’s event, following our first pitch that led to £330k in introductions, is just the start of what we can achieve together. If you're an investor interested in supporting female-led businesses, we’d love to hear from you. #FemaleFounders #StartupInvestment #FundMyPitch #WomenInInnovation #DiversityInBusiness

Female Founders Growth Summit in full flow this morning in Edinburgh. The UK’s biggest event to date for female founders and entrepreneurs. With just 2p in every £1 of finding going to female founders, the access and equity gap is astounding. Programmes, accelerators, female only funding pools, and female founder enterprises have been sprung up as means to address the challenge. But is that addressing the crux of the issue? Feedback shared today that has been given in 2024 to UK female founders applying for funding has included: ‘She’d have come across better in her pitch by bypassing the makeup counter and smiling more’ ‘I don’t think someone who has been a nurse can be a commercial entrepreneur’ ‘You’re young and attractive, what happens when you decide to have kids’ What are the social and economic changes you feel might be most impactful in redresssing the inequity of both inspiring women to take the leap into the entrepreneurial space and solving the issue on equitable funding access? Female Founders Rise Pathways Forward #femalefoundersgrowthsummit

🥁 The Diversity-X tour bus rolls into Bristol next week, and we are looking to connecting with underestimated founders® and investors (particularly angels and those curious about angel investing. Thank you to Amy Newton and Inclusive Angels are gathering a brilliant range of people to talk about how we best diversify angel investment and ensure the best founders get the backing they need - IRRESPECTIVE of their gender, colour, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc. I'm excited to be involved to support the event, and talking about what Diversity X and I are doing to bring much needed change in this area. So, I have two actions for you: 1. If you're an underestimated founder® raising investment you can share your raise here: https://lnkd.in/ep-G2jQx 2. If you want to learn more about angel investing - express your interest here - https://lnkd.in/evTiq7GX 2. If you want to help diversify our angel community and increase equity in fundraising, sign up to join us for the event (link below) Underestimated founders deliver 30% higher returns, yet funding doesn't reflect this potential. This event is about helping to change that! Connect with angel investors, founders, and aspiring angels to bust ambition myths and explore how equality benefits everyone. I am honoured to be sharing the stage with some brilliant speakers including Matt Penneycard of Ada Ventures, Sarah King from Obu, Dr. Jill Jones of Women Angels of Wales, and of course, Amy Newton of Inclusive Angels. We will also hear from some great founders Samantha Payne, Frances Lucraft, and Clayton Planter, find out more about them via the eventbrite link below. 📅 Date: Wednesday, June 12 · 4:30 - 8pm 📍 Location: Paintworks, Bristol 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ekN-KRJw Really looking forward to meeting many founders and investors in Bristol. Luckily I will be supported by two of the DX team with Ammar Mourad and Marquis Caines in attendance. The event is run in partnership with British Business Bank, Inclusive Angels, Newtons Theory and TLT LLP #InclusiveAngels #AngelInvesting #DiversityInTech #Networking #StartupCommunity #Equality #BristolEvents #Bristol

How do funding trends compare for women vs men founders in African markets over the last few years? We're bringing the data at this year's #WWBAAssembly. Hangyul Lee-Song will join us on September 6th to share a first look at a report conducted by Briter and Ventures 54 via V54 Open Impact (nonprofit arm of Ventures 54), in partnership with the UK-Kenya Tech Hub. She'll share data from their study that answers questions like: ✅ How long does it take women founders to raise a seed round on average vs men? ✅ What is the likelihood of women founders raising later stage rounds vs men? ✅ From which types of funders do women and men founders typically raise at each round? ✅ What is the role that accelerators, venture labs and grant funding play in the ecosystem for women vs men founders? ✅ How do these trends vary across sectors and major markets? and much more. Note that prices have now increased. Get your tickets now before they sell out: https://lnkd.in/ed--EfHM Female founders, apply to join us for free here: https://lnkd.in/eA4c3X-c

