Introduction

Launched in partnership with Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist and Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Women Startup Challenge is on a mission to close the funding gap and shakeup a culture and economy that’s made it exceedingly difficult for women to launch startups and raise capital. We provide funding, mentoring, and other resources for women who are creating the most innovative tech companies to help scale their products.

The 10 finalists will pitch our distinguished jury of investors on 7 October in Paris. Our distinguished jury has included investors from Mozilla, GV (Google Ventures), Techstars, Illuminate Ventures, OneRagtime, Techstars, and more.

How to Apply

Healthtech startups can apply online to be selected as one of 10 finalists chosen to win the $50,000 equity-free cash grant at Hôtel de Ville in Paris on 7 October, 2019.

Criteria

• Your startup must be focused on healthtech.
• Your healthtech startup must be based in Europe, or the US with a presence in Europe.  (Note: A presence in Europe could include your product or app being available, an office, partnership, etc.)
• Your tech venture must be at the prototype stage or have already launched. You cannot be in concept stage.
• Your applications must be submitted in English. All finalists pitches must be done in English.
• Your startup must incorporate technology into the approach of your product, which allows the company to rapidly and massively scale in a manner that traditional, independent small businesses cannot. Please note that using tech (i.e. hosting a blog, selling products on your website, or using social media in your marketing) does not qualify as using tech to scale on a mass level nationally and globally.
• Fast growing with degrees of innovation and technology.
• You’ve raised between €0-€2.1M from combined sources.
• You are a technical founder or you have a technical cofounder. Note: If you are not a technical cofounder and you don’t have a technical cofounder, please email us and tell us more about your setup.
• You are a woman-led startup – defined as at least having at least one woman founder or cofounder on the team. Note: Women Who Tech uses an inclusive definition of “woman” and “female”, and we welcome transwomen, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who identify, have identified, or have been identified as female or woman.
• All ideas must be original work or an improvement upon an existing idea without infringements.

Rules:

• Your startup must be located within Europe or based in the US with a presence in Europe.
• Agencies or consulting businesses are not eligible unless you have created a product that fits the above criteria.
• Prior Women Startup Challenge finalists are not eligible to apply unless they have a new startup and new product. Finalists from the Women Startup Challenge Podcast are, however, eligible to apply for the in-person pitch competition.
• All applications must be submitted in English, and all pitches must be conducted in English.
• Applications will be accepted from June 12, 2019 at 7AM PST until August 1, 2019 at 11:59PM PST.
• Applications will only be accepted online through the reviewr.com site.
• No applicant may reach out to judges, sponsors, and/or partners in advance of Women Startup Challenge Europe advocating for their startup. Anyone who does will be disqualified. If you are concerned that you have a conflict, please reach out to us immediately.
• We reserve the right to select and reject winners at any time, and we may add finalists to any round of the competition to give more entrepreneurs access to Women Startup Challenge Europe.
• All finalists must pay their own travel and accommodations to the final Pitch Competition in Paris on October 7, 2019.