It's Back: Female Leaders Month 2019! 

Every year in May Startup Grind hosts our #SGWomen Leaders Month -  proudly recognising the accomplishments of successful women leaders all over the world. These women are founders, venture capitalists, engineers, executives and more, who represent our community. They are the women who exemplify profound leadership skills, hard-work, humility, and success and demonstrate their strength with devotion to the work they do everyday. They encourage and inspire us all!

Startup Grind’s #SGWomen launched five years ago and is about putting a heightened focus and an awareness on our everyday mission to create more inclusive communities. Never has Startup Grind’s mission been more potent than in the realm of entrepreneurship, startups, business, and representing women everywhere in the tech space.

The most shocking statistics most of us are familiar with:

Women-led tech companies received a mere $1.9 billion in funding (about two percent) last year. This figure may seem a large investment until it stands in comparison to the heaping $66.9 billion invested in companies with all-male founders. Black women received far less than one percent of all venture capital deals. Only nine percent of VC partners are women, some companies recently hiring their first female partners yet. Women are banning together and men are stepping up as allies to help improve these statistics and work toward changing the environment; but clearly we still have much work to do.

The good news.

The good news is there are more female entrepreneurs today than ever before. The decision-making women in the world of venture capital are shaking things up for good. All Raise’s Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee was one of the first female VC’s to publicly recognise and speak out on the problem of unrecognized female leadership. Lee has made it her mission to work toward solving these inequities. All Raise  was founded by 34 senior female investors and as a new non-profit organization it is dedicated to diversity in funders & founders. Many of these dynamic VC’s graced the cover as part of the 2018 Forbes Midas List. Also, all but two of them have spoken at a Startup Grind’s Global Conference, recognizing the best women and men in business.

Reshaping the industry.

We along with many other organizations and individuals are working to help reshape what the tech industry looks like. We have the power to encourage inclusive thinking within our organization  -  which spans 500 cities and 125 countries globally. We’re doing what we can to spread that message by modeling it.

Our May events

One purpose of our May events is to tell the stories of the journey, the grind, and the setbacks of great female leaders. It is important that we recognise, listen to and encourage these women as we work toward building a more inclusive ecosystem. Anyone and everyone who believes in our mission to work toward change  --  men and women alike  --  should come out to our event in May!!!

Take the mic, share your story!

You got a great Female Leadership story to tell yourself and feel you should actually be part of the panel? Guess what: We'd love you to!

If you would like to not only attend the event, but to actually be on stage, please send us a short e-mail including your name and current job position and of course: sharing your story. The most inspiring voice will speak up on May 29th! And we will also feature a number of stories and quotes via our social media channels in the upcoming weeks. Please send your message to mareike@startupgrind.com until May 15th.

"How to Turn The Numbers Around for Female Founders and Funders" 

The questions, among others, we will discuss in our Panel:

- How and why the founders started their entrepreneurial career

- How they seek funding for their ideas

- How they overcome obstacles on their route to success

The panel consists of 2 female founders, a female VC, an industry expert of our Global Partner Google for Startups

 and will be moderated by one of us. The ladies will share their 'why', personal stories, challenges, successes, tips and answer the burning questions about entrepreneurship from our audience.

Startup Grind’s mission is to educate, inspire, and connect  -- ultimately helping every entrepreneur in the world. We want to do the type of work we are proud of. We want to produce work that helps others, even if it's only in a small way.

We look forward to seeing you on May 29th in Berlin!

Your Startup Grind Berlin Team