Are you VC ready? Join 1,000+ Canadian women founders in the CWN to scale your startup and get access to: ✅ Startup resources  ✅ A 100+ investor directory  ✅ Fundraising outreach services ✅ Discounts on signature programs and events    ➡️ Become a member here: https://buff.ly/3w1mHfL P.S. Want to see if the CWN is a fit for you? Tune into our next Orientation Session on June 26 to hear about our membership benefits and upcoming events. 👉 Register here: https://buff.ly/4cr5EDZ #WomenFounders #WomenEntrepreneurs #WomenOwnedBusiness #StartupGrowth #StartupFounders

It's not often there's positive notes on the state of gender diversity in European — but there are small signs of improvement in a new PitchBook report. Female-founded teams with at least one woman cofounder are growing their share of the overall funding pot — albeit slowly. In 2023, those teams landed 20.5% of the total deal value in Europe, a 5% increase on 2022 and the highest it’s been since PitchBook started gathering data in 2010. But there's also a bunch of far less positive stuff. Overall fundraising remains very poor. Just once — in 2021 — have all-female founding teams in Europe combined surpssed the €1bn mark for funding in a single calendar year. By comparison, all-male founding teams in Europe have raised more than €10bn every year since 2015. Things are no better on the VC side. At firms with at least €50m under management, just 15% of decision makers — partners, principles and managing directors — were women. Of those firms, 92% had more men than women in those positions. Sadia Nowshin has the full story: https://lnkd.in/ewZ8E28k

Some Friday inspiration - with a deadline! Ashima - I completely agree: excluding women stifles innovation. And while progress had been made on some fronts, the reality is that we need to move the dial on access to capital. At Spring, our Women Led Impact Investor Challenge moves the dial - with our program securing funding for incredible founders including Erin Millar, Julie Angus, Sumreen Rattan, Cassandra Hui (She/Her), Roya Aghighi, Dr. Karolina Valente and many others. If you are gender diverse led or co-led venture, the deadline for applying is TODAY! Reach out to myself or Ashima if you need any support to get your application in so we can help us raise the values aligned and support. If you are an investor or ecosystem support organization, recommend startups in your community looking to raise in the next 3-9 months. #impactinvesting #angelinvesting #venturecapital #canada #genderlensinvesting #investinginwomen #womeninbusiness #womenintech

Starting the weekend by reminding myself, and all of us, that everday should be Women's Day. And with less than 2% of VC money going to women led ventures, it's time to move the dial. Meet the Top 15 founders of the Spring 2024 Women-Led Impact Investor Challenge. They come from 10 cities from coast to coast, and represent companies that are solving some of the biggest challenges we face today. Join me in celebrating: AiimSense Inc. led by Atefeh Zarabadi (Waterloo, ON) Apricotton, led by Jessica Miao and Chloe Beaudoin (Toronto, ON) Aruna Revolution, led by Rashmi Prakash (Waverley, NS) BeBlended, led by Aileen Agada (Waterloo, ON) DOT - Mind Unlocked, led by Yishel Khan (Ottawa, ON) homeD Modular, led by Michele Tung (Vancouver, BC) Kula Foods, led by Asha Wheeldon (Vancouver, BC) MycoFutures, led by Stephanie Lipp (Mississauga, ON) Pain Coach Inc., led by Emily Johnston (Halifax, NS) Savyn, led by Sakeena Mihar (Toronto, ON) Scotiaderm Inc., led by Johanna Mercer (Port Williams, NS) Untangle Money, led by Kristine Beese (Toronto, ON) Vessl Prosthetics, led by Sydney Robinson (London, ON) Vitract, led by Linta Mustafa and Chidozie Ojobor, Ph.D. (Toronto, ON) Vope Medical, led by Amy Lorincz (Montreal, PQ) How can you support these founders as they scale their impact ventures? One way is with your capital and anyone can be an investor in this program. The deadline to apply to become an investor for this program is March 21st, so get in on it before it’s too late! Thanks goes to the visionary support and partnership of National Research Council Canada / Conseil national de recherches Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program, BDC Thrive Lab, DLA Piper, Ink LLP, and RSM Canada. #investinginwomen #genderlensinvesting #impactinvesting #angelinvesting #canada #techforgood #businessforgood https://lnkd.in/g7VDqbEJ