• Feminine Founder Workplace Hours, Europe’s largest diversity-led founder initiative, is backed by Carta and Microsoft for Startups
• This occasion will deliver collectively over 300 feminine founders and 200 VCs from a number of the world’s main funds
• The most recent funding knowledge exhibits that over £194m has been raised in 2024 by firms which have attended one of many earlier editions
• Since October 2019, Playfair’s workplace hours has delivered over 10,000 mentoring periods for ladies founders throughout Europe

LONDON, 25 SEPTEMBER 2024:

On Thursday seventh November, 2024, Playfair and 200 of the world’s main enterprise capital funds will probably be holding distant workplace hours for greater than 300 feminine founders from throughout Europe. Funds taking part embody Balderton, Cherry, LocalGlobe, MMC, Northzone, Notion, Plug & Play, Seedcamp, SpeedInvest, and Goal World.

Every taking part founder will probably be matched with 4 traders for one-to-one conferences to debate their tech thought, search recommendation or pitch for funding. This construction breaks down the obstacles to funding by eradicating the necessity for heat introductions.

The occasion is being held by Playfair as a part of its long-term dedication to handle the gender imbalance in enterprise funding (girls raised simply 3% of complete enterprise funding in Europe in 2023). With the usage of AI matching expertise, Playfair improves the relevance of founder-to-investor matching, rising the chance of productive conversations and, finally, funding being secured. Each investor taking part within the initiative has pledged to tackle one founder from every version for ongoing mentoring, giving depth in addition to breadth of help.

The earlier eleven editions noticed a complete of 10,000 particular person mentoring periods with over 2,500 founders and 200+ traders collaborating. So far, 25% of founders have gone on to lift funding after attending an occasion, with current success tales together with XO Life, GlycanAge, Evariste, MI:RNA, Mamio, and Naq Cyber. In 2024, £194m has been raised by firms who’ve attended a earlier version of FFOH.

Chris Smith, Managing Accomplice at Playfair Capital:

“I’m delighted that Microsoft and Carta are lending their help to Feminine Founder Workplace Hours, recognising the challenges that persist out there for ladies founders and the function occasions like FFOH play in addressing them. Each FFOH occasion expands the pipeline of girls based firms for a number of hundred traders and, finally, delivers a whole lot of tens of millions in funding.”

Sona Chandra, Co-founder of Pangea Bio, who beforehand participated in FFOH commented:

“The Feminine Founders Workplace Hours program gives sensible connections with traders in our area who present down-to-earth suggestions and steering from individuals who perceive the distinctive challenges of the startup world, particularly these confronted by feminine founders. This system helped me really feel extra assured in navigating funding conversations and the broader fundraising panorama, whereas connecting with traders and mentors who not solely present sensible entry to funding alternatives, however invaluable mentorship and steering that considerably superior our fundraising efforts.”

Emma Steele, Accomplice at Ascension, added:

“The Playfair workplace hours have been a incredible technique to join with inspiring feminine founders from the beginning. We’ve additionally had the privilege of assembly considered one of our founding groups, Organise, throughout a number of the very first Feminine Founder Workplace Hours.”

Tiffany Johnson, Director, Startup Engagement, Underserved Minorities at Microsoft, and sponsor of FFOH’s Version 12 acknowledged:

“Lower than 2% of girls obtain enterprise capital funding. That’s why Microsoft for Startups is thrilled to collaborate with Playfair Capital and Carta for this yr’s European Girls Founders Workplace Hours, empowering numerous and distinctive girls founders to form the way forward for tech.”

Finn Maclean, VC Partnerships Lead at Carta, and sponsor of FFOH’s Version 12 agreed:

“At Carta, we consider in fostering variety and innovation within the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and we’re proud to associate with Playfair Capital to champion women-led companies by these invaluable workplace hours.”

For extra info and to make an utility to attend the occasion please go to: https://playfair.vc/neighborhood.php

-ENDS-

About Playfair

Playfair is a generalist VC fund with a contrarian strategy to pre-seed expertise investing. Primarily based in London, Playfair invests throughout the UK and Europe with an deliberately excessive conviction, low quantity strategy: making 6–8 investments a yr out of its third $70m fund and preserving time, capital and useful resource to assist firms post-investment. Playfair has backed 70+ firms since 2013, together with Thought Machine, Andela, Mapillary, Recycleye and Orca AI.

https://playfair.vc/