Tattarang announces new partnership with Startmate, with a focus on female founders

Tattarang has today announced a new strategic partnership with Startmate, the leading startup accelerator in Australia and New Zealand, to help close the funding gap for women-founded startups.

The announcement comes as Startmate kicks off its Summer23 cohort, featuring women-led startups with bold visions.

Female founders in this year’s Accelerator program include Raj Bagri from Kapture, who is working on decarbonising 83 million diesel generators worldwide, Fionnuala Quin from Kelpy, who is replacing single-use plastics with compostable biopackaging, and Jessica Dove from Turnto, who is democratising medical breakthroughs by building the cutting-edge conversation for every single health condition.

The Accelerator program surrounds participants with a network of ambitious peers and the best mentors, investors and operators across Australia and New Zealand. As part of the program, Startmate invests $120,000 into each startup to help accelerate their growth.

Tattarang Director Nicola Forrest AO said throughout 2023, Tattarang would work with Startmate to close the funding gap for women-led startups and empower more women to turn their ambitious ideas into successful companies.

“The disproportionately low share of venture capital received by women stalls economic progress and prosperity,” Mrs Forrest said.

“It is refreshing to see Startmate taking a truly equitable approach and we want to help them back female founders. There is a strong correlation between gender equality and organisational success and when female-led businesses succeed it benefits all of society, both women and men.”

Startmate Head of Investments Brady Flockart said the true impact occurs before any investment decisions.

“These outcomes are driven by our time and energy, building communities of ambitious women that support founders or become founders themselves,” Mr Flockart said.

“That’s what’s making a difference.”

Startmate chief executive Michael Batko said the funding gap was a structural issue on the investment side.

“Our First Believers program has seen 65 women launch their angel investing journey. In the past two years, these angels have gone on to make more than 100 investments into the ecosystem as a community, often believing in founders before they believe in themselves,” Mr Batko said.

“Startmate’s Women’s Fellowship program has also enabled 530 ambitious women who want to have a more impactful career move from corporates into startups, addressing the current 74 per cent male representation in the tech industry, according to the Tech Council of Australia.”

Startmate’s mission is to make Australia and New Zealand the best place in the world to build a startup and the company believes that this can only be achieved by leveraging the ambition of the population in its entirety.

According to SBE Australia’s 2022 report, only 22 per cent of startups were founded by women and women founders received just 0.7 per cent of $10 billion in private sector startup funding in FY22.

As a result, Startmate has prioritised initiatives that believe in and amplify the success of women, resulting in 45 per cent of their 105 investments into women-founded or co-founded startups, amounting to 43 per cent of total capital invested since January 1st, 2021.