Austrian organisation Female Founders launches €20m fund to drive gender diversity in tech

The Austrian organisation Female Founders has announced a €20m VC fund to invest in gender-diverse founder teams.

Fund F aims to foster equal opportunities for female entrepreneurs in the European tech ecosystem, driving investment in pre-seed and seed start-ups with at least one female founder in sectors including femtech, health tech, fintech, climate tech and HR tech.

The fund’s LP base includes entrepreneurs, angels, and family offices. It has already raised €12.5m from the Austrian bank Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark, the VC fund Speedinvest and Austria Wirtschaftsservice, the promotional bank of the Austrian federal government.

Female Founders, an organisation based in Vienna, Europe’s hub for female entrepreneurship, was founded in 2016 by Lisa-Marie Fassl and Nina Woss to drive gender diversity in tech and innovation in Europe through accelerator and leadership programmes, events and networking.

The company provides founders with products, services and opportunities in the areas of start-ups and investment, talent and its growing community to help make that mission a reality.

“Our first close happened in October at over €12.5m and was over-subscribed,” the two founders said in a social media post.

“Now, we are thrilled to start investing in and supporting gender-diverse founder teams.

“Our main focus industries include femtech, health tech, fintech, climate tech and HR Tech and we are looking for start-ups ready to tackle the world’s many issues and positively impact humanity.”

The Fund F plans to invest in 25-30 pre-seed and seed stage companies that have at least one female co-founder in the next four years. Initial ticket sizes will be between €100,000-€400,000.

Austria is gaining a reputation as a hub for female start-up founders. More than 35 per cent of all start-ups created in Austria had at least one female founder, with women making up 18 per cent of the total of all start-up founders, up from 12 per cent in 2018.

According to the Federal Ministry of Labor and Economy (BMAW), Austria currently has the highest share of female start-ups in the EU.