Female Founders Co-Investment Fund

Female Founders Co-Investment funding is available to innovative female founded businesses undertaking a new pre-seed or seed capital raise.

About the program

The Female Founders Co-Investment Fund is a pilot fund that aims to support eligible businesses to leverage funding and secure new investment to build business capacity, and will:

  • help Queensland female founders access Government funding,
  • support Queensland female founders across a wide range of industries to grow innovative businesses,
  • increase the number of female founders participating in the Queensland innovation ecosystem, and
  • help to grow an investment pipeline for female founded businesses.

The female founder should:

  • have a letter of support from the lead investment entity,
  • have an established business plan,
  • have a clear runway and growth plan for 12 months,
  • have a clear innovation focus,
  • be undertaking a new pre-seed or seed raise/investment, and
  • plan to use the funding to scale their business.

Funding and support

The Fund provides grants from $50,000 to $200,000 matched at a 3:1 ratio over a period of 12 months, for either a single investment or a raise round led by an eligible investment entity.

Eligibility

To be eligible for funding, organisations must at the time of application:

  • be a Queensland based business
  • have an ABN and be registered for GST
  • be a 100% female-founded business (as at the point of incorporation)
  • have more than 50% female ownership (at the time of application) 
  • have no more than 50 full-time-equivalent employees
  • not be a subsidiary of a group of companies that has more than 50 full-time-equivalent employees
  • not have received investment through previous capital raises, grant funding or accelerators totalling more than $500,000
  • not be a current or past recipient of the Ignite Ideas Fund
  • be undertaking pre-seed or seed eligible investment from an approved eligible investor.

Application Process

  • Applications may be submitted at anytime
  • Applicants who meet eligibility criteria will be assessed competitively and notified by email of the outcome
  • Successful applicants will be provisionally approved to receive funding for their nominated raise
  • Applicants must secure their raise/investment within 120 calendar days from the provisional approval date in order to receive funding
  • Applications will remain open until all funds have been allocated.

Key documents

Information session

Watch the information session to find out if you are eligible, learn how to apply, and learn more about the program. 

Enquiries

Additional support

Investment Resources

Queensland’s innovation ecosystem offers numerous events and courses to support founder investment education. A sample of these include:

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