Diverse teams create more value. Here's how we'll get there.

As the Nordic tech scene continues to grow, gender diversity in the field is at a standstill. We need more female investors, and we need more women to realise that they, indeed, have the power and potential to become investors and entrepreneurs themselves. That's why we’re bringing together some of the most prominent voices on how we can encourage more women into the startup world.  

We welcome you to a day of workshops, networking, discussions, and inspiring talks, with female entrepreneurship and investing in focus. As diversity is the target we want to see both men and women in the audience.

Get involved in the discussion. Get your ticket today.

All you need to know

Crash Course "How to invest in startups":

  • The event takes place at Minc, Anckargripsgatan 3, 21119 Malmö
  • Doors open at 08:20, breakfast is served at 08:30
  • The Crash Course starts at 09:00 and takes place in Startup Labs at Minc

Pink Capital:

  • The event starts at 10:00 and takes place in Startup Labs at Minc, Anckargripsgatan 3, 21119 Malmö
  • Lunch is included and served at 12:00

Nordic Female Investor Meetup:

  • The event takes place at Studio, Nordenskiöldsgatan 24, Malmö
  • Doors open at 12:30, and the event starts at 13:00
  • There will be two coffee breaks throughout the day
  • The event ends at 17:30 with a mingle with drinks and hors d'oeuvres at Minc Lounge, Anckargripsgatan 3, 21119 Malmö
Register now

Program

08:30

Welcome and breakfast @ Minc

Hosted in Minc Startup Labs, a breakfast will be served followed by a crash course in investing. Participation in the morning sessions are free-of-charge but registration is required. Number of seats are limited.

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09:00

Crash Course “How to invest in startups”

In this session, aimed at investors and aspiring investors, you'll learn the do's and don'ts when it comes to investing in startups.

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Minc
10:00

Pink Capital

Next up is the pitching event for female-founded startups, facilitated by Pink Capital. Nine startups are pitching for investors and we've also invited a panel with representatives from Schibsted Growth, Almi Invest, Norrsken and Backing Minds.

The pitching startups are: Panion, Riteband, Hoofstep, StoryTourist, Terst, HiveNetwork, Anatomic Studios, The Faves App, and Worldsmarathons.

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Minc
12:00

Lunch Break @ Minc

Lunch time! Take the opportunity to talk to the entrepreneurs, or get some fresh air before we continue the event over at STUDIO. 

Lunch is included for those with an "All In" ticket or a "Pink Capital" ticket.

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Minc
13:00

Nordic Female Investor Meetup @ Studio

Welcome and introductions by Maddy Savage.

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STUDIO Malmö
13:15

Embracing the opportunities of AI with ethics in focus

with Anna Felländer

In a world of data and artificial intelligence, the question of ethics is becoming increasingly important. How will AI affect our society, how can algorithms support a company’s or even society’s values, and what challenges lies in the fact that there are so few female programmers? Learn how AI can be used in your company to solve real problems in a better way and why - in a digitized world - women in tech and entrepreneurship are even more important. 

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13:45

A scientific view of female risk-tasking

with Gunilla Sydsjö

Studies show that men and women differ when it comes to taking financial risks, but is that always true and in that case, what’s the reason behind it? Dive into the scientific wonders of female risk taking with Gunilla Sydsjö.

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14:05

The route to Skåne’s first female-led tech exit

with Elisabeth Brevenson

Hear the story about southern Sweden’s first female-led tech exit and how it came that someone without an engineering background, founded a multi-million tech company. In this talk, Elisabeth will share her insights about all things entrepreneurship - from securing capital to making an exit. 

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14:25

Why start a VC fund investing only in women-led tech companies globally?

with Heather Henyon

While female founders are increasingly able to access capital for seed rounds, we know that they only account for 2% of global venture capital investment. Given that they often outperform their male peers, there is a strong financial opportunity to generate returns while increasing access to capital for women.  Yet, this isn’t happening, and it’s a problem worldwide. Learn why Mindshift is investing in female founders in the Middle East, Europe, and the US.

