Celebrating our First 50 Featured Founders From Around the World from InvestHer Directory

Read the rest of the post by clicking on READ MORE below! 👇🏽​

Join in the Celebration as Global Invest Her Proudly Shares The First 50 Featured Founders from around the world!

How it all began.
When the pandemic first hit and the world closed down, we wanted to find a way to help women entrepreneurs stay visible to customers to help them keep their businesses growing and potential investors if they were fundraising. We checked the existing directories of women entrepreneurs around the world and didn't find a truly global, diverse one, that catered to both potential customers and investors and covered more than just a few tech or beauty sectors.
​So we built one and made it accessible to all and InvestHer Directory was born! 

From humble beginnings and our first curated 200 founders, we are proud to share we now feature over 1325 companies founded or co-founded by women entrepreneurs and nonbinary founders) from over 50 countries and 75 sectors! (updated weekly).

InvestHer Directory is the first truly global directory of businesses founded or co-founded by women.

"Our definition of “woman” is the broadest possible and includes any
​female-identifying, nonbinary founders."

Here's a quick look at who and what you'll find inside:

• We cover 75 different sectors, more than 50 countries and investment stages ranging from seed to Series C with a few unicorns in there as well
• You'll find over 200 Black women founded or co-founded companies, representatives from the  L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community and founders of Indigenous heritage, all breaking down barriers in more ways than one.
• Over 700 companies from the North American region, followed by a high representation across Europe.
• Excitingly we've seen an 5% increase in companies from Australia and New Zealand since the start of the InvestHer Founder Directory
• We continue to see a steady influx of Middle Eastern female founded or co-founded companies.
• More positive news from the Asian region, as representatives from here now comprises approximately 7% of the total number of entries.
• Finally, countries across the African continent continue to show strength as we have are close to 50 entries from here.* 

​Want to see all the first 50 featured founders in one go? Then click on your preferred link below.
​* As the founder directory is updated weekly, these numbers will only go up in future!

​You have to See what you can Be:
Part of our work as global advocates for more access to capital for women entrepreneurs is about increasing visibility for all the amazing founders we have in our InvestHer Founder Directory 💪. We believe that women entrepreneurs are the greatest untapped resource to re-ignite the global economy. Shining the spotlight on these great founders is part of our plan to making sure that potential customers, investors and partners like you, can easily find these inspiring women-founded companies. You can make a difference by buying from, promoting or investing in these great companies and you'll find all the information you need on each founder to easily do that. Want to make sure you never miss a Featured Founder? 

Making This list:
We are proud to share these First 50 fabulous Featured Founders from our Directory, from different industry sectors, geographies and funding stages. Each founder has been chosen because of their inspiring journey, fierce commitment to their respective causes, devotion to their companies and their unwavering belief in creating something with a lasting impact. They are also in the business of doing business and often seeking capital, and by doing so challenging the VC community to reallocate funding to companies with diverse founders, something data tell us is one of the most difficult yet most rewarding things to accomplish. They have all been individually curated or assessed (where they apply directly) with great care by us, for you, so you can easily find a company or product you are interested in and be sure the company is woman founded.

Are you a woman founder who'd like to be featured? Then we'd love to hear from you!

Why is Women Founder Representation Important? 
The fact is, we simply do not see enough women founders featured in the media and social media! I bet if I ask you to name 3 top male entrepreneurs, their names roll of your tongue (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos are among the usual suspects). But if I ask you to name 3 top women entrepreneurs who would you mention? See why representation and exposure is important?

Even though much is happening across the global VC landscape to mitigate the gender funding gap, there is still much to do. In our weekly InvestHer Newsletter we have reported on the gloomy numbers:

• Female founded companies only getting 1.3% of all VC funding in Europe since 2017,
• MENA region showing discouraging numbers as startups founded by women raised a total of $34.6 million in 2021, or just 1.2 percent of the region’s venture capital funding
• Data shows that only 14% of check writers in US VC firms are female, highlighting the significant gap that remains between females and their male counterparts in the industry. 
• And globally, women founders only got 2% of venture funding in 2021. To be frank, the situation has hardly changed for the past 30 years!

A Renewed Hope:
Every time we feature a great woman founder and shine the spotlight on her, it gives us a renewed hope. Because things are moving forward, slowly but surely.

You too can be part of the change, by buying from, supporting or promoting a woman entrepreneur and her business! Just go on her profile on our Insta to share and follow her,  or the Directory entry itself, where you'll find even more ways to support, and promote her. By buying from a woman founder, you can directly impact which products, services and companies move forward . And if you're an investor, we plan on showing you just how diverse a pipeline is out there for you to invest in!

We believe Community Changes Everything. Be part of our global community by doing your part!

To see the Featured Founders by Region, check out the blogposts below! 👇🏻​