InvestHer Summit aims to boost funding for women

Now in its second year, the InvestHer Summit is coming to Dublin to bring more women founders together with investors.

There is still a long way to go when it comes to supporting women entrepreneurs. While stats from TechIreland show that a record number of start-ups founded by women raised funding in 2023, the overall level of funding for women founders dropped significantly.

The report, released earlier this year, showed that the total amount raised by women-founded start-ups fell to €93m last year, down from a record €234m raised the previous year.

This is where events such as the InvestHer Summit come in, in a bid to change this constant feeling of one step forward and two steps back for women in business.

The event, which is taking place in Dublin this year on 19-21 June 2024, will bring together women entrepreneurs, investors and organisations from within the funding ecosystem. Ahead of the Dublin-based event, there will also be a networking event in Northern Ireland on the 17 June for women founders.

The event also allows those who wish to support women entrepreneurs an opportunity to gift an event access ticket and send someone to the event for free.

Now in its second year, InvestHer Summit saw 15 organisations make commitments to give women founders more access to capital and markets at its inaugural event in Paris last year.

The event is run by Anne Ravanona, founder and CEO of Global Invest Her. She said women entrepreneurs are “the greatest untapped resource in the world” when it comes to solving the world’s problems.

“The research shows that women founders give a higher return on investment to investors, yet we only receive 1.8pc of VC capital and 1pc of government and corporate procurement worldwide.”

Putting start-ups centre stage

As well as a range of speakers, workshops and opportunities to network, the event also plays host to its own pitch competition, in which start-ups founded by women can apply and showcase their company.

Interested founders should be from AI or deep tech, fintech, health-tech, clean-tech, agritech, edtech, space or fashion-tech and should be actively seeking funding. The deadline to apply for the pitching competition is Friday, 31 May 2024.

One winner from the summit’s 2023 competition, Berlin-based proptech Novo, went on to raise €1m in pre-seed funding and another winner, Stupa Sports Analytics, raised what amounts to approximately €3.1m in a pre-series A round earlier this month.

Ravanona said she is proud to bring the summit to Dublin this year. “We are building a global movement to unlock fairer access to funding and markets for women entrepreneurs,” she said. “We are honoured to be supported by EY, Enterprise Ireland, Failte Ireland, Meet in Ireland, Dell Technologies and many more ecosystem players.”

InvestHer Summit takes place in the Dublin Royal Convention Centre from 19 to 21 June 2024. Book your tickets to attend now. You can also apply for the pitch competition before Friday 31 May 2024.