In an ideal world, female start-up founders would not need to prove their value compared to their male counterparts. But research shows that women face negative attitudes during pitches. Investors ask women more about risk and losses, while men are asked about ambitions and achievements, writes Business.Financing.co.uk.
So, who are these high-achieving women entrepreneurs? We analysed data from the business information resource Crunchbase to identify the top female founder in every country in the world and created this new set of maps to show who they are and what they do.
The female founders with the largest funding hauls are spread across five continents. From multi-billion-dollar deals in the world’s top business economies to plucky start-ups in less obvious markets, these are the female leaders who’ve made the biggest splash in their respective homelands.
Europe
Victoria van Lennep made it to the Forbes 30 under 30 in 2018 after raising over USD250m in lending capital for her UK company, Lendable. The total raised now stands at over USD1bn. Lendable uses machine-learning tech to automate credit decisions, offering customers fairer loan rates.
Biotech start-ups are big in Europe, but our research shows there’s room for gaming, too. In Finland, Stella Wang raised nearly USD 7mln to create Minecraft-inspired sandbox games for the social generation. She co-founded Dazzle Rocks and provided the creative vision and valuable
Baltic countries
Lithuania
Milda Mitkute. Vinted, USD 260 mln
Milda Mitkute co-founder of the online marketplace Vinted, where people sell and buy second-hand clothes. With more than 13+ million users it has become a worldwide phenomenon.
Estonia
Karoli Hindrikis. Jobbatical USD 7,9 mln
Karoli Hindrikis is an Estonian entrepreneur who in 2014 founded the forward-looking hiring company Jobbatical which she heads as CEO.
The Estonian recruitment platform Jobbatical is winding down its hiring service in 2019 and becoming an immigration and relocation platform only, helping employees settle down in new countries and deal with bureaucracy
Latvia
Marija Rucevska, Kora USD 880,000. Kora rewards people and companies for performing a wide range of sustainable activities, in order to fight climate change.
Now Marija Rucevska co-founder and partner Helve