Calling all female founders and investors - and allies - across the startup, tech & real estate community: join us for a morning of raw, honest, and solution-driven discussion.
WHY JOIN?
Because real change requires real action.
Our industry, like many others, is systemically broken when it comes to gender parity. Startups 100 Index research has shown that men get 6.2x more funding than women in 2023.
Being venture-backed brings more than funding to the founder; it brings mentors, customers, board members, strategic support and an exponential network of potential growth levers to pull at various stages of the startup journey. Yet with women significantly underrepresented in VC (a European Women in VC report recently showed that only 15% of decision-makers in the UK are female), a mere 3% of funding is going towards female-led companies.
Here at Pi Labs, we stand for positive change, fair funding and equal economies.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Alongside the opportunity to network, we will host an expert panel, carefully curated to represent both the modern founder and investor perspective. Our panellists will share practical advice, insights and real-life examples on how to overcome the challenges female-founded companies can face in our modern climate.
Agenda
9:00-9:45 Attendee arrival, breakfast & networking
09:45-10:30 Panel discussion
10:30-10:45 Q&A
10:45 -11:30/12:00:Networking
LIMITED SPACES: FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.
💬 About the Speakers:
🎙️ Agata Nowicka
Agata is a two-time entrepreneur, an angel and a VC investor. After selling her first business, a data analytics platform in Hong Kong, Agata has been a mentor and advisor to dozens of startup founders through a variety of accelerators such as Techstars and Hult Prize. Agata is also the founder of Female Foundry, a network of over 5,000 VC investors and founders across Europe with the mission of bringing more capital to female entrepreneurs and making the startup ecosystem more diverse.
🎙️ Claire Trant
Claire is the CEO & Co-Founder of Untap Health, a company that detects illnesses in the built environment before symptoms, using their collective sewage. With over 8 years of experience in wastewater innovation and business strategy, she leads the vision, strategy, and partnerships of Untap Health. Claire has a background in engineering and science, holding a PhD with Rolls-Royce. She is a recognised leader and innovator, having been awarded a Woman in Innovation in 2023 by Innovate UK and High Growth Woman Founder by UK British Angels Association. Throughout her career, Claire has actively promoted young people and women in STEM. Untap Health have provided internships to young women, to develop their business skills before entering the job market. Science, Technology and Engineering are wide ranging sectors, and need diversity to fill these roles, only then we will have innovation that represents society. Viral transmission affects all of us; and although sewage technology may not seem particularly appealing, Claire endeavours to encourage more women to seek out these less appealing but fascinating sectors.
🎙️ Brittany Haris
Brittany Harris, Co-founder & CEO - Qualis Flow, Civil Engineer, trail runner, daughter, sister, wife (to be), dog mum, climate change champion...
I can only speak to my experiences (12 years in Civil Engineering, 5 of which as a founder), and how I/we have approached balancing being a founder, a woman, and all the other things we are. In the end, all we are trying to do is create the world we want to live in, within our sphere of influence. Sometimes that's as small as us 2 founders and our growing team (now over 40 people), and sometimes it's much bigger, it's the investors we meet, the clients we serve, the founders we champion, and the attendees at conferences we speak at.
I am passionate about changing the way things are because I think the current in balance in opportunities, and the perception of what this inequality means for people, is stopping truly awesome individuals and teams from delivering the change that this world desperately needs.
I'm still learning what that means. But I'm happy to share what I've learned so far, and share a little hope that things are getting better and that all these little acts combine to make a BIG difference.
🎙️ Deepali Nangia
Deepali joined Speedinvest as a Partner in January 2022 with a focus on finding, funding, and supporting investment in underrepresented founders.Before joining Speedinvest, Deepali co-founded Alma Angels, a community set up to increase the number of female angel investors in Europe who fund female-founded companies. She has invested in and mentored multiple female-founded companies, including PensionBee, Planera, Kama Labs, Sano Genetics, Shell Works, SideQuest, Juno Bio, Flown, Okko Health, Vine Health, Vaayu, and Yhangry, among others.In 2021 alone, Deepali won UKBAA’s Angel Investor of the Year award and, as Venture Partner, led our partnership with Softbank’s Emerge Program to fund underrepresented founders in Europe.Originally from Kolkata, India, with a background in investment banking, private equity, and operations, Deepali has a keen interest in technologies that are solving society's large problems in sectors such as Digital Health, Femtech, and Climate Tech.
🎙️ [Moderator] Sophie Louise Rowe
Sophie has over 4 years experience in startup media. She joined Sifted, the FT-backed publication reporting on startup Europe, as the first event production hire in 2021, to bring its journalism off the page and onto the stage. Prior to Sifted, Sophie led content and production at SaaStock, Europe’s largest SaaS community, during a company pivot.
She enjoys writing about startups, travels as much as possible and believes in community-driven change – which motivated her to build Sifted’s community partner initiative, a pan-European program designed to amplify and connect NFPOs changing the face of startups and venture.
In a relationship-driven industry, she has learned how much mentorship, network and honest advice can decide the winners – and is interested in demystifying the rules of the game.