Ana Grohnert
Partners
Birka Wolff
Start-up & Investment Management
Heidrun Twesten
Start-ups
INA SCHLIE
Investors
Nina Stegmann
Co-Chair
Andrea Dittmar
Co-CEO
Elisabeth Mansfeld
Start-ups
Urte Zahn
Partners
Petra Wörwag
Family Business
Christine Rittner
Co-Chair & Regional Hubs
Alexa Gorman
EVENt management COURAGE
Martina Pfeifer
Academy
Stephanie Bschorr
Investors
Julia Krogmann
Academy
Prof. Dr. Heike Marita Hölzner
Partners
Dr. Andrea Rösinger
Investors
PATRICIA RÖDEL
OPERATIONS Officer
NINA BEIKE
ProjeCt management Berlin
empower
We want to encourage female founders and investors to realise their projects.
innovate
We want to offer innovative ideas space and opportunities to develop. Because innovation needs diversity.
connect
We connect female founders and investors to share experiences and provide funding.
support
We want to support female founders in their business ideas holistically and sustainably through mentorship.
OUR STORY
How it all began
In October 2020, the high-calibre round of female investors with Ina Schlie, Angie Gifford, Elke Eller, Martina Pfeifer, Stephanie Bschorr invested in Tandemploy. The HR tech start-up decided to sell shares – and quite deliberately exclusively to women. This was also the starting point of encourageventures.
Who we are
The initial idea of Ina Schlie has meanwhile turned into the foundation of encourageventures. The first chairmen of the association are Ina Schlie, former Vice President SAP, Business Angel and multi-supervisory board member and Alexa Hergenröther, management consultant and multi-supervisory board member. In the meantime, however, numerous other top female managers and well-known personalities such as Brigitte Zypries, former German Minister of Economics, Tina Müller, CEO Douglas and Ana-Cristina Grohnert, Chairwoman of the Diversity Charter, have joined the association. Already over 60 great women from the fields of tech, finance, investment banking, corporate management, health, HR, marketing and software enrich our network with expertise, courage and passion.
Who we support
We support start-ups with at least one woman in the founding team in the pre-seed, seed and growth phases with a holistic approach. The focus is not only on financing. Our experts support them in all stages of development from the idea to the IPO in a sustainable, holistic and interdisciplinary way, both financially and through mentoring and coaching.
As an all-female investment network, we not only want to support existing start-ups, but also encourage other women to found a company and think big. In addition, we want to bring together female investors who have great expertise in building and accompanying start-ups as well as high-calibre contacts.
What we want to change
“to encourage” means “to encourage” – and that is exactly what we want to achieve with the network! Our common vision is to encourage more women to start up and to bring more diversity into the start-up and investor landscape.
We want to hear more female voices in the start-up scene, we want to support women who have the “courage” to found a company and we want to increase the visibility of female founders. Because innovation absolutely needs diversity – that’s what we’re standing up for together. We offer female founders and entrepreneurs access to know-how, capital and contacts to implement their ideas and grow faster and more successfully.
Our encourageventures network creates connections and offers a platform for exchange – for female founders and investors. We want to bring women together to complement each other. Already today, at the start, we are networked into many German industrial and executive floors. Let’s rewrite the history of female entrepreneurship together!