Women-focused firm launches $10m fund, teams up with Microsoft

She Loves Tech, a China- and Singapore-based startup platform, announced a US$10 million global early-stage accelerator fund to support 100 women-led firms over three years. Some firms are already shortlisted for the fund, which will launch by the end of the year.

She Loves Tech Global Fund, co-managed by Teja Ventures, will award up to US$100,000 in pre-seed and seed funding to startups regardless of location and industry.

The women-focused firm also entered a multi-year partnership with Microsoft Asia to create a “digital marketplace” that connects entrepreneurs with venture capitalists and angel investors.

Leanne Robers, co-founder of She Loves Tech, and Ahmed Mazhari, President of Microsoft Asia / Photo credit: She Loves Tech

The fund aims to speed things along for women-led firms by even getting them their first check at times, Leanne Robers, co-founder of She Loves Tech, told Tech in Asia. She added that it will leverage Microsoft’s network as well as its own to help these startups raise more money

Funding remains a top issue for women entrepreneurs that are just starting out. Firms founded or co-founded by women got 16.4% or US$1.4 billion of the US$8.6 billion raised across Southeast Asia in 2020, according to the Women in Startups: The SE Asia Edition report. Startups solely founded by women, however, got 0.9% of that pie.

“The investors that we have spoken to, they always come to us and say, well, it’s not that we don’t want to invest in women, it’s just that we don’t know where to find them,” added Robers, underlining that She Loves Tech will look to solve this problem through a database and platform that it is building in partnership with Microsoft.

Aside from linking startups with talent and potential investors, the partnership will also provide access to proprietary tech, dedicated programs, learning resources, and a technical-support ecosystem. Community members will also get Microsoft Azure credits worth US$1,000 and above, as well as Github and Visual Studio licenses.

See also: A list of women-friendly investors across the globe

“We will ensure that all the assets of Microsoft are put together in a box. I often say hey, we need to bring a startup in a box mentality, such that startups can come to us and look at unlocking every capability of ours,” Ahmed Mazhari, president of Microsoft Asia, told Tech in Asia.

Founded in 2015, She Loves Tech has a goal of funneling US$1 billion of capital funding into women-led firms. It also organizes an annual global startup competition for early-stage female-founded firms that have a minimum viable product beyond the conceptual stage and in need of seed, angel, or series A-round funding.