The Data & AI Magazine - Issue 10

HOW FEMALE FOUNDRY IS EMPOWERING WOMEN TECH FOUNDERS AND SHAPING THE STARTUP ECOSYSTEM

AGATA NOWICKA is the Managing Partner at Visionaries – an AI incubator launched in partnership with Google, focused on accelerating the growth of the most ambitious female entrepreneurs in Europe with AI. With 13 years of experience as a VC investor and founder across the UK, US, and Hong Kong, Agata is also the founder of Female Foundry, a network of 7,000+ VC investors and founders in Europe, and the author of the Female Innovation Index – Europe’s largest report mapping the funnel of innovation driven by female entrepreneurs.

AGATA NOWICKA

Can you tell us about your background?

Over the past 13 years, I’ve been part of the venture ecosystem in different ways; first as a founder and later as a venture capital investor and an advisor to startups. As a founder, I’ve built two companies. My first startup was a data analytics platform in Hong Kong, which I eventually sold. My second venture, which is still running, is a securitisation platform for investment banks.

What have been the most significant challenges you’ve faced on your entrepreneurial journey? It is part of an entrepreneur’s journey to be facing and solving challenges on a daily basis. I faced some of the toughest challenges in my second venture, where our potential clients were toptier investment banks. When working with large enterprises, there’s a lack of transparency and, consequently, it is very difficult to influence the outcome because of limited information and power imbalance. How can you influence the outcome if you don’t even know who is involved in the decision-making process? Even with a superior product and an innovative approach that could lead to significant revenue generation and cost savings, navigating this lack of clarity – especially when interactions are limited to short calls – was a difficult hurdle to overcome.

What inspired you to start Female Foundry?

About five years ago, I decided to move to the venture capital side. I realised I had accumulated a wealth of experience as a founder and wanted to be part of other startups’ journeys, rather than focusing solely on a B2B capital markets company, which was moving slowly at the time. I was also looking for more variety in my work, as I had been laser-focused on my startup for so long. After joining a

VC fund, I very soon noticed that I was one of very few investors with founder experience. I looked into the statistics and found some eye-opening data. According to PitchBook data from 2022, only 7% of VC investors in Europe had built or attempted to build a company. That’s a shockingly low number. Meanwhile, in the U.S. the percentage is 45%. In Europe, you have to search very hard to find an investor who truly understands what it takes to build a company. And so, I realised that by bringing both my founder and investment experience, I had a lot to offer to founders who are trying to navigate their company building and fundraising processes.

Can you explain why there is such a disparity in the number of VC investors with founder experience between the U.S. and Europe? I think it relates to the origins of these two ecosystems. In the U.S., the venture capital industry as we know it today was originated by Stanford and MIT professors and successful exited founders of the dot com era like PayPal, Yahoo and many others who ended up either directly or indirectly investing in other startups – whether through syndicates, angel investing, or eventually by setting up their own funds. In Europe, venture capital emerged mainly from the private equity space. It was essentially an early extension of private equity, hedge funds and banking, which meant it attracted two types of investors: first, those who had inherited capital and sought to diversify their exposure by investing in startups. Second, those focused on private equity investments just with higherrisk. Many of these funds still exist today and tend to concentrate on series A and laterstage investments.

availability of high risk capital in Europe, institutional investors like the European Investment Fund serve as LPs in numerous venture capital funds. However, their risk appetite is significantly lower than that of an exited founder who wants to reinvest in new startups. Institutionalising capital often leads to a more conservative investment approach. That cycle of giving back to the venture industry is not as prevalent in Europe. I’m part of an exited founders’ group in London, and out of 35 members, only two – including myself – have returned to the venture space. Many have been burned in the sale process and, due to the institutionalised nature of the ecosystem, don’t feel that it’s founder-friendly space. As a result, they often choose to invest their time and capital elsewhere.

If the journey is more difficult for European founders, how does that impact them, and what should they be aware of?

VCs with founder experiences have a better idea of what it takes to turn a vision into reality. However, investors without entrepreneurial experience often rely too much on early-stage metrics to build their conviction. I actually actively seek out founders with big vision because I can understand what it takes to make it happen. I’m particularly excited about bold, tenacious, adaptable and problemsolution obsessed founders.

VCs with founder experiences have a better idea of what it takes to turn a vision into reality.

Because of the limited

Was this realisation the reason why you started Female Foundry? Yes! I saw that as a vast majority of VC investors had no prior founder experience, I had so much more to offer to the most ambitious entrepreneurs. I had built two companies successfully, and as a woman in the venture ecosystem,

AGATA NOWICKA

I firmly believe that if you build a strong business, capital will find you.

