The next generation of women entrepreneurs will get the startup support they need with a new grant round from LaunchVic, Victoria's startup agency, announced today.

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 per cent 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.

Ivy 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.”

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, please visit: https://launchvic.org/grants/

About LaunchVic

LaunchVic is Victoria’s lead startup agency. We were established by the Victorian Government in March 2016 as an independent agency to fuel the growth of Victoria’s startup ecosystem.

Victorian startup ecosystem

Victoria is home to more than 2,700 startups – companies that use innovative business models and technology to grow fast and service global markets.

In 2022 Melbourne has overtaken (in value) peer ecosystems including Hong Kong, Dublin, Barcelona, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and New Zealand.

Melbourne’s early-stage Ecosystem Value has more than doubled in a year – up 125% from $10.5 billion (AUD) to be worth $23.6 billion (AUD).

To demonstrate the growth trajectory of the Victorian startup sector, it has jumped from AUD$2.21 billion in 2018, $7 billion in 2020, $10.5 billion in 2021 to $23.6 billion in 2022.

For a free and dedicated source of real-time data on Victoria’s startup founders, investors, corporates, and policy makers including startup jobs, go to findingstartups.launchvic.org