Top London Startups Led by Female Founders
The future is female, and we all know it! Unfortunately, empowering women has always been a struggle throughout history. To have their voices heard, thoughts matter, and be considered, they always had to fight the hard fight. With the mindset shift throughout the years, the advancements in technology, and the increase of women getting a proper education, this battle has somewhat softened. Having more women in business, creating space for them in the business side of life has also changed the world! We now have countries that women govern -and they’re doing a pretty good job! Our friends, children, family, and even ourselves are currently working with female founders or have female entrepreneurs very close to us. Breaking the glass ceiling is not easy; that’s why every story of women entrepreneurs is inspiring.
Countries have started to give more importance to funding women-led startups as well. For example, Funding London invested in 26 businesses by women founders in 2020. In addition, the London Co-Investment Fund (LCIF) and the Greater London Investment Fund (GLIF) have invested more than £5 million into these female-led companies through their two separate fund types. Although every single attempt by women is important, due to the rapid change of technology and the demand, it creates many startups that have been funded are tech-related. The tremendous uproar of female founders in London can be seen with the data from Beauhurst. Since 2011, 3,831 female entrepreneur-led companies in the UK have raised £6.82B in equity finance. It means the UK alone has 4,375 female founders! We know this is not the best statistic, but the progress is worth the wait.
With this article, we present the top 10 London-based startups led by female founders that will give you a boost if you’re looking for inspiration and courage to start your own business. So let’s get to it:
So Syncd | Jessica Alderson & Louella Alderson
So Synced is a dating app like no other! The app and the website match you to possible candidates through personality types. The founders are Jessica Alderson and her sister Louella. After spending five years in investment banking, Jessica decided to pursue her passion for personality types and make the perfect match between people. Although So Syncd was established in February 2021, it already has thousands of users. There is also a happily ever after, a So Syncd wedding!
Pollinate | Fiona Canning
Pollinate aims to improve the success rates of merchant acquisition for banks by developing unique software. With the service you get from Pollinate, you can also use digital tools and insights.
The co-founder and chief product & marketing officer, Fiona Canning, used her finance and banking background to create the perfect match between banks and small businesses.
Based in London, they started their operations in 2019, and since then, Pollinate has raised £70M over two funding rounds, from EFM Asset Management, Mastercard, Motive Partners, National Australia Bank, and RBS.
Starling Bank | Anne Boden
All hail women in technology! Starling Bank is a new digital-only method of banking. With an app on the users’ phones, you can do everything and anything you want through your phone. The Starling Bank is the perfect outcome of technology making life easy for us, from tracking your savings to transactions. The founder, Anne Boden, is undoubtedly the best person for success such as this. With her 30 year career at the world’s best-known financial organizations, she flags innovative banking.
Founded in 2015, Starling Bank currently has over 2 million users and is one of the UK’s most established fintech start-ups.
Decoded | Kathryn Parsons
Kathryn Parsons is yet another perfect example of women in tech. She doesn’t come from a technological education background, yet she believes that technology is for everyone! And we all know how true this statement is…
In our increasingly digital world, we often find that we need more understanding of technology to obtain a new job role or expand a business. Well, Decoded is an accessible coding school providing education on everything from creating your app to programming.
Smol | Paula Quazi and Nick Green
Smol, is an eco-friendly startup co-founded in 2018 by Paula Quazi and Nick Green. They aim to deliver laundry detergent, fabric conditioner and dishwasher tablets to hundreds of thousands of households across the UK. But obviously, doing it efficiently and affordably that’s both good for the consumer and the environment. With plastic-free and fully recyclable packaging, Smol is the next best thing.
Emergex | Storme Moore-Thornicroft
Storme is the co-founder and COO of Emergex, the UK-based biotech company developing vaccines for the world’s immediate health threats, such as Dengue Fever, Zika, Ebola, Flu, and intracellular bacterial infections with purely synthetic non-biological components. Moore-Thornicroft has been operating in the biotechnology sector for over two decades and specializes in entity incorporation, corporate and business strategy formulation, resourcing, implementation, and execution. With their vital work, they have raised over £22.1m to this day.
Peanut | Michelle Kennedy and Lindsey Bunton
Motherhood is a crucial stage in every woman’s life as it is an unknown, scary to some and a pause from work period. Two women entrepreneurs, Michelle and Lindsey, have created a mobile app to help women in all stages of motherhood form connections. Kennedy was previously the deputy CEO of Badoo and a Board Advisor and Director at Bumble before founding Peanut. She launched when she struggled to meet like-minded women as a new mum.
The Peanut app has created a community of mothers, expectant mothers, and those trying to conceive. Women can use the app to meet local people at a similar stage in life, share advice and discuss all stages of motherhood. Peanut has raised £16.6m over four fundraising rounds.
Proximie | Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram
Another amazing startup that uses technology to save lives! Proximie is a tech platform that allows clinicians to virtually ‘scrub in’ to any operating room or cath lab from anywhere in the world. By having experts share their skills in real-time, Dr Nadine created a platform with which every patient gets the best healthcare.
Who is the mastermind behind this incredible platform? Meet Dr Nadine Hachach-Haram, a surgeon, lecturer and clinical entrepreneur. She combined her passion for innovation education and global surgery to create this augmented reality life-saving platform.
The Dots | Pip Jamieson
With the advancing technology and the increasing number of digital nomads, many people are now aware that the future of the workforce is changing dramatically. And to top all this, there is the Covid factor! Pip Jamieson set up the platform The Dots in 2014, talk about latitudinarianism!
The Dots is a platform where creatives, freelancers, and entrepreneurs connect and work together. This platform makes creative careers accessible to thousands of people.
Erase All Kittens | Dee Saigal and Leonie Van Der Linde
In 2015, an ex-advertising creative, Dee and an illustrator, Leonie, thought of the idea of teaching kids -especially girls how to code in a fun and easy way so that they’re not put off by the topic.
They have created a fantasy Internet Universe filled with quirky characters, strange stories, magical worlds, and cute fluffy kittens to inspire even the most reluctant technophobes! Their aim with Erase All Kittens is to educate anyone over the age of 8 in the field of emerging technologies.
These are only some ‘women in entrepreneurship’ success stories that we have covered. We know that there are many more and a whole lot more to come in the future! When given a chance, any structure that has women in leadership positions is bound to succeed!
