VenturePole’s Female Newcomer Founder Award

VenturePole is on a mission to help female founders raise equal funding as men, from 2.2% to 50%, because nothing bad ever happens when women have money!

On International Women’s Day, we are excited to open applications for our Female Newcomer Founder Award, we celebrate women entrepreneurs with cash prizes and startup credits valued over CHF 40’000.

This award is organized with Ladies Drive and will be presented at Female Innovation Forum this July 7th.

Important Dates:

• Pitch Workshop by Makou: June 6th 12pm-1:30pm CET time. (Via Zoom)
• Semi-final Day: June 27th 1pm-5pm CET time. (Via Zoom)
• Female Founders Marketing Workshop by Pitched: July 6th 10am-11:45am CET time. (Via Zoom)
• Final Day: July 7th. (Zurich)
• Female Founder Networking Event: July 12th at 6pm CET time. (University of Zurich Innovation Hub)

‍

Prizes

Winner:

• Cash prize and startup credits valued over CHF 40’000;
• Speaking slot on the Startup Night Winterthur stage;
• Booth at Startup Night Winterthur;
• 50% off China Start Unicorn Camp at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business;
• 50% discount on personal assessment (DISC test) by Gold Ventures Investment and 2 hours coaching by expert from the USA Noa Schector;
• Slot for Prepare4vc.

Finalists:

• Membership to Impact Hub Zurich;
• Membership to Swiss Startup Association;
• Membership to Swiss Project Management Association;
• Membership to EMRG Incubator;
• Legal consulting by Badertscher, financial consulting by Startupmetrics, technology development consulting by Algoson Software, digital marketing consulting by Impresm;
• Investment-readiness advisory by Syndicate Room;
• 35% off China Start Unicorn Camp at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business;
• Invitation to Alpine Angel Investors Pitch Event in September;
• Tickets for Pitch Workshop for Female Founders from Founder Makou Club;
• A one-year membership from WomenBiz;
• Free pitch training by Gold Ventures Investment.

All applicants:

• Tickets to Startup Night Winterthur, access to post-award event at the University of Zurich;
• Ask Me Anything office hour with InTech Founders Accelerator and Women in Tech Switzerland;
• Technology development consulting;
• Financial workshop;
• Digital marketing workshop;
• Talent recruitment promotion by Google Developer Student Club Zurich;
• 20% off China Start Unicorn Camp at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business;
• 20% premium subscription discount from WomenBiz;
• Online Lunch & Learn Pitch Session by Founder Makou Club;
• A one-off discount on award winning Thomson & Scott NOUGHTY alcohol-free organic sparkling wines from VE Refinery;
• Ask me anything Event by Prepare4vc.

‍

How to Apply

If a female founder/co-founder or her venture is based in Switzerland and is pre-Series B (have not raised or raised pre-Seed, Seed, pre-Series A or Series A), apply here – sign up as Startup, and use “femalefounder” as referral code. To help us judge, please answer as many due diligence questions as you can, especially those marked as valuation questions.

Applications close on June 19th, 2022. Three finalists will be selected.

‍

Judging Criteria

Pitching before the jury will be 5 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A. Applicants will be judged on the following criteria:

Problem: Relevant and impactful problem

Solution: Product-readiness, USP, scalability, IP

Team: Industry experience, domain expertise, complementary team members, board and/or advisors

Market: Big or fast-growing market, traction, durable competitive advantage

Business Model: High projected or recurring revenue, low customer acquisition cost, high gross margin

Roadmap: Sound strategies for growth

‍

Jury

Alizé Marchand, CEO at Impresm

Anne-Kathrin Bolender, Board member of Swiss Project Management Association

Bo Ji, Assistant Dean of CKG School of Business

Gabrielle Cacciatore-von Mandach, Managing Founder of Womenbiz AG

Frederic Maximilian Meyer-Scharenberg, Community Builder of Women in Tech Switzerland by Trust Square

Dr. Maria Olivares, Head of Innovation at the University of Zurich

Pascal Stämpfli, CFO at Startupmetrics

Piroska Poltera, Partner at Badertscher Attorneys at Law

Ruth Armalé, Head of Open Innovation at HITS

Sandra-Stella Triebl, Founder of Female Innovation Forum

Sophie Neuhut, Co-founder of Alpine Angel Investors

Xiao Jean Chen, CEO & Founder of VenturePole

‍

ORGANIZERS

SPONSORS

PARTNERS