World-changing innovation comes from all over the place. But in relation to startups, funding has traditionally favored founders from demographic, geographic, and academic backgrounds. Here at Microsoft for Startups we imagine that entrepreneurship must be open to all, and that anybody with an concept deserves the alternative and assets to innovate and develop. We are dedicated to broadening entry for all startup founders by eradicating conventional limitations to entry, enabling startups to achieve success at every section of their journey. 

In the spirit of that mission, we’ve partnered with to assist founders all around the world. Collectively, we just lately awarded Rising Entrepreneurship grants to an inspiring group of girls founders who’re constructing an industry-spanning set of corporations. These non-dilutive grants are meant to assist degree the enjoying discipline when it comes to equitable entry to the funding useful resources that are so important to startup success. 

We’re notably proud to showcase these grant recipients alongside Antler. Antler is a “day zero” investor whose founders develop their concepts and validate enterprise mannequins by means of residency packages all over the world. Their experience in backing early-stage entrepreneurs readily enhances Microsoft for Startups’ dedication to support startups from inception to scale.  Collectively, we are united in our want to broaden variety in entrepreneurship and empower founders of each background “from day zero to greatness.” 

Meet the recipients of our Rising Entrepreneur grants and their startups beneath. Follow us over the approaching weeks as we share their founder journeys. 

Adina Tilek, Co-Founder of DevX

Based in 2019, DevX is a Singapore primarily based digital studying firm that gives accessible, curated content material to people in search of to start or speed up a profession in expertise. The corporate brings collectively custom-made coaching packages with a neighborhood of like-minded learners who can nearly co-study all through their studying pathway. Since launch, DevX has helped greater than 500 shoppers land jobs at Fortune500 expertise corporations. 

Adina was first impressed to make expertise studying extra accessible primarily based on her expertise attempting to interrupt into tech with a standard college and bootcamp training. Previous to co-founding DevX, Adina led QA Engineering groups in Chicago’s modern AdTech startup ecosystem the place she constructed her product administration and gross sales expertise. She is now serving as Head of Product at DevX as the corporate appears to be like to scale internationally. 

Aigerim Tulekova, CEO & Co-Founder of Past Manufacturers

Based in 2022, Past Manufacturers is a Singapore primarily based firm that’s constructing a no-code monetization platform to assist creators launch, develop, and scale their enterprisees. The corporate’s suite of instruments allows creators to construct web sites, introduce viewers engagement capabilities, discover alternative routes to monetize, and host communities – all with out requiring a single line of code.  

Aigerim is a Kazakh-Australian entrepreneur, person expertise designer, and content material creator / influencer. Collectively together with her Past Manufacturers co-founder, she is leveraging her information and background to redefine the way forward for the creator financial system for creators, manufacturers, and shoppers worldwide. 

Alexandra Kantor, CEO & Founder of Peri

Based in 2022, Peri is a United States primarily based firm that’s introducing an at-home saliva take a look at that may consider oral well being and decide susceptibility to cavities, gum illness, and different ailments linked to oral micro organism. The corporate’s mission is to encourage a proactive strategy to dental well being by remodeling the way in which folks handle their oral hygiene.  

Alexandra holds a Physician of Dental Surgical procedure diploma and has over 10 years of expertise within the dental discipline. She is a working towards dentist who has began and owned a number of dental places of work and who presently serves on the Board of an rising dental software program firm. Dr. Kantor can also be a proud mother of two. 

Aruna Chawla & Karishma Rathaur, Co-Founders of

Based in 2022, Salad is an India primarily based digital cellular app firm that is constructing a cycle-synced way of life planner for girls. The corporate’s complete answer helps people handle hormonal well being all through the month by offering entry to customized and bio–particular person plans whereas factoring in well being targets, underlying situations, and menstrual cycle knowledge. The corporate anticipates a primary quarter 2023 launch throughout the Indian market. 

Aruna is a conduct change designer and integrative diet advocate who believes that girls who’ve the assets to reside in sync with their our bodies can create a life that’s highly effective, wholesome, and powerful. After private experiences in healthcare and greater than six years of analysis, she was impressed to create Salad, a holistic wellness instrument made for and by girls, with the aim of enabling sustainable girls’s well being at scale.  

Karishma is a former operations and growth-focused chief from xto10x and Uber, the place she helped to scale the enterprise 10x over the course three years. Her earlier startup-focused roles additionally embody Head of Buyer expertise at Swvi. Karishma co-founded Salad with a mission to assist the three.9B lively menstruators on the planet reside their healthiest lives by means of cycle syncing. 

