Womenture: European capital and opportunities for women founders

Womenture is a transnational program funded by Horizon Europe, jointly implemented between 2022 and 2024 by four European organizations: Civitta Hungary (formerly known as Design Terminal), DEX Innovation Centre (Czech Republic), SpinLab – The HHL Accelerator (Germany), and Tehnopol (Estonia). The goal of the two-year program was to strengthen early-stage startups founded by women and make the European innovation ecosystem more inclusive – through individual capacity building, community building, and policy change.

In Europe’s startup ecosystem, the number of women founders is disproportionately low. Structural barriers – limited access to mentorship and investor networks, few visible role models – hold back potentially successful women entrepreneurs. Womenture set out to address this systemic problem: through a coordinated, two-year program across four countries, offering individual support while also striving for policy-level change.

Civitta Hungary (formerly known as Design Terminal), as a consortium member, worked along three directions. In the acceleration program, we selected 20 early-stage women startup founders out of 250 applicants from 40 countries, who took part in a total of more than 100 hours of personalized mentoring. The top 5 startups presented themselves to investors and a professional audience at the Female Founders Summit in Tallinn (a side event of the Latitude59 conference).

Combining thematic focus with a transnational approach generates greater policy impact than standalone national programs could achieve. Lasting community infrastructure – such as the Womenture Hub – continues to multiply results even after the project’s conclusion. Embedding policy recommendations into the program directly increases outreach to European funders and decision-makers.