By Ashley Francisco, Google’s Head of Startup Developer Ecosystems, Canada
At the end of 2019, 20 per cent of newly funded startups globally reported having a woman founder or co-founder . Despite these numbers doubling since 2009, women entrepreneurs remain severely under-represented and continue to struggle to raise as much capital as their male counterparts. In fact, a recent study showed that women founders own just 48 cents in equity for every dollar men own .
While these are global stats, the findings apply to Canadian companies as well, and there’s a strong need to create more opportunity and programming for women founders. Communitech’s Fierce Founders program is an example of an incredibly successful initiative that Google for Startups has been proud to support.
Fierce Founders Bootcamp is for early-stage entrepreneurs who have launched their minimum viable product (MVP) or are close to doing so, while Fierce Founders Intensive Track helps women-led companies with product in-market to scale faster. Both provide growth coaching, customized programming and access to a large network of other women founders.
At Google, we remain dedicated to levelling the playing field for all founders across the globe, including providing accessible programming specifically designed for women entrepreneurs. As an example, our web series “ Founded” from Google’s Women Techmakers highlights women entrepreneurs solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
In Canada, we recently launched a Google for Startups Canada Accelerator to bring the best of Google to the Canadian startup community. But we saw an opportunity to further build on Canadian programming specifically for women founders – so we are excited to launch this month a Google for Startups Accelerator for Women Founders.
Open to women-led startups in Canada and the U.S., selected founders will outline the main challenges facing their startups, and be paired with relevant experts from Google and the industry to solve these challenges. We’ve built a strong roster of women leaders, from Google and the wider tech community, to deliver workshops, talks and 1:1 mentoring sessions. In addition, alumni from the program will be invited to join our global Google for Startups Women community – a peer-led community of women entrepreneurs from around the world.
Our program is best suited for Seed to Series A tech startups – a great opportunity for founders coming out of the Fierce Founders bootcamp, or other early-stage programs. By doubling down on our support within the ecosystem and our partners, and introducing accelerator programs like this one, we hope to increase Canada’s potential and create more opportunities for startups to scale at home.
Canada already has a strong track record of successful Women Founders – look at the incredible minds behind Bridgit, SchemaApp and Plum to see what I mean. Our goal for this accelerator is to help more women founders build and scale successful businesses, so that we can continue to bridge the gap between men and women in the startup ecosystem.
Applications for the Google for Startups Accelerator for Women Founders are open until July 22. For more information and to apply, visit g.co/womenfoundersaccelerator .