Cat Sampson-Gómez & Fernanda Sampson-Gomez, Co-Founders of Celzo 

Based in 2022, Celzo is a United States primarily based meals and beverage firm that makes hemp-infused glowing water impressed by Latin American flavors and tradition. As a women-, LGTBQ+-, and Latina-owned firm, Celzo is numerous from its core. Via its drinks, the corporate seeks to advertise a Mexican-style remedy for stress and nervousness and to assist shoppers discover happiness in adversity. 

Cat was one of many first 50 workers at Uber, the place she witnessed the corporate develop from seven to 400 cities. Cat’s background of serving to launch and scale Uber in Los Angeles, Mexico Metropolis, and throughout quite a few cities gave her firsthand expertise with shortly rising a model’s footprint. Previous to founding Celzo together with her spouse, Cat served in a world advertising and marketing function at Expedia Group. 

Fernanda, a local of Mexico Metropolis, spent over 9 years of her profession at TV Azteca, the highest TV broadcast station in Latin America, the place she targeted on product commercialization and product placement. She subsequently based her first firm, Clarocrte, a boutique video content material company catering to shoppers reminiscent of Walmart and Volkswagen, previous to acquiring a Masters in Know-how Commercialization from the McCombs Faculty of Enterprise on the College of Texas.

Cathy Huang, Founder of Gudwork

Based in 2022, Gudwork is a United States primarily based firm that is constructing a two-sided digital community to join rising professionals with startup–primarily based alternatives. The corporate’s platform gives scholars entry to freelance tasks as effectively as a supportive community of friends and founders to construct project-based portfolios and launch their professions. In flip, startup founders can entry vetted scholar freelancers to allow them to offload duties and deal with constructing. 

Cathy is a serial entrepreneur who has spent her profession beginning corporations and becoming a member of early-stage startups alongside the founding workforce. Throughout these roles, Cathy has operated in a spread of industries, gaining expertise in markets as various as worldwide healthcare and direct-to-consumer sustainable seafood. Her firsthand information – gleaned from watching all startups repeatedly wrestle to search out sufficient time, assets, and cash – impressed Cathy to remedy this downside by discovereding Gudwork. 

Cori Sue Morris, CEO & Founder of Retreat

Based in 2020, Retreat is a United States primarily based firm that gives comprehensive, science-backed packages and instructional assets associated to psychedelics and microdosing. The corporate goals to assist folks enhance psychological well being and wellbeing by means of a signature microdosing teaching program, personal on-line neighborhood, and telehealth choices. 

Cori is a third-time entrepreneur with two profitable exits, together with a media firm and a advertising and marketing company. Her 15 years of expertise constructing and scaling shopper startups span Founder and Head of Advertising and marketing roles at Havenly, Typical Wines, UrbanStems, WeWork, Curex, and Tailwind. As a self-ascribed wellness junkie and mycophile, Cori loves empowering folks to realize their full potential. 

Erin Rowe, CEO & Founder of Allspring

Based in 2021, Allspring is a United States primarily based firm that’s constructing a mentorship platform to make teaching, recommendation, and counselling extra accessible to younger professionals as they navigate powerful profession selections. The corporate connects people with a profession workforce to extend the chance of getting employed or promoted. Allspring’s B2B, SaaS-based providers can be found to people, corporates, and community-based organizations.  

Erin is an skilled HR leader whose earlier roles embody Deloitte Consulting, the School Board, Webflow, and Pinterest. Whereas managing a multi-million dollar HR funds, Erin realized that many company studying and training options don’t meet worker wants, inspiring her to discovered Allspring to enhance worker productiveness, self–reliance, and confidence.  

Outdoors of labor, Erin enjoys climbing, snowboarding, swimming, and coaching for her subsequent marathon. 

Khanh Lê, CEO & Founder of Influx

Based in 2022, InFlow is a Vietnam primarily based firm that has launched a provide chain and manufacturing platform for style manufacturers. The corporate’s answer enables small and medium companies to simply supply, monitor, and handle manufacturing by offering connectivity to a large community of suppliers, an efficient provide chain administration system, and safe fee choices to conduct transactions.  

Khanh based Influx with the aim of making a turnkey answer for manufacturers to unlock scalable product manufacturing. Khanh’s skilled expertise spans roles in Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, and Product Development. She is a seasoned entrepreneur who was beforehand on the founding workforce of NextFit, a cellular software targeted on the health {industry}.  

