Our path from sourcing to selecting Europe’s most promising female-led startups.

Grow F

Our Grow F program is one of the top-ranked startup accelerators for female founders in Europe. We are providing female-led ventures with the necessary tools to get investment-ready. The 3-month program is based on three pillars: 1) Deep dive sessions with industry experts, 2) Individual mentorship and 3) Access to Europe’s most successful early-stage investors. Grow F is designed for innovative and scalable business models with at least one female founder in the team, an existing MVP and with the aim to fundraise and learn more about the process. Click here to find out exactly who our industry experts and personal mentors are.

Application –> Selection Process

We received approximately 200 applications for round five of Grow F. To be considered for the program, candidates send us basic info on their startups, a pitch deck, and a two-minute video to tell us about themselves and the product or prototype they have developed.

At this point in the process, we asked our jury for some help and advice. This panel is composed of individuals located across Europe that are all a part of our trusted investor partners.

In order to sift through the initial applications, our jury ranked each potential startup using a standardised criteria list:

team
business model
market size
degree of innovation
scalability
KPI/traction achieved
impact

Thanks to the work of this awesome panel the 200 applicants were narrowed down to a shortlist of 40. After having a video call with each one of them, 9 out of 10 startups who will participate in Grow F were chosen. We are extremely grateful to each member of this jury for their help in the Grow F process so far.

Collaboration with Microsoft

What is new for batch 5 is that we partnered up with Microsoft to scout and select together for an innovative B2B tech startup with their solution running on a cloud platform. For this startup we reserved the final spot for Grow F.

Microsoft will support this startup with mentorship and access to know-how in areas such as Go-To-Market Strategies, Technology and Sales.

Dealflow

Out of the 200 potential candidates, there were startups representing over 12 different industries coming from 23 countries across Europe, as well as a few from North & South America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. While the overall number of applications was roughly the same as for the Batch 4, we saw an increase in international applications, especially in one of Europe’s leading startup nations – the United Kingdom.

Moreover, we noticed an increase in maturity in the applying startups with first impressive traction and an increase in serial entrepreneurs applying for the program.

We are thrilled to continue to have such a strong reach among female founders and that we are able to reach more international startups with outstanding backgrounds. This would not be possible without strong partners by our side, so a big thank you to everyone who has helped spread the word about the program. Thus, it might not come as a surprise that we have noticed an increased interest of investors and VCs for our dealflow.

What’s next

With the fifth batch of Grow F participants finalised it’s time to get the program started. The first event already took place on April 6th where everyone got to know each other and commence the journey together! We are excited to see the growth that happens over these next three months.

Think your startup could be a good fit for Grow F? Apply here for Batch 6!

Are you an investor and want to know even more about our dealflow or have any other questions? Contact us for more info. Are you a corporate and got interested in the scouting and accelerator partnership? Contact us for more info.