What an amazing journey over the last weeks.

In July 2021, we kicked off our second cohort of the 2021 Female Founders Startup program and after 8 weeks of learning and mentoring, we are excited to announce that 50 female founders got graduated in a night full of inspiration and wisdom.

Our virtual Graduation Night was held on the night of Monday, 13 September and was packed with inspiring final words from the team, marvellous founders pitches, networking and overflowing energy that filled our hearts with motivation and excitement.

Graduations are always bittersweet, don’t you think? It’s a moment of celebration for these wonderful women who are heading into a new journey with more knowledge, wisdom, connections, and why not? Friends. But at the same time, it’s the end of our journey with them. But as the saying goes: “Every new beginning comes with the some other beginning’s end”

Let’s recall the main highlights of the night:

We started out big! With the company of Michelle Long, Associate Director of Sydney Startup Hub and Honourable Gabrielle Upton, Parliamentary Secretary of the NSW Premier, we welcomed our 50 wonderful female founders. 

Michelle Long expressed some words of greetings and admiration to the female founders cohort for their motivation and determination during the program. She shared her willingness and excitement to know more about them and their startup ideas’ future journeys, closing her welcoming with a ‘this is your night, ladies’. Bravo, Michelle!

Then, we continued with our special guest, Honourable Gabrielle Upton who shared some words of encouragement to our female founders to go behind their dreams and believe in themselves now and always. These words were an absolute inspiration, and we thank Gabrielle for her support to the program.

After our welcoming section, we moved onto our exciting Alumni Pitches! 10 fearless female founders voluntarily decided to share their 2-min elevator pitch with the cohort. What better way to validate your pitch in a safe environment with your fellow female founders and mentors who will be there to celebrate and support you? So this is what we did, and all of them were splendid!

We started with the awesome Alex Kerr:

Then we heard from the brilliant Betty Andrews:

To then move onto the talented Georgina Healy:

Followed by the game-changer Julie Hogarth-Williams:

And then the wonderfully sharp Karen Stephens:

To then head onto the charismatic Magali Schockaert:

And continue with the clever Nerita Lewis:

Followed by the bright pitch of Rachel Worsley:

To then enjoy the pitch of the talented Sossi Green:

And last but not least, we had the energetic Valeria Oliveira:

Bravo to these spectacular women who nailed it in their pitches!

Heading into the third part of the night: virtual networking time! Here, our female founders got a chance to connect between them and our guest mentors to reflect on their TRW journey and growth over the past weeks. 

Finally, we moved into our fun section, AWARDS night! Here, we wanted to recognise some female founders who got the most out of our e-learning, workshops and office hours. Thank you ladies for your commitment to the program, and congratulations!

We’re heading to the final part ... and we don’t want to finish the night without saying a BIG thank you to our mentors who play a big role in the success of the program. You have been an amazing support to our founders.

And the night closes with: “You got this!”.

We’re wonderfully proud of the growth and progress of our energetic cohort of 50 wonder women, and can’t wait to see what the future holds for each of them and their startup journey. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with them and help develop their ideas and get them from idea to launch!

See you ladies in the future! 🚀