Elevating Women in Start-ups

Nic Crowther
Tue 18 Oct

Founded in New York and now in Sydney, ELEVACAO Foundation a global not-for-profit empowering women tech entrepreneurs. They have partnered with Tech Pilot Fund for tonight’s (October 18) Women Tech Founders Pitch Event at Pivotal Labs in Sydney.

“3% of tech companies are founded by women, yet when funded they deliver 35% higher ROI than male-led firms,” says Marisa Warren the CEO & Founder of ELEVACAO.

 

 

ELEVACAO exists to help more women start and grow tech businesses no matter what their age or background, providing them with the confidence and skills to pitch for investor funding. Their goal is to find and empower the next female-founded Atlassian.

“We are delivering real results for our entrepreneurs,” says Marisa, with Chloe Blattmann of RagTagd closing on her initial round of $400k in September. Chloe was one of the first entrepreneurs to gain assistance from ELEVACAO Sydney.

“In 2016, we opened the Sydney chapter of the not-for-profit,” says Marisa, whose foundation has now coached and mentored 20 Sydney-based and 9 New York-based women through to the final stage of pitching their ideas to investors.

 


Image: Murray Harris Photography

 

David Oakley the ANZ Managing Director of ServiceNow was a panelist at the Sydney launch who said, “I was really impressed with the quality of the ELEVACAO Sydney launch and pitch event. Great format and excellent pitches. It’s inspiring to see these Aussie women taking on the world!”

 


Image: Murray Harris Photography

 

“It seems counter intuitive that women are so under-represented in tech, since we know that women can drive disruption and grow businesses in such an inclusive and complementary fashion. This is why we’ve partnered up with ELEVACAO. By supporting female entrepreneurs in a largely male dominated space, Australia can lead the way to becoming a nation that looks to the future and leads innovation in all industries,” says Simon Anquetil the Executive Chairman of Tech Pilot Fund.

Tech Pilot Fund is an active technology business seed fund that also provides business consultant services to the top end of town.

[Elevacao]