International Female Founders

For organisations

Your offer gets found through us.

We do not build a parallel offer: we bring existing offers into a set process and give them reach among a target group that does not find them today.

The problem, backed by evidence

21 %
founders with a migration background in the German start-up ecosystem
Migrant Founders Monitor 2023
8,9 %
the same share in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Migrant Founders Monitor 2023
22 %
of all business start-ups in Germany, across all sectors
KfW Gründungsmonitor 2022

The target group is broader than the start-up scene: around 22 per cent of all business start-ups in Germany come from people who were not German citizens by birth, in the crafts, in trade, in the healthcare sector and in services. Many women who come here are qualified or highly qualified, and some of them work below their level of qualification.

On top of this, there is academic potential in MV: 1,584 women from abroad study at the state's universities, mainly in engineering, business, medicine and the natural sciences.

Sources: Migrant Founders Monitor 2023 · KfW Gründungsmonitor 2022 · Statistisches Amt MV, Statistischer Bericht B 313, winter semester 2024/25 · IAB Rostock 2024

Where local offers are still missing

Each field shows how many offers there are in a district for one stage of founding. The dashed fields are gaps, and if you offer something exactly there, or could, get in touch and we will add it.

Counted are the offers in our support finder, last checked 26.10.2026. An empty field means we don’t know of a local offer there yet, not that none exists. Each field opens the matching offers.

What you gain

This is not about support but about use: your programmes are found more often and taken up more often.

Reach for existing offers

Your workshop is matched to the founding stage in which it is needed, and that is also where it is found.

Visible to a target group that does not find you today

We reach the women through universities, communities and multipliers, and we do so in several languages.

Access to international talent

For co-founding, partnerships and joint ventures, above all through the Founders Festival.

Ways to work together

You decide how much you contribute, and even a single thing already helps.

The easiest way to start

Include your offer

Your workshop, advice or course is matched to the founding stage in which it is needed and listed there in the support finder. You do not have to build anything new for this, because we sort in what already exists.

The support finder already lists 112 offers, sorted by stage, location and language.

  • Joint events

    From an information event at a university to the Founders Festival, you bring the format and we bring the participants, or the other way round.

  • Mentoring by your staff

    Someone from your organisation supports a founder with their expertise for part of the way. We agree together beforehand how much time that means.

  • Spaces, expertise, workshops

    Small contributions help too, such as a room for an appointment, a specialist question that someone on your team can answer in ten minutes, or a place on a course you offer anyway.

  • Funding and sponsorship

    You can support individual formats with contributions in kind or in cash. We agree beforehand what becomes visible and how, because the project is publicly funded and bound by rules.

Impact and network

We deliberately present our goals as goals and not as results, because the network is only just being built.

20–30
participants in the Assessment
Target by 2028
12–16
pitches at the Founders Festival
Target by 2028
6–8
mentoring tandems
Target by 2028
4–8
business start-ups supported along the way
Target by 2028
Kofinanziert von der Europäischen Union (co-funded by the European Union)
State brand of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: MV tut gut.

The project International Female Founders MV is funded by the European Social Fund Plus of the European Union as part of the ESF Plus Programme 2021 to 2027 of the State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

With funds from the Ministry for Economy, Infrastructure, Tourism and Labour of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

About the funding