The $15,000 Female Founder Grant by Edition has opened for applications for Australian and New Zealand women.
Edition, founded in 2020, is a design-led studio for startups and growing tech companies. The company, cofounded by Jodie and Scott Kennedy, launched the grant last year after realising it had worked with more founders named Dave than women over five years.
“Companies that we work with generally reflect where venture capital goes. By 2030 we’d love to be working with as many women as we are men, but the industry has a long way to go to get to that place,” Jodie Kennedy said, adding that in the last 12 months, less than 10% of Edition’s clients had women among the founders, and only 2.5% were women-only founding teams.
Of course venture funding aligns with those figures.
“The grant won’t fix the funding gap, but it removes one real barrier: getting support with the strategy, positioning and brand story right at the stage when a founder can least afford to access that help,” she said.
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The grant’s inaugural recipient, Leila Benab, founded of airline decision intelligence platform ReluGroup. She’s since raised an $880,000 pre-Seed round and signed on a large airline group as a customer.
“When I applied, I had an early prototype and a lot of conviction, but not much else,” says Benab.
“The grant gave me access to an invaluable foundation that I couldn’t have done on my own: help with brand positioning, a refined product strategy, and a version of the story that investors and customers clearly understood.”
The 2026 recipient will receive a $15,000 suite of Edition’s services, from in-person workshops and mentorship, market and competitor research, to product strategy input and pitch deck support.
Applications close Monday, July 27. To apply, email an introduction that covers your background and startup idea to hello@editiongroup.com, or visit editiongroup.com/female-founder-grant for more details.