Female entrepreneurs still continue to be underrepresented in almost every country when it comes to funding and investment. Therefore they need extra support in order to thrive in business. Support in funding and investment has always been a major barrier to achieving entrepreneurial goals for many women in the UK.
Learn more about how these three UK firms below are supporting female entrepreneurs to become investment ready and get all the funding and support they need in order to create successful businesses.
Fund Her North
Fund Her North is an influential collective of women in investment supporting women entrepreneurs in the North to support each other’s efforts to continue empowering female entrepreneurs to start, manage and grow their business ventures.
With a total investment capacity of over £140 million, Fund Her North is a unique community of vocal influential women investors and successful, inspirational entrepreneurs, united to tackle the many barriers facing women accessing investment.
Pitch events are delivered by two investment groups below:
- NorthInvest, a not-for-profit organisation based in Leeds that helps tech and digital start-ups across the North of England raise angel investment and access crucial expert support to help them fulfil their potential, and
- GC Angels, a Manchester-based leading Angel service driven by experienced equity specialists.
Every quarter, 6 start-ups are invited to pitch to their combined networks of investors and funding partners at a virtual pitch event facilitated by Fund Her North. These events are open to the public to encourage more entrepreneurs to apply for funding.
NorthInvest have facilitated over £8m in funding for early stage start-ups and delivered over 630 free investment readiness coaching sessions to entrepreneurs. With an angel network of over 130 private investors, 14% of which are women, NorthInvest views collaboration across the funding and investment community as a crucial step in addressing the gender investment disparity and encourage more women to become angel investors.
On the other hand the GC Angels responds to the early-stage equity market gap, scaling investment activity and unlocking innovation across the North. GC Angels actively invests in women founders, with over 40% of their capital going to a business with a female founder, and champions greater representation of women in the Angel community.
Click here for further details or to participate in any of the programs.
The 200Bn Club
The 200Bn Club is a unique programme designed to accelerate financing directed to female founders and connect them with leading VCs from seed to Series A.
Built by founders, for founders, the 200Bn Club is a 12-week non-equity programme open to applicants from all industries. The programme’s aim is to get participants pitch-perfect as well as investment ready.
The programme is different from other accelerators in that it takes no equity from programme participants and provides participants with an opportunity to take part in weekly mock pitches with a VC panel in order to receive appropriate feedback on their startups. The mock pitches as well as the feedback they receive help participants to gain valuable insight and quickly fine-tune their pitch and business model to get them ready for a pitch day in front of 40+ VCs with open books at the end of the programme.
The 200Bn Club was founded by Dr. Amber Ghaddar and Bridget Greenwood who themselves have experienced first hand the fundraising process as startup founders but also as investors and therefore understand the shortfalls, recognise the benefits and potential returns.
Click here for further details or to participate in any of the programs.