In the wake of International Women’s Day, a group of leading VC funds are grouping together to offer remote office hours for 250-plus women founders from across Europe on May 6th this year. Women founders who want to apply can see more information here and apply for the opportunity here.
The initiative aims to dispense with the need for “warm introductions”. Each founder will have the opportunity to meet four investors during one hour of remote office hours to discuss their tech business idea, ask for advice, pitch for investment or find a mentor.
The event is being held jointly by Playfair Capital, Tech Nation and Google for Startups. Participants include Atomico, Creandum, Dawn, Balderton, EQT, Notion, LocalGlobe, Partech and Sequoia.
A spokesman for Playfair said the previous four editions saw a total of 2,000 individual mentoring sessions, with 490 founders and 105 investors taking part. To date, 18% of founders went on to raise funding after attending an event, including the founders of Organise, SideQuest, Paid, Freyda and Juno.
Playfair says the event will use “AI matching technology” between founders and investors to further optimize funding outcomes from the event.
Chris Smith, managing partner at Playfair Capital, commented: “The support from the ecosystem has been incredible and we are hugely grateful to all the investors who have thrown their weight behind this event. Starting to hear some of the success stories from previous events is incredibly exciting and early proof that by collaborating at scale and taking a long-term view we can really make an impact.”