Top EU Accelerators for Women

💨 Accelerators
Sign in to view filters and tags
Sifted has compiled a list of top European accelerators for women entrepreneurs.
Published/Updated on Jul 21, 2021

Eight top European accelerators for female founders to know | Sifted

Sifted has been speaking to female founders far and wide to create the ultimate list of startup accelerators for women. From Poland to Portugal, here are the European accelerators for women entrepreneurs not to be missed:

DigitalHealth.London Accelerator

If you’re a healthcare startup looking to scale your solution within the NHS, this flagship accelerator by DigitalHealth.London is your go-to. Launched in 2016, it’s all about helping startups to get their innovative solutions adopted by the NHS.

The London-based accelerator’s big sell is its network; cohorts get the opportunity to show their products to NHS decision makers. It also has a great track record of supporting female and diverse founders. 

Female Founders - GROW F

This Austria-based programme, which kicked off in January 2019, runs twice a year and targets early-stage startups with at least one female founder in the team. There are many elements to the programme, from a course on the fundraising process down to term sheet deep dives.

GROW F also focuses on networking in an effort to get female founders better connected with ecosystem players. There are some well-known mentors and experts involved with the upcoming programme.

Hatch BAME Female Founders

A spin out from the London-based startup support organisation Hatch Enterprise, the six-month Hatch Female Founder accelerator programme landed in 2017 and is aimed at businesses led by women-led businesses with an annual turnover of £50k. It was built using insights from over 100 female founders to tackle common challenges that they face, such as childcare and fear of failure, and has backing from J.P. Morgan.

It’s available to businesses in the UK, and covers a wide range of topics — from marketing to HR — and comes with the usual perks of an accelerator like peer learning groups, one-to-one coaching and networking opportunities. Grabbing a place in the programme will cost you £300.

Google for Startups female founder programmes

Google for Startups UK launched its own female founder accelerator in 2019 at the Google campus in Shoreditch. The ’Google for Startups Female Founder programme’ was initially a six-week long programme of mentoring, networking and utilising Google tools for early-stage companies. It was extended into a five-month experience and did not take a stake in any of the businesses participating.

This year (2020) saw the launch of ‘Google for Startups Immersion: Female Founders’, a 12-week long programme helping women-led startups connect to the London tech scene. It covers a wide range of themes, from OKRs, hiring, leadership and more.

ReaktorX

ReaktorX is a pre-acceleration programme in Poland for first-time founders. Cofounded by Diana Koziarska and Borys Musielak in January 2017,  the initiative isn’t exclusive to female founders but has proven to have a reputation for diversity. An impressive 64% of its last batch had at least one female founder in their team. 

The programme has familiar accelerator amenities like mentoring, pitching and networking to help founders take their product from initial idea to being investment ready.

The Venture City (TVC) - The Garden

TheVentureCity (TVC) was launched in 2017 by two women inspired to make a more diverse and transparent tech industry. It operates globally, having supported startups in South America and Africa, but its presence remains strongest in southern Europe and North America. Its European coworking space is in Madrid.

TVC welcomes early- to late-stage firms. Each year, 25 companies take part in its five-month growth programme ‘The Garden’, which explores a range of topics based on business growth, from fundraising to culture.

Bridge for Billions - The Leap

This global online platform launched in 2015 and runs virtual programmes for seed-stage entrepreneurs from all sectors, with an office in New York and Madrid.

It’s breaking through stigmas of ‘traditional’ accelerators by onboarding entrepreneurs with less business knowledge, representing minority groups in its programmes and opening up to all tech sectors.

WILLA - WILLA Scale

Reportedly the first incubator in France focused on gender diversity, WILLA — once known as Paris Pionnières — has established a strong reputation for advocating women in tech over the years, and has since launched a bunch of accelerators..

Its main accelerator, WILLA Scale, is a 12-month programme for early-stage female-led startups. Expect one-to-one office hours with a designated coach, various workshops tackling themes from marketing to funding, and more.

Honorable mentions:

  • EIT Food: Empowering Women in Agrifood: An accelerator for female entrepreneurs in the southern and eastern European regions, focused on tackling problems in the food sector. It’s currently rolling out its first year remotely.

  • Women Startup Competition: A pan-European incubator programme; its signature event is a European pitching competition roadshow.

  • AccelerateHER: A London-based organisation aiming to address the under-representation of women in tech through its network ‘Founders Forum’. It also regularly runs office hours and events surrounding female entrepreneurship and diversity.

  • FemGems Club: Whatever stage your business is at, this German subscription-based startup support community connects female entrepreneurs with ecosystem players, and supports them with business development and skill building.

  • Step FWD: A pre-accelerator programme situated in Bucharest, Step FWD aims to help first-time female founders through its eight-week experience of mentoring, workshops, pitching and more.

  • WE Innovate: Exclusive to Imperial College London students, this helps entrepreneurs to establish their early business ideas and learn about startups galore — from fundraising to leadership training.

  • Grace Accelerator: A Berlin-based diversity accelerator for female founders. Its Summer Camp programme teaches founders many aspects of business development, such as legal, media and financing.

  • Orange Fab France ‘Women Start’: This programme helps to support women-led digital solutions from sectors ranging from cybersecurity to health.