I noticed even fewer women had both founded companies and were actively investing. During COVID, when everything went online, I started hosting discussions on the Clubhouse app where I would share my growth-hacking tips with founders, from both an investor and entrepreneur perspective. These discussions gained significant traction: at one point, we had around 200 people in a single session. That’s when I realised there was a real need for this kind of support. Also, having transitioned to the investor side, I saw that women founders were underrepresented in venture and I decided to focus on that niche. If there are only a few women in the venture space, we need to ensure those who are there, succeed. Initially, I did this alongside my full-time VC role, but about a year and a half ago, I decided to fully focus on Female Foundry.

What’s the vision for Female Foundry?

Unlike my previous ventures, my mission for Female Foundry has

not been profit-driven. If I had approached it purely as a business, I might have taken a different route by now. But since it’s deeply personal, its future is somewhat open-ended and tied to where I see myself in my career. Over the past three and a half years I’ve accomplished a lot, and I now see immense potential in accelerating growth of female-founded startups with AI.

The challenge, however, is the number of female founded startups. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I have a fairly good understanding of the European, particularly UK, ecosystem, the issue is that there simply aren’t as many exceptional female founders as I would like there to be. To be clear, this isn’t about ability or talent, but about numbers. There aren’t as many female founders to begin with, and within that smaller pool, only a fraction stand out as exceptional for various reasons. If I want to remain true to my investment principles and focus on high-potential founders, the challenge is that the pipeline isn’t

as large as we’d like to believe. Proportionally, and the same goes for both female or male founders, in general I’d say only one in ten startups I speak to is interesting, and when the overall numbers of female co-founded companies are small, that results in very few exceptional candidates to back.

What percentage of all founders are women, roughly?

Based on the Female Innovation Index 2025, only about 15% of all startups in Europe are female (co) founded and so, saying ‘only 2% of total venture capital deployed in startups goes to female founders’ is very misleading. The commonly quoted 2% figure actually refers to female-only founding teams. If we’re talking about diversity, we need to consider a broader metric. When factoring in mixed-gender teams, the funding figure improves to about 12%, and when we take into account how many (co)founded female startups there are in the first place, the fundraising success rates between female (co)founded and gender agnostic startups are actually similar!

How did your partnership with Google Cloud come to be, and how has it helped shape the development of Female Foundry?

Google approached me last year to build an accelerator, leveraging the network I had built through Female Foundry and my founder, investor and advisor experience and I saw it as a great opportunity to accelerate adoption of something I had already been passionate about: AI. This is one of the most exciting times to build a company because the amount of capital needed to develop an MVP and prove a value proposition has never been lower. AI has significantly reduced the cost for founders. That’s why value propositions matter more than ever. I had been mapping out the AI adoption curve, and when Google proposed the partnership, it made perfect sense. By combining my business and advisory experience with over 300 startups with Google’s leadership in AI, we created a truly impactful program.

What specific support do you offer to female tech entrepreneurs?

Having been a mentor at multiple accelerators, I didn’t want to create just another accelerator. There are around 500 accelerators in Europe, and I wasn’t interested in duplicating existing models. Unlike most accelerators that focus on fundraising, pitch decks, and investor introductions, we focus on company-building and growth acceleration. I firmly believe that if you build a strong business, capital will find you. We also keep our cohorts small: only six to eight companies are invited to each program. Many accelerators accept 20, 30, or even 100 startups, but that dilutes the tailored support each founder receives. With a small group, we ensure customised mentorship based on their specific needs, opportunities and challenges.

Additionally, we prioritise companies that are already

leveraging AI as a core part of their value proposition, or are science-driven.

What stage of company creation do you focus on?

Female Foundry encompasses a broad range of initiatives, such as the Female Innovation Index, which covers businesses at all stages, from the earliest startups to IPOs. However, the Visionaries AI incubator with Google focuses specifically on companies that have at least built an MVP, are potentially generating revenue and now are looking to accelerate their growth. These companies are typically post-pre-seed, having raised some capital, and now face more pressure from investors. To give you an idea, the companies that have joined Visionaries so far have raised anywhere between €600K and €15 million. The goal is to support founders in reaching their key value inflection point, whether that’s Series A or beyond.

The Visionaries program helps founders navigate this phase, filling a gap where many investors are less involved. Investors focus on capital deployment and scouting new opportunities, so founders often lack ongoing hands-on support. During the program, we provide access to AI engineers, data experts, and decision-making advice that aren’t easily accessible. By combining these resources, we empower founders to make high-quality decisions, scale effectively, and maximise their business impact.

