Women Founders: Win a Share of £5,000 to Launch Your Startup

Are you a woman with a bold idea but need funding to bring it to life? FoundHer Fund exists to give women founders the boost they need to succeed. Together with Converge, we’re here to help turn your vision into reality.

Have an idea you’re ready to bring to life? The FoundHer Fund, in partnership with Converge, provides early funding to help women at the University of Edinburgh turn promising ideas into real ventures.

Women remain underrepresented in entrepreneurship and early-stage funding, and this fund aims to help close that gap by giving women founders the financial boost they need to get started.

About the FoundHer Fund

The fund offers University of Edinburgh students, staff, and alumni up to two years post-graduation who identify as women the chance to win a share of £5,000 to launch an early-stage startup within the next 12 months.

Apply with either:

• A 5-minute video (recommended), or
• A short written application

Deadline: Monday, 16 March 2026 at 12 noon

Late submissions cannot be accepted.

What Makes a Winning Entry?

We’re looking for innovative, scalable ideas with strong potential. Strong applications will:

• Identify a meaningful problem and target audience
• Offer a unique, innovative solution
• Show potential to grow beyond a local context
• Demonstrate financial sustainability
• Highlight a capable, committed team
• Make a positive impact on people and the planet
• Explain how funding will help progress your idea
• Align with the University’s core missions: Data, Digital & AI; Health & Care; Climate & Environment

Who Can Apply?

• University of Edinburgh students, staff & alumni (up to two years post-graduation)
• This programme is open to those who identify as women, including trans women, intersex and non-binary individuals.
• Applicants on a visa must ensure it allows business activity, or plan to transition to a visa that allows them to engage in business activity within the next 12 months.

Privacy notice:

This ‘privacy notice’ explains the personal information the University collects through this FundHer Fund application process. This privacy notice supplements the respective privacy notices for staff and students.

‘Personal information’ means any piece of information which can identify you, i.e. would make it clear to others that the information is about you. It can be a single piece of information, for example, your name. Or it can be separate pieces of information which, when combined, would help others to identify you.

As part of the application process to the FundHer Fund Entrepreneurship call 2026, we are collecting Personal Information, including information about your name, university contact details; gender; age; ethnicity; sexuality; disability; staff/student status; and sector.

The table below describes the information we collect and what we need it for.

Your information will be shared under confidentiality terms with a third party (Converge, a brand operated by Heriot-Watt University, whose Scottish registered charity number is SC000278) for the purpose of complying with contractual obligations we have with Converge relating to this funding call. Converge will use the information to enable it to carry out its own contractual obligations to report equality, diversity, and inclusion information to the Scottish Government for the purpose of monitoring equal opportunities. Information relating to all applications will not be anonymised.

Retention

The information gathered will be retained for 2 years to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected.

At the end of the retention period, your data will either be deleted completely or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.