As International Women’s Day approaches, we talked to the winners of She Loves Tech Global Competition 2022, to learn more about these female entrepreneurs, their ambition, their aspirations and their plans for 2023.
She Loves Tech —world’s largest startup competition for women and technology’s 2022 Grand Finals was held on November 5 with 28 pitching finalists with Lios (representing Nordics), a game-changing startup with a novel acoustic material and sound-therapy app eradicating avoidable hearing damage, emerging as Global Champion. Turkiye’s Algbio (algae-based biofuel) and Africa’s GoBEBA (household essentials quick-commerce) won global second and third place respectively. UK-based Mimicrete (biomimetic self-healing concrete) won ADBV’s Impact Award.
She Loves Tech is a global platform committed to closing the funding gap for women.
The platform has the world’s largest database of women-led and women-impact startups. She Loves Tech is committed to catalysing over $1 billion in funding for women.
It runs the world’s largest startup competition for women and technology. Since 2015, the competition has had 13,000 startups join from 92 countries. Finalists have raised more than $300 million to date. The 2022 competition series encompasses 28 regional rounds across 70+ countries.
The platform also runs Asia’s Flagship Conference for Women and Tech out of Singapore annually.
Here are the winners:
Global Champion – Rhona Thoger, LIOS
1. Kindly introduce yourself and your startup. Why did you want to start this company?
Rhona Togher, CEO, and Eimear O’Carroll, CTO, are co-founders of Lios, an Irish startup. We are passionate about creating a quieter world by using advanced technologies. Trained as physicists, we apply our knowledge and expertise to the challenges of noise pollution and noise-damaged hearing.
We experienced tinnitus from a young age, and while in school we investigated the problem of tinnitus. Tinnitus is a perceived or phantom sound that has no identifiable source and is a result of damage to your hearing. Experiencing this led us to create our first product, Sound Relief – a sound therapy scientifically proven to reduce tinnitus severity. Through our extensive work with people suffering(or whatever word we choose) from noise damaged hearing, we recognized a major failure in the acoustic materials commonly used to reduce noise pollution.
That is why we developed SoundBounce, an advanced material for noise reduction that has the power to become the next ubiquitous acoustic material. Our world is a very noisy place, and this can cause serious hearing damage like tinnitus. The same acoustic material is used in everything, from dishwashers to cars. Major industries like aerospace and construction are struggling to bring their next generation technologies to market due to a lack of innovation in the acoustic materials market. That’s where we come in. As inventors and entrepreneurs, our expertise and skills enable us to tackle entrenched industrial challenges with a fresh perspective. We are incredibly passionate about reducing harmful noise in the environment, and this passion is echoed by our customers. They see the value in trying to do things in a fundamentally new way.
2. What are your plans after the competition/in 2023?
The next step in bringing SoundBounce to the world is pilot production. We are currently seeking manufacturing partners to help us scale up the technology and meet the market demand. We have executed pilots with industrial leaders all over the world and are in the process of integrating SoundBounce into their product specifications. To complement pilot production, we are fundraising and growing our team in 2023. This year, we doubled down on sustainability and we are determined to make a positive impact on the environment. As we move towards pilot production, we are developing sustainable processes and solutions to help our clients reduce their environmental footprint. We are excited to continue our journey towards a more sustainable future and encourage others to join us in this important mission.
In addition to winning SheLovesTech, we were also a finalist in the Ocean Exchange, an annual event held in Miami that recognizes innovation in important environmental challenges. Our team was proud to be a part of this event and to have the opportunity to share our work on stopping noise pollution in our oceans.
3. Would you need to raise funds any time soon? What’s the timeline?
In early 2023 we will be closing our next funding round to enable the accelerated expansion of the team and operations to facilitate the demand from the industry. Get in touch if you’d like to be involved.
4. How would you encourage more women to become startup founders or join the tech sector? What advice would you give to other female founders?
The Lios team are big supporters of women who want to get into tech or start their own business. We are strong supporters of events and initiatives promoting female entrepreneurship. The team strives to provide visible positive examples of women entrepreneurs in highly technical or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) areas. Uplifting and inspiring the next generation of young women to pursue their dreams in entrepreneurship and STEM is at our core. We would suggest going to tech or entrepreneurship-focused events as one way to dip your toe in the water and meet like-minded people.
We think being a founder mainly requires the ability to find the best in people and encourage them to collaborate and excel – whether that’s your own team or potential customers. And running a startup takes a lot of perseverance and passion, it’s important to believe in yourself and your mission as this is your main source of motivation sometimes. We would encourage someone interested in being a founder to get a variety of experience and work with lots of different types of people. And really hone your communication skills.
