Accelerace and Even Founders in partnership to increase gender diversity

Accelerace and Even Founders have agreed on a partnership that will seek to increase gender diversity, by tackling the issue at the earliest stage possible.

The problem of gender diversity in founding teams is well known and documented – an issue that Even Founders and Accelerace have a new take on. The latest diversity commitment report shows that about 75 % of VC dealflow in Denmark comes from male only teams, which is a tendency that we can see, not just in Denmark, but in the Nordics as well. This is where both Accelerace and Even Founders want to increase the gender diversity focus.

“The main challenge we are tackling is creating more women founders. Getting people to become founders is difficult in the first place”
Ana Andonovska – Even Founders

Things are usually easier the second and third time, and that is no different for startups. So, the more women we can help launch their first startup, the more can also move to the next cycle of entrepreneurship with an even bigger chance of success. That leap needs to be encouraged in an environment that feels welcoming to women.

The prevalent problem in the eco-system is that the current founder communities are predominantly male, and don’t provide female first time founders with peers they can relate to and feel comfortable with.

Therefore, Even Founders was created to provide courage to first time female founders through education, network, and mentoring. They are teaching them what it takes to go from an idea to a potential product on the market – learnings that all first time founders have to make, not just women. There is no difference between what female and male founders need to learn to be able to create a successful company, but you also need a community in which they feel comfortable.

“Startups founded by women have the exact same needs in terms of business help. And that’s where we come in, because we have spent the last 13 years building up a library and toolset of knowledge from working with first time founders”
David Today Ventzel – Accelerace

Even Founders have created a 6 week startup school for the earliest stage, where women might just have an idea, and they are creating a community that other women feel comfortable in, for when they embark on the difficult journey of creating a startup. But, the startup school won’t teach female-specific courses. It will draw on their own knowledge and courses, and be assisted by Accelerace’s courses and tools, specifically aimed for the very early stage. Along with the tried and tested courses on Beachhead and value proposition, Accelerace will additionally provide the startup school with their platform from which the programme can be run. Thus, Accelerace lends its vast experience from helping more than 900 startups, continuing the tradition of helping early stage startups become successful.

Accelerace and Even Founders are looking to kickstart more women’s startup-adventure and increase the number of women coming through the dealflow.

We encourage any woman with an idea for a startup to sign up with Even Founders now and get notified when the programme launches in October.