Neha Juneja, CEO & Co–Founder of IndiaP2P

Based in 2021, IndiaP2P is a licensed, India primarily based firm that has constructed a peer–to–peer lending platform. The corporate creates high-yield, diversified, high-quality funding merchandise composed of curated retail loans from credit-worthy girls debtors. IndiaP2P enables retail traders to create month-to-month, passive earnings streams and earn up to 18% every year.

Neha is a second-time entrepreneur, having beforehand co-founded and scaled Greenway, India’s largest clear cooking enterprise, the place she developed a number of credit score partnerships catering to girls debtors throughout rural India and sub-Saharan Africa.

Previous to Greenway, Neha labored on setting up a derivatives buying and selling platform. She is an industrial engineer with an MBA from FMS Delhi, has been acknowledged as an Echoing Inexperienced fellow, and is the recipient of entrepreneurship awards from Businessworld and L’Oreal. 

Nuong “Micky” Nguyen, Founder of Petgotchi

Based in 2022, Petgotchi is a Vietnam primarily based cellular sport firm. The company makes use of augmented actuality to join customers with the companionship of animal associates in the digital world. Petgotchi’s platform contains community-based performance the place folks can join with different pet lovers.  

Micky is a passionate and skilled entrepreneur with greater than eight years of expertise within the artistic design and style industries. She beforehand co-founded Monki Monki, an modern artistic company that specialised in working with style {industry} shoppers. 

Parul Shukla, Co–Founder of Gladful

Based in 2022, Gladful is an India primarily based direct-to-consumer meals model that makes protein-rich meals with out trans fat, preservatives, or cholesterol. The corporate caters to city Indian households through which a vital proportion of adults and kids are protein poor and is concentrated on offering handy, ready-to-eat, excessive protein, excessive fiber choices. In its first yr since launch, Gladful has served greater than 60,000 shoppers.  

Parul is a shopper packaged items specialist and beforehand spent 15 years constructing and scaling manufacturers at Mondelez India. As a mom looking for excessive protein meals, she seen a hole in the Indian market and determined to leverage her skilled and private expertise to launch a brand new model aimed on the snacking section. With Gladful, Parul hopes to construct a sustainability-focused firm that’s good for each physique and planet. 

Rebecca Widmer, CEO & Co–Fobelow of BitVision

Based in 2022, BitVision is a Vietnam primarily based fintech firm that develops cryptocurrency asset administration and accounting software program. The company streamlines monetary operations for companies that use blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs. BitVision’s merchandise assist CFOs and CPAs handle essential accounting and reporting necessities for digital property in a simple, clear, and regulatorily compliant method. 

Rebecca, a local of Switzerland, is a finance skilled whose profession previous to BitVision included work for the Swiss tax division and personal consumer monetary accounting. As a founder, she is passionate about offering high-high quality options to shoppers to make their work extra efficient. Rebecca credit working towards yoga and Afro-Cuban dance as a significant supply of power to steadiness out the calls for of being a startup founder. 

Sarah Hilmy, Co–Founder of Oddysee

Based in 2022, Oddysee, is a Singapore primarily based firm that has launched a journey app designed to assist teams of associates collaboratively plan, manage, and ebook holidays collectively. Oddysee permits customers to uncover cool locations and share the very best journey suggestions from all over the world.  

Sarah was born and raised within the Maldives and spent 10 years dwelling within the UK earlier than ultimately returning to Asia. Prior to founding Oddysee, she labored because the Head of Gross sales and Marketing for an exclusive-hire personal island within the Maldives, a rustic famend for luxurious tourism. Sarah’s in depth expertise within the journey and hospitality {industry} in addition to her world background have lent her a novel perspective into the wants of the travel-minded shopper. 

Sharon Li & Vanessa Chen, Co-Founders of CHOYS

Based in 2022, CHOYS is a Singapore primarily based insurtech firm that gives a holistic wellbeing subscription service to assist organizations customise worker advantages. The corporate’s platform makes use of knowledge analytics to create a profit expertise for each worker primarily based on their personal wants. CHOYS serves as a digital Chief Nicelybeing Officer, enabling employers to ship a extra humanized, data-driven work life tradition whereas enhancing worker influence.  

Sharon beforehand led the Innovation Mindset workforce inside the Chief Know-how Workplace at Barclays, the place she labored intently with startups, universities, and authoritiess to incubate modern fintech options. Because the CEO of CHOYS, her aim is to remodel the way in which organizations handle workers. Sharon is a certified Chartered World Administration Accountant and was acknowledged by Tech Ladies 100 and the Ladies in Fintech Powerlist in 2021.  

