Boosting Female Founders Initiative

The Government‘s “Boosting Female Founders Initiative” is a program that will provide targeted funding and support for women engaging in innovative entrepreneurship from 2020. The $18 million program – providing $6 million in grants over three years – will help startups founded by women access early stage capital and overcome barriers needed to get their ideas off the ground and go global.

The program will ensure the entrepreneurial needs of diverse groups are served, including women entrepreneurs in regional areas and Indigenous founders who can face greater difficulty due to the density of startup activity in urban centres. By increasing the gender diversity of founders, the Government will strengthen the performance of Australia’s start-up and innovation ecosystems over the long-term.

Consultation process

Commencing consultation for the Initiative was one of the Minister’s 100 day priorities and we are pleased to say we met this goal. Minister Andrews and Minister Payne launched the consultation process on Monday 26 August in a joint media release (available here) and consultations will continue until 4 October 2019.

We would appreciate if you would share the details of our consultation through your networks (relevant internal and external). There are a number of ways people can get involved:

• Make a submission through our 10 minute survey on the Consultation Hub.
• Attend a future focus group (dates are below).
• Attend a webinar at the end of the consultation period (likely 4 October). Details of the webinar will be on the Consultation Hub once scheduled.