What would you do if someone gave you £10,000 worth of support for your business?

It’s pretty rare that a company will reach $1 billion without listing themselves on the stock market, and that figure is the dream of any tech startup – it’s why we refer to them as Unicorn companies.

But what’s even rarer than a Unicorn, is a female-founded Unicorn.

It’s why Bruntwood SciTech, one of Leeds’ most exciting tech hubs, is paving the way for female founders to access the support they deserve – and they’re offering a whopping giveaway worth over £50,000 to help you get your business off the ground with an accelerator-style support programme.

For women, it appears that one of the best ways to accelerate potential and growth is through a business accelerator.

According to a recent review of female entrepreneurship, fully female-founded High Growth Enterprises are most likely to have grown through an accelerator, and this is the only method of growth to have more representation of women entrepreneurs.

It’s all about support, innovation and growth amongst like-minded individuals and businesses, and it can do wonders for female-founded companies.

Women are also more likely to seek this support on their journey, just over a quarter of fully male-founded companies have attended an accelerator meeting whilst 56% of fully female-founded companies have attended an accelerator programme.

According to company insight platform Crunchbase, just 12% of Unicorns in 2021 had either female founders or co-founders.

Whilst we don’t all need to be Unicorns, when there’s endless opportunities for startups in the UK, it just doesn’t make sense that women are under represented – especially when female-led businesses are proven time and time again to generate higher revenues, outperform their male counterparts, and have significantly lower failure rates, according to recent MIT research.

At the moment, eight of the top 10 accelerators for female entrepreneurs are headquartered in London, but there’s no reason why Leeds’ can’t be a secondary business hub to the capital. 

In recent years alone the city has flourished with fintech and business investment from international companies big and small, and we’re sure that this is only the beginning for our beloved city.

But innovation needn’t be limited by location nor gender, it should be about nurturing great ideas and business growth.

Deb Hetherington, Head of Innovation Services at Bruntwood SciTech believes that it’s a collective responsibility to bring powerful female figures to the front of the business, science and technology world:

“In order to support the next generation of female founders, leaders and entrepreneurs, we all have a part to play. From local councils, successful founders, large corporates, and educators.”

“Investors argue there aren’t enough female founders to invest in, central government sings a similar tune, but all entities are looking for fully formed successful female founders. This is the problem; we need to go back several steps to design a pipeline, a defined pathway for female founders to try, and fail, and to try again.”

“In order to support the next generation of female founders, leaders and entrepreneurs, we all have a part to play. From local councils, successful founders, large corporations, and educators. That’s why we have recently designed a Female Founders Incubator, launching during Leeds Digital Festival in September at the home of tech in Leeds, Platform.”

The Female Founders Incubator programme

To support the next generation, Bruntwood SciTech is looking to support five female business owners, entrepreneurs and founders through their The Female Founders Incubator programme.

This specially-designed programme has been built to provide female entrepreneurs across West Yorkshire with tailored, expert support to grow, expand and scale according to your own business and personal needs.

The five successful candidates will be given access to the following from Bruntwood free of charge:

• 1:1 mentoring with successful CEOs 
• Access to professional services experts across marketing, legal, accounting and funding support
• Peer-2-peer sessions 
• 6 months FREE desk space, plus 50% off for the following 6 months

To enter Bruntwood’s Female Founders Incubator programme with support worth more than £10,000 per person, click here.

And that’s just the beginning…

Bruntwood is a collaborative workspace that allows like minded individuals to come together at both formal networking events and informal coffee mornings. By working at Platform, you’ll receive exclusive access to at least 24 events and dedicated 1:1 support from professional services experts and Bruntwood SciTech’s extensive partner network.

The programme is supported by successful founders and CEOs who will mentor five early stage female founders throughout the six month incubation period including award winning CEOs Zandra Moore and Anna Sutton from local scaling tech companies.

Partners including Law Firm Berwin Digital, Marketing specialists Social, and female focussed funding specialists Fund Her North will provide bespoke advice and support, and Bruntwood SciTech will facilitate the programme, coordinating all activity and providing free desk space to the successful entrepreneurs.

Sarah Hex, Member of Fund her North said: “Fund Her North wants to improve access to funding for female-led businesses in the North of England through start-up, scale and exit. The Bruntwood SciTech Female Founders Incubator is exactly the kind of programme we want to support. In order to create a successful pipeline of investable female founders, we need an increase in this kind of activity.”

How to apply for the Female Founders Incubator programme

In order to be in with the chance of being one of the five recipients of the support and mentoring from Bruntwood SciTech’s Female Founder Incubator programme, all you need to do is head to the dedicated Female Founder Incubator website and fill in a few questions about your business and tell the judges why would you (and your business) be a good addition to the Tech Hub community at Bruntwood SciTech.

Applications will close on Thursday 8th September, so make sure you get your application in quickly for review.

To enter Bruntwood SciTech’s Female Founders Incubator programme with support worth up to £10,000, click here.

Bruntwood SciTech is asking that all applicants are available for a virtual interview on Monday 12 September in the afternoon and those that are successful in receiving one of the five spaces on the Female Founders Incubator will be invited to a launch event and lunch on Tuesday 27 September 2022.

The program and access to desk space will begin from Monday 3 October.

The full details on how to enter, including all of the small print, can be found on the here.

Feature Image- Bruntwood SciTech