This week the federal government announced its successful recipients for the first round of the Boosting Female Founders Initiative with $12 million granted to expand female-owned enterprises into domestic and global
markets.
Applicants were assessed by an Independent Assessment Committee made up of successful women entrepreneurs, with more than 2200 expressions of interest received.
Former Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards’ winners Victoria Stuart and Stephanie Reuss, co-founders of flexible recruitment platform, Beam Australia secured $100,000 to focus on the launch, commercialisation and extending the reach of the organisation’s new ‘Beam Flex’ platform, taking the digital job and team design platform nationwide.
Other recipients included Indigenous entrepreneur and founder of Indigital, Mikaela Jade for a project that will focus on scaling Indigital’s Indigenous-designed digital skills training program, to assist school students connect with and learn from Indigenous elders.
Securing a cool $458,690, the program is designed to help Indigenous and non-Indigenous students establish future career pathways by addressing digital skills shortages.
Monica Meldrum’s Whole Kids secured $383,858 to expand its range of certified organic, additive free and allergen friendly snack foods for children. The project will focus on expanding the Whole Kids range into global markets.
While Verve Superannuation Australia’s first female-founded and curated super fund for women picked up $398,155 to scale its Verve Academy and launch an integrated Wealth Building Platform for women. The project will focus on digitising Verve Superannuation’s financial coaching, wellness toolkits, and other resources,
including digitalising behavioural change coaching, and developing a wealth-building platform tailored for women.
Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said the initiative would play a crucial role in creating new jobs, developing innovative products and boosting the Australian economy.
“The road from business idea to global product is already a tough one. But we know female-founded startups face even greater challenges in getting the finance needed to reach their full potential,” she said.
“The range of startups being supported is incredible, from an Indigenous-designed digital
skills training program for schools, to a project creating 3D printed, customised and comfortable breast prostheses made specifically to fit women’s bodies and mastectomy bras.
“If we don’t capitalise on great business ideas from half of the population, Australia’s startup and innovation ecosystems will only be half as good as they could be. This investment will strengthen our economy and empower more female entrepreneurs to create more jobs for all Australians.”
All of the grant’s recipients can be found here.