Female entrepreneurship, top European alumni detailed in Founder Institute report

One of Silicon Valley’s most reputable organizations, Founder Institute (FI) this week released its impact report in celebration of its 10 year anniversary. The report highlights European founders, entrepreneur DNA and female entrepreneurship, among other topics.

European startups featured include TravelCar, the P2P car sharing service that has raised over $22M funding, Peerby, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace for neighbors, and Climber, a revenue management platform for independent hotels.

Rachel Sheppard, Director of Global Marketing at Founder Institute

A spotlight is also provided on the Female Founder Initiative (FFI), which was launched in 2016 by Rachel Sheppard and Megan Todd to reignite efforts towards gender equality in tech.

Takeaways include:

• 50% year over year increase in women-founded alumni from 2016 to 2017 after launching FFI
• 30% of Founder Institute alumni companies are women-founded
• 38% of alumni in the U.S. were women-founded in 2018.

According to the organization, which aims to ‘Globalize Silicon Valley’ and empower entrepreneurs, women are 10% more likely to be accepted to the Founder Institute than men and 8% more likely to complete the program.

The report includes insights from 15,000 founders across 65 countries. For a decade the organization has also worked alongside scientists to collect personality data from applicants. High-fluid intelligence, high openness, and moderate agreeableness were found to be the most conductive traits for success.

Said Jonathan Greechen, Co-Founder at Founder Institute, “It’s been a whirlwind 10 years, with a lot of hard work and sleepless nights, but we’re incredibly proud of what we have been able to accomplish. In particular, we’re proud to be helping entrepreneurs not only in the US and other global startup hubs, but across 65 countries and all corners of the planet.”

“Over the next 10 years we plan to leverage this global network for the greater good, and help entrepreneurs build businesses that can positively impact society.”

Founder Institute is led by CEO Adeo Ressi and has supported over 4000 startups since its founding.

This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company