Join our big plans to boost support for women's entrepreneurship
We're offering businesses the opportunity to aid an important mission and gain special access to the talent and technology of the Imperial community by partnering with WE Innovate, our flagship support programme for women-led entrepreneurial ventures.
WE Innovate has now been going for a whopping ten years – an age in the fast-changing world of ecosystem building – with a mission to help realise the potential of women in entrepreneurship.
Startups led by women continue to receive a shockingly low 2% of UK venture capital funding due to inequalities in access to financial, human and social capital that have recently been explored by the Government’s Women-led High-Growth Enterprise Taskforce. Besides being unfair, the structural barriers that women face mean that there is a vast reservoir of talent and innovation going untapped that could benefit society.
WE Innovate has since 2014 provided over 500 women with training, funding, and networking opportunities to help overcome those barriers. It has directly supported participants to form over 60 new startups and raise a total of £37.5 million in investment.
Its alumni include sustainable agriculture company FA Bio, which has raised over £10 million since taking part, FLUUS, which has created the world first certified flushable sanitary pad, and health and water tech pioneer Untap Health, which has recently been accepted by TechCrunch for its highly competitive Startup Battlefield 200.
The programme is continuing to evolve with a new focus on supporting mental resilience, a huge issue given the incredibly intense pressures involved in starting up a company. And in recognition that we can only do so much by focusing exclusively on the Imperial community, the programme has ambitious plans to support women at other universities nationwide.
To help achieve its ambitions, WE Innovate is opening its doors for the first time in five years to new partners who would like to sponsor it. In addition to supporting an important social mission, sponsors will benefit from brand exposure, early insights into technologies and investment opportunities, and a chance to connect with the world’s most talented students and early-career researchers.
If you are interested, we would like to invite you to be our guest of honour at the WE Innovate 2024 Grand Final on 19 June – please start the conversation by entering your details at the bottom of this page.
Whether you're interested in sponsorship or not, we warmly invite you to join us at the WE Innovate 2024 Grand Final (17:30 on 19 June in South Kensington) for an opportunity to meet the latest cohort, celebrate a fantastic ten years, and look to a bright future for women in entrepreneurship.
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