Lish launches accelerator for women-founded startups

Lish is a Swiss-based non-profit network dedicated to empowering for female entrepreneurs and innovators. The organisation seeks to solve some problems that female entrepreneurs face, through provision of services aimed at fully supporting the development of women-founded startups.

After their October kick-off and startup summit, Lish has now launched an accelerator for female founded startups. “Launching an Accelerator was a natural progression as it allows us to offer everything we had initially intended but in a more coherent way that we hope will better help startups, say Suchi Dubey, co-founder of Lish.

The Six months program offers of a wide range of activities tailored to enable startups grow their venture and accelerate their business development processes. Organised activities include; 1-1 mentoring, regular workshop series provided by industry professionals, startup experts, professors and lawyers to help female entrepreneurs in a variety of must-have skills. Workshops will cover essential topics including finance, human resources and teambuilding, leadership skills, marketing strategy, social media, among others. In the pitching sessions startups will practice their pitch and presentation style as well as get feedback before they present them to experts and investors. The programs and events will be held at partner coworking spaces in Lausanne but also at other locations including Zurich and Geneva.

At the end of the program, startups will have the opportunity to present their business in front of industry experts, potential investors and a large audience. Winners will be selected with an equity free prize of up to CHF 15,000.

Applications may be submitted not later than 28 February 2018. Eligible to apply are innovative early-stage startups from all branches including tech and engineering, medicine and agriculture. The startup must not older than 3 years, has at least one female founder and a business which is already launched or preparing to launch soon. At least one of the founders is based in Switzerland at the time of the Program.