The Startup Onramp Female Founders Program

Helping Queensland-based female founders to build global companies

Startup Onramp is supporting female founders across Queensland by providing free places in the following programs, thanks to support from the Advance Queensland initiative.

FREE mentoring sessions with an experienced startup mentor. Get expert advice on your startup. Connect with other founders.

Valued at $330 per session

FREE places in our online course. Learn essential skills you need to succeed as a founder. Delivered by experienced founders, investors and mentors.

Valued at $495 per place

FREE places in our online mentor-led incubator. Get expert help to launch and grow your startup as part of a cohort of like-minded female founders.

Valued at $2,000 per place

Why a program for female founders?

Currently only 22% of Australian startups are founded by women. Female founders consistently face barriers to formation and growth of startups. There are fewer experienced female mentors and role models, social and cultural barriers that discourage women from pursuing a historically male-dominated career path, and challenges in raising money from investors.

With support from the Advance Queensland initiative, we’re determined to help female founders overcome barriers to growth of their startups. We’re offering world-class programs delivered by a diverse group of experienced mentors, including investors who have backed many female-led startups.

Support for founders across Queensland

Founders in regional areas often have limited access to high-quality programs and experienced mentors. We’re making our programs accessible across Queensland by delivering all content, workshops and mentoring remotely via Zoom. We’re also offering fully subsidised places, ensuring cost isn’t a barrier to accessing high quality programs.

Whether you’re in Brisbane, SEQ or regional Queensland, we’re looking forward to working with you!

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Queensland, and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.

This program is proudly supported by the Advance Queensland initiative

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Meet our alumni

We‘ve been running programs for early stage startup founders since 2017, and have helped over 500 startups to get started. Here’s what some of our alumni have to say.

Read more about our alumni. Read more about Startup Onramp.

FAQs

  • The program is for Queensland-based female startup founders in the early stages of building a scalable business.

    No prior experience is needed, and it’s absolutely fine if you’re still at the stage of exploring a startup idea, or if you’ve made a start and are looking for help to grow.

    By startup, we mean an emerging or recently-formed company that is bringing an innovative product or service to market, and that has the potential to grow.

    Your product doesn’t have to be online or software-based. It can be a physical product or a service, as long as you’re doing something genuinely innovative.

    If you’re working on a traditional small business, offering consulting or similar services, or a not-for-profit or a social enterprise, this isn’t the program for you.

    Eligibility is determined by the Queensland Government’s Accelerating Female Founders Program:

    • A Queensland female founder is a Queensland resident, female-identifying person acting as a sole founder, a co-founder, or in a leadership position (CEO, Director, Executive) within an innovative business or the innovation ecosystem.

    • An innovative business is one where the business is genuinely focused on developing one or more new or significantly improved innovative product/service(s) for commercialisation.

  • There’s a simple online application form for each part of the program, linked above.

  • Applications for each Pre-Accelerator cohort will be announced prior to that cohort commencing.

    All other programs are accepting applications on a rolling basis.

  • Thanks to support from the Queensland Government’s Advance Queensland initiative, we are able to offer FREE places in the following programs:

    Founder mentoring:

    FREE - up to 3 sessions per startup until all places are allocated

    (Value: $330 each)

    Founders Course:

    FREE places

    (Value: $495 per place)

    Pre-Accelerator:

    FREE places

    (Value: $2,000 per startup)

  • Mentoring sessions:

    1 hour

    Founders Course:

    8 hours of self-paced learning, spread over a 4-8 week period

    Pre-Accelerator:

    2-4 hours per week over an eight-week period

  • All parts of the program are available to female founders anywhere in Queensland.

    Mentoring sessions and Pre-Accelerator masterclasses are held via Zoom to maximise access for participants located outside Brisbane.

  • You’re welcome to take part in any of our programs, but if you’re based outside Queensland you’ll need to cover your own registration fee.

    Contact us (hello@startuponramp.com) with any questions.

  • No, as long as one of the co-founders or leaders in your team is female, the whole team is able to take part.

  • If you don’t qualify for a funded place in the Female Founders Program, you can still sign up for founder coaching or do our online Founders Course.

If there’s something you’d like to know that isn’t covered here, contact us.