LaunchVic announces pre-accelerator funding for women

LaunchVic has announced a new round of grants aimed at women entrepreneurs.

Grants of up to $300,000 are now available for organisations to run pre-accelerator programs that equip women founders with the advice, support and networks required to build a minimum viable product and find their first customer.

LaunchVic's soon-to-be-released Ecosystem Mapping Report shows one-third of Victorian startups now have at least one woman founder, up from 20% in 2020.

However, LaunchVic CEO Dr Kate Cornick said the figure was still outpaced by the growth of male-only firms, suggesting further support is needed for women-led startups at those crucial early stages.

"The latest funding reflects LaunchVic's enduring commitment to building the pipeline of women-founded companies and ensuring a diverse startup ecosystem," she said.

"We're pump priming the Victorian startup sector with the next generation of women entrepreneurs and ensuring, through initiatives like The Alice Anderson Fund, that they receive support at every stage of growth."

Since 2017, LaunchVic programs have upskilled over 11,600 entrepreneurs looking to break into the startup world.

One example is Ivy Nguyen, Co-Founder of ReciMe, a recipe discovery app billed as the "Spotify for home cooks". Recently completing LaunchVic's CivVic Labs pre-accelerator, ReciMe has just raised $500,000 pre-seed funding to help its 15,000 monthly users share and discover recipes from around the world.

Nguyen said the pre-accelerator program's focus on customer discovery had helped the team refine their value proposition to a Gen Z audience.

"The CivVic Labs program helped us unpack the problems with cultural and health food accessibility. We were able to apply our learnings to better develop a product that inspires young people to cook healthy meals at home and embrace cultural foods," Nguyen said.

ReciMe is also a portfolio company of the Alice Anderson Fund, LaunchVic's $10 million angel sidecar fund for women entrepreneurs which has backed 21 emerging companies within 18 months.

Applications for the grants are open to local and international programs looking to support women in Victoria. For more information, visit the website.

Image: iStock.com/Peshkova