SEIF is launching a new award category aimed at female impact entrepreneurs

The 2021-2022 Swiss Startup Radar report highlighted some important facts about gender imbalance in the startup sector:  

  1. The share of start-ups led by a female CEO is about 10% worldwide and in Switzerland it is slightly below that average.  
  1. In Switzerland, the median of the total venture capital generated by start-ups with a male CEO is 2.7 times higher than that of start-ups with a female CEO. 

SEIF has been organising the Tech for Impact Awards since 2011, targeting European impact entrepreneurs. Over the years, various female founders were award winners, most recently rrreeefs in 2021 and Groam in 2022. Nonetheless, looking at the data of the last 3 years, we still see a majority of applications to the awards by male-led co-founding teams: in 2022, only 24% of all applications were by predominantly or all female co-founding teams, in 2021 17%, and in 2020 35%.

Even though the number of female founders is growing, under-representation still exists. Initiatives such as Collective and Female Founders are working towards closing this gender gap.

SEIF wants to contribute towards a more diverse start-up ecosystem by giving more visibility to women impact entrepreneurs. Our Tech for Impact Awards are the perfect opportunity to offer them this visibility, given the strong attention and traction that finalists and winners benefit from. This year, we are happy to introduce a new award category: the SEIF Women in Tech for Impact Award, which will be presented alongside the UBS Award for Responsible Innovation and the Julius Bär Award for Future Impact Trend. Each of these three winning teams will receive 10’000 CHF, as well as non-financial support.

More information on the awards can be found here. We look forward to receiving your application.