The biggest annual pitching competition for female and non-binary business founders is back for another edition. After the success of the previous two years, we are incredibly excited to bring back the Female Founder Pitching Day for 2024!
Finland needs more diversity and female representation in its startup ecosystem. Despite the increasing number of entrepreneurs in Finland, only a third of them are women, and this figure is even lower for startups. Female founders also still receive significantly less funding compared to their male counterparts. In the Nordics, only 1,1% of the total capital raised in 2021 went to startups with all-women founding teams, according to the Annual Nordic funding report by Unconventional Ventures. The Female Founder Pitching Day was created to challenge that status quo.
The event aims to uplift and empower female and non-binary presence in the Finnish startup scene, by providing an exclusive opportunity for female and non-binary founders to secure funding for their business.
We’re honored to welcome as keynote speaker Nasima Razmyar, First Vice Chair of the SDP party, Head of the Startup Matters Group at Finnish Parliament, who will share valuable insights on the policies shaping the future of innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Female Founder Pitching Day, a collaboration between The Shortcut, Tech Nordic Advocates, and Shevestments, is the biggest annual pitching competition for female business founders and entrepreneurs in Finland. Previous participating founders come from many different areas, including tech, healthcare, fashion, and many more.
Previously held at Maria 01, the event was the first of its kind in 2022, and since then we have had two highly successful editions. Last year’s winner Annika Lundström, with her MedTech startup ReMinded, won the grand prize of €15.000 from our sponsor Google. The Finnish startup has recently gone on to secure almost $500.000 in funding from investors.
Finland has all the makings and capacity to become the premiere launchpad for all female and non-binary entrepreneurs who dream of making it big. We are now looking for sponsors who share the same vision for female entrepreneurship to make it happen.
By participating in Female Founder Pitching Day as a sponsor, you will get:
Date & Time: 17th December, 9:30 to 13:00
Venue: Helsinki City Hall
Agenda
🌟 Santa Bürkland – Roo Strategy: Europe’s first plugin tool for universities’ learning platforms to validate the inclusivity of courses.
🌟 Sheila Riikonen – SPROK Project: EdTech R2B Game for L2 learners. From failed integration to thriving communities – Every child gets access to the culture and language of the country they live in.
🌟 Svetlana Sharifulina – AiLobe Health: AI-powered guide for well-being management.
🌟 Berna Bulgurcu – Syntask: Industrial-focused business intelligence platform that combines internal and external data to deliver meaningful analytics and actionable insights.
🌟 Aizea Arce de Muguerza – Three Mushketeers: Fixing the taste of plant-based foods by creating flavorful ingredients from up-cycled mushroom waste.
🌟 Pia Solatie – Sisufy: Helping parents reduce their children’s screen time and create more meaningful family moments with easy, fun & personalized activities.
🌟 Anna Ptukha – Mind’s Eye: Health tech startup developing timely eye tracking diagnostics of child development
🌟 Maria Panttila – RunFrog: The running coach in your phone
🌟 Jinglu Chen – Muksu Parenting Oy: A comprehensive, science driven app that offers personalized parenting support to promote healthy family development
🌟 Natasha de Koker – LadyJustice AI: LadyJustice AI is so much more than Gen AI, it is the future of LegalAI, empowering lawyers to work smarter and achieve superior outcomes
🌟 Shandra Pandey – Smart Cell: We make environmentally friendly smart cells to empower clean, low cost and efficient large scale electricity storage
🌟 Geetali Dewan – Starklass: Equitable access to affordable, high-quality, and personalized education for everyone, everywhere
Definitely! As part of our challenge, you will be learning the basics of Microsoft Azure. We recommend planning in around one day to finish the challenge if you have no prior experience with Microsoft Azure.
Unfortunately, our services are only available for Finnish residents with a right to work in Finland. Since part of the training will be in person, you also need to be able to travel to our office in Helsinki.
This is a full-time training, Monday to Friday from 9 to 16. You need to be able to commit to the full training, so if you have a full-time job during the same hours, you are not able to join the training.
When you apply to the training, we will verify that you are eligible to join us. If you are eligible, you will gain access to the challenge. Please reserve around 3.5 hours to finish the challenge.
The challenge takes around 3,5 hours to finish if you have no prior knowledge of Microsoft Azure. However, if you have some background in cloud computing, you might get through it faster.
Congratulations! We will let you know by the 23rd of March if you are a fit for our training! Make sure to check your email.