Is Visionaries the core offering of Female Foundry?

While Visionaries is our flagship program, we also have the Female Innovation Index. Additionally, I write the Female Foundry newsletter, which has been running for three and a half years and is read weekly by over 7,000 VCs and female entrepreneurs across Europe. So, Female Foundry is more of an ecosystem player.

You’ve mentioned the Female Innovation Index. What is it and how was it created?

When I moved to the venture capital side, I kept hearing the statistic that only 2% of VC capital goes to female entrepreneurs, but I quickly realised that there was no other data on female innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe. There was no way to track the full innovation funnel from aspiring founders to those who launch companies, secure funding, and progress through the investment stages. That’s why I founded the Female Innovation Index, to provide granular data of the funnel of innovation and funding driven by female entrepreneurs. Nothing like this existed in Europe, and for what I know, in the world and so, I had to build the Index from scratch: I partnered with data providers, created the survey, and engaged about 35 private equity and VC associations across 20 European countries to get it to the point where it is today. Our data partner, Dealroom, for example, had never previously analysed gender data. As a result of our collaboration, they now offer gender-based filtering on their platform.

In the process, we analysed around 650,000 European companies to build this dataset. It was a massive undertaking, requiring the creation of a 200-question framework to determine what data points should be included. It took about a year and a half to develop the first edition of the Index and luckily over one hundred insights that we delivered proved to be very valuable! For example, we discovered that the top three industries female founders build businesses in are health, finance, and food. There’s a common misconception that female founders primarily go into stereotypically ‘female-oriented’ industries like fashion, and our

data broke that stereotype.

We also, for example, analysed the 50 largest fundraising rounds in Europe raised by female-founded companies in 2023, and learned that 95% of all female-founded companies on the list had scientific backgrounds. This insight showed me a real opportunity – supporting scientifically-driven female founders and accelerating their growth made perfect sense for Visionaries.

We launched the second 2025 edition of the Index in early March this year, with over 350 founders and investors joining the official launch. We had founders who collectively raised over €1.6B in one room – it was exhilarating! The Female Innovation Index is now Europe’s largest report on female innovation and funding driven by female entrepreneurs.

What were some of the key findings for this year?

Total investment fluctuates due to macroeconomic forces, so it’s important to analyse trends over time. I would encourage everyone to visit femaleinnovationindex.com to view all 100+ insights. What I can say to keep it short: 2024 was a particularly strong year for female entrepreneurs. AI adoption and the total amount of funding, IPOs, the number of unicorns, near-unicorns, and M&A transactions have all been on the rise.

What impact have Female Foundry’s initiatives had on the broader venture ecosystem so far?

When I started Female Foundry almost four years ago, no one was specifically focusing on female entrepreneurs, and at the time it was even seen as bold

Investors and ecosystem players are now much more proactive in looking for investment opportunities and support structures for female entrepreneurs.

to put ‘female’ in the centre of our name. Now, there are hundreds of initiatives dedicated to supporting female founders, which is fantastic progress. I’m not saying we caused this shift, but we’ve certainly contributed to the broader conversation. Investors and ecosystem players are now much more proactive in looking for investment opportunities and support structures for female entrepreneurs.

Our approach has been to frame this as a positive opportunity rather than an obligation or charity. That perspective has resonated strongly with the venture ecosystem. About 30% of our newsletter readers are men, and around 40% are VC investors.

In terms of tangible impact, the Female Innovation Index has provided transparent, granular never-seen-before data. It has helped local venture ecosystems to leverage the funding insights to drive their own local initiatives. Many have leveraged our dataset for lobbying efforts to secure more government funding. And that was just from the first edition.

With Visionaries, even though we only invite six to eight companies per cohort, we aim to build a consistent pipeline of high

potential founders. The program is still in its early stages, but the feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive, particularly regarding how it has influenced their growth trajectory. Ultimately, Female Foundry reflects my experience as both a founder and an investor. The way we talk about these issues has set a new precedent, making the conversation about female entrepreneurship one of opportunity and success.

How do you help founders – who are still figuring out what it takes to run a business – gain the skills and confidence to deliver at a high level to investors?

As mentioned, we live in unprecedented times where visionary, adaptive, and obsessively curious founders have the opportunity to build multi-billiondollar businesses very quickly! Investors are only a small part of the story – and always will be! What matters is your ambition to solve important problems and leveraging what you have: the latest tech, sharp advisors, and your endless creativity to get you there. Everything else is trivial. If you truly care about the opportunity you see, then start building!