First Runner Up – Selen Senal, ALGBIO
1. Kindly introduce yourself and your startup. Why did you want to start this company?
I am Selen Senal, PhD C. in biotechnology and the founder of ALGBIO, I am on the Fortune “40 under 40” list. ALGBIO treats wastewater, sewage and captures CO2 with microalgae to produce biofuels, bioplastics, biomaterials and generate carbon credits. ALGBIO enables the transition from fossil-based economy to sustainable manufacturing. I have been interested in algal biotechnology throughout my academic life and have carried out my research entirely on it. Then, thinking that my work should be integrated with the industry, I reached potential customers and realized that I needed to establish a company. In fact, I realized that I was an entrepreneur when I integrated my studies from lab benches into a real environment.
2. What are your plans after the competition/in 2023?
Algbio’s aim is to put production facilities, oil and natural gas sector in Asia and US in its circular economy to comply with greendeal targets, waste-emission regulations and make them carbon neutral by providing waste management, carbon capture and bioenergy. We are now raising a seed round for market expansion in Asia and the US, business development and sales in 2023.
3. Would you need to raise funds any time soon? What’s the timeline?
Algbio is now raising a seed round for market expansion in Asia and the US, business development and sales in 2023. Among the 2023 targets of Algbio are to expand into the Asian market with the seed investment it has achieved, and to reach the gross margin target of 43 percent within 5 years by integrating with the industrialists there. One of the main market targets of Algbio aims to secure the serial-A fund within 5 years in the United States.
4. How would you encourage more women to become startup founders or join the tech sector? What advice would you give to other female founders?
Being a female entrepreneur in the sector has influenced many women around me, enabling them to focus on their own business. One of the most important pieces of advice to be given here is not to be afraid of making mistakes, because the sooner you make a mistake, the sooner you learn. Another is that you must realize that the negative processes actually want to show you a new path. Courage and perseverance are the basic parameters of entrepreneurship, as long as you do not lose them, your path is always clear.
Second Runner Up – Lesley Mbogo, GOBEBA
1. Kindly introduce yourself and your startup. Why did you want to start this company?
About me – Lesley Mbogo, Co-founder at GoBEBA. I have 14+ years building and operating high scale technology products and services. I headed Product at Amazon, and was previously an engineer at IBM. I’m also a holder of 4 technology patents from U.S Patent Office. At GoBeba, I’m responsible for technology and operations.
About GoBEBA – GoBEBA provides a digital retail platform for distributing bulky household essentials to urban households in rapidly growing African cities. Due to infrastructure deficit and lack of volume retailers, urban dwellers find it daunting to make extra return trips for bulky refillable essentials (e.g. drinking water, cooking gas) in high traffic, travel further to find volume retailers, or carry bulky goods. We are Africa’s convenient online Costco.
Why I started company – I lived in the US for most of my career and during this time, I saw the growing trend in urbanization in Africa. In 2 decades African urban centers will host over 1B citizens. While I was at Amazon, I began to see the possibilities of reaching these many consumers, who were consuming more and embracing digital commerce. It was abundantly clear that Africa will be retail’s next gold rush.
My co-founder and I were brought together by our passion to return home to drive the digital transformation in retail that was starting to happen in the continent. With my technology background, I knew I could build the retail tech necessary, but needed a business partner who understood how to navigate around African markets.
2. What are your plans after the competition/in 2023?
– To complete our pre-seed funding round of $500,000 in Q1 2023
– Build consumer side and supply chain technology to support growth.
– Key hires in Engineering, Growth, and Supply Chain Management
3. Would you need to raise funds any time soon? What’s the timeline?
Yes, in the first quarter of 2023.
4. How would you encourage more women to become startup founders or join the tech sector? What advice would you give to other female founders?
This is the best time for women to embark on entrepreneurship, especially at this time of dampened funding markets. Women are more conservative (meaning you will see fewer of these growth-at-any-costs startups). Secondly, Women have more long-range focus and will nurture their businesses for a longer period of time – the kind of patience needed in this environment in which businesses will need to taper down their hyper-growth expectations.
I would advise women to focus on building profitable businesses even if it means somewhat slower growth. Be impatient for profits, but patient for (hyper) growth.
ADBV Impact Award Recipient – Liz Zijing Li, Mimicrete
1. Kindly introduce yourself and your startup. Why did you want to start this company?
Mimicrete Ltd is a 2021 start-up seeking to develop and commercialize innovative biomimetic construction materials. I am the Chief Operating Officer, inventor and co-founder of Mimicrete Ltd, a company that is developing resilient and sustainable construction materials for the next generation. I hold a PhD degree in civil engineering at the Geotechnical Group, University of Cambridge, and successfully converted my PhD research to the core tech of Mimicrete Ltd.
2. What are your plans after the competition/in 2023?
We are currently planning to expand our partnerships in Asia after the competition in 2023, and also prepare for the seed-round investment.
3. Would you need to raise funds any time soon? What’s the timeline?
We will be raising seed-round investment, and start to prepare for the seed-round in December 2022, and we are aiming to close this round in November 2023.
4. How would you encourage more women to become startup founders or join the tech sector? What advice would you give to other female founders?
This is a prestigious award to encourage me to continuously inspire young females to make brave choices, and follow their passion, no matter how difficult it looks like at the beginning. Advise for other female founders: Follow your passion!
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