Vanessa is a second-time founder whose earlier expertise contains working throughout China and Southeast Asia for corporations reminiscent of Weibo & Momo. Her first startup was a cellular answer for vacationer refunds that gained traction with over 300 retailers and 500k followers. Vanessa holds a level in Actuarial Science and Economics from the State College of New York and is a passionate proponent of Variety, Fairness, and Inclusion. 

Yu Zhen “Yuzu” Tay, Co–Fobelow & CMO of Re:solid AI

Based in 2022, Re:solid AI is a Singapore primarily based synthetic intelligence firm that permits companies to create localized content material at scale by means of an intuitive net app. The company leverages generative AI to assist manufacturers produce shopper promoting that’s extra consultant and reflective of the inhabitantss they’re attempting to succeed in. Re:solid AI’s mission is to construct a good, unbiased, and inclusive world utilizing expertise.  

Yuzu previously held Gross sales and Marketing chiefship roles in the healthcare and media industries, expertise she now leverages because the Head of Product Advertising and marketing and Model Communications for Re:solid AI. She holds a degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Nationwide College of Singapore. Away from work, Yuzu enjoys lifting, cooking, and singing. 

Thao Hoang, Co–Founder & COO of Shelfi

Based in 2022, Shelfi is a Vietnam primarily based firm that is constructing a digital co-retailing platform to attach manufacturers with verified retailers. The corporate’s answer will present seamless stock administration and point-of-sale capabilities for manufacturers in search of to develop their footprint in each bodily world and e-commerce retail areas. 

Thao hails from a Vietnamese American household with a protracted history of entrepreneurship. She has lived, studied, and labored in three completely different continents over the previous 15 years whereas gaining a breadth of expertise throughout a number of industries. Her path to turning into a startup co-founder took Thao from insurance coverage and banking to e-commerce to industrial property, and now, to the Chief Business Officer of Shelfi. 

Thuong Luu, Co–Founder & COO of Edupops

Based in 2022, Edupops is a Vietnam primarily based firm that promotes training and be taughting by means of readily consumable, 1-minute movies. The company positions its answer as a micro-learning app that can educate customers one thing new a few chosen matter in a digestible and interesting style. 

Thuong was impressed to construct Edupops primarily based on her love of studying.  Earlier than beginning her entrepreneurial journey, Thuong worked for giant enterprises in Europe, together with Proctor & Gamble. She holds an Engineering diploma in Structure and Environmental Engineering from University of the West of England and along with Co-founder, presently serves as the Chief Working Officer of Edupops. 

Trang Nguyen, Co–Founder & CCO of NEOLOKA

Based in 2022, NEOLOKA is a Vietnam primarily based firm that provides environment friendly, last-mile supply options, serving to corporations minimize logistics prices and enhance buyer satisfaction. The corporate companions with a community of enterprisees that act as service factors to streamline the supply of items throughout Vietnam.  

Trang co-founded NEOLOKA as a second-time entrepreneur pushed by a crossion for product-market match. Her prior profession in Enterprise Growth offered ample studying opportunities, the place she typically found a discrepancy between buyer ache factors and the sorts of options corporations are trying to promote. Trang credit these insights and experiences with placing her on the trail to entrepreneurship and thus empowering her to construct the correct instruments to handle buyers’ precise wants. 

Wanjun Yap, Co–Founder of gool.

Based in 2021, gool. is a Singapore primarily based firm that is constructing instruments to simplify the creation of putting up with manufacturers, from ideation to launch. The firm’s platform helps customers conceptualize a design, supply white-label merchandise, and make strategic selections about goal market and viewers. 

Wanjun co-founded gool. with a imaginative and prescient to champion the entrepreneurial spirit in each creator. Previous to turning into an entrepreneur, she held Sales, Business Development and Brand Management roles throughout the retail {industry}, most just lately as a Enterprise Growth Supervisor at Lazada. In launching gool., Wanjun has united her ardour for innovation and dedication to make a long-lasting distinction on the planet.  

To be taught extra about the advantages accessible to members of Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, enroll in the present day. 

Extra about Antler: Antler believes the duty of the enterprise capital (VC) {industry} to be an engine of optimistic world transformation has by no means been better. Their second ESG and Affect Report shares learnings on how VC corporations will help corporations transfer the world ahead and create sustainable worth from the outset. 

Tags: Antler, fundraising, Grants