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14:45

Coffee break

15:10

Female investors changing the startup world

In these two sessions, we’ll take a closer look at different perspectives of investing. We’ll discuss whether it’s a financial disadvantage to be a female founder, why only a minority of the invested venture capital goes to female entrepreneurs, and finally, what we can do to get more women into investing.

  • How does a VC firm work with investment diversity?
    with Kristina Söderberg, SEB Venture Capital
    How can investors and banks contribute to making the financial sector less intimidating and what is SEB doing on the matter?

  • Female business angels – still as rare as unicorns
    with Boel Swartling, business angel
    It may sound hard, but all you need is some money and a deal-flow to start investing. So why are female business angels so underrepresented? We're obviously still looking at structural issues. These and other questions will be addressed with some ideas to change the scene.
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15:45

Panel discussion: Are women afraid of financial risk?

On the panel: Anna Felländer, Boel Swartling, Heather Henyon, Kristina Söderberg, Gunilla Sydsjö

Studies show that women hold more than half of all the wealth in the US, yet women in the financial sector are as rare as business angels. So if women have the money, why are they not more active in investing? What can be done to change this pattern?

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16:10

Short break

Refreshments from Caliente and Dejunked

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16:20

Female entrepreneurs on the go!

Three female entrepreneurs share their inspiring journey and insights from building a global venture. They might have different background and represent different sectors, but they all have a couple of things in common: the wish to change the world and raise venture capital. Hear their stories and their best tips on how to build a growth company that attract investors. 

  • BoostThyroid, Dr. Vedrana Högqvist Tabor
  • Djunked, Catherine Bentzel and Sarah Weibull
  • Riteband, Linda Portnoff
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17:05

Panel discussion: How do we get more women to build tech companies?

On the panel: Elisabeth Brevenson - entrepreneur, Charlotta Alegria Ursing - Minc, Charlotte Ahlgren-Moritz - vice president Malmö University, Tone Pedersen - Pink Programming, Ann-Sofie Hörlin – Almi Invest

It's common knowledge that we need more ITC educated women. At the same time, many societal challenges could be solved with tech. Is there a need for a new version of the ITC education, more attractive to women? How could we support more female (non-tech) entrepreneurs to use tech to solve problems?

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17:30

Mingle with drinks and hors d'oeuvres @ Minc

Confirmed speakers

Catherine Bentzel & Sarah Weibull
Founders of Djunked

Sarah Weibull and Catherine Bentzel are co-founders of Dejunked AB, a company dedicated to ”de-junking” prepackaged on-the-go snacks. These two long-time friends found themselves facing the same problem of balancing family life and work with a healthy lifestyle, especially when it came to quick and practical snacks while traveling or before the gym. 

Sarah, working as a consultant at a big IT company and Catherine, as a marketer in the biotech industry for almost 10 years, together decided to take the leap out of their comfort zone and challenge the existing food industry with new, innovative, healthy snack options. Organic, free from added sugars and unnatural additives and easy to bring along was the goal. 

Late 2014 they started building their company and working on the first product line and finally, in October 2016, CHIAGO was launched in big city supermarkets in Sweden. Quickly the word started to spread about this organic, additive-free, healthy chia smoothie in a squeezie. Health stores, online shops, and supermarkets across the country started selling the product. A few months later things really started to happen, international distributors started to show interest and CHIAGO was awarded "health snack of the year” by Swedens leading health magazine. Now in 2018, Sarah and Catherine are busy working on the next step, planning for new, innovative healthy products for a busy lifestyle.

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Linda Portnoff
Founder of Riteband

Linda Portnoff is the founder and CEO of the music exchange Riteband. She holds a Ph.D. in accounting and finance and has done research on the changes in the music industry landscape since the beginning of the 21st century. She is the author of the yearly statistics report “The Swedish Music Industry in Numbers” and has worked closely with the Swedish Government on Sweden’s export strategy for the cultural and creative industries. She is an international keynote speaker on the music industry, the development of the intangible economy and the creative industries’ challenges and possibilities. The last few years she has been invited to share her expertise all over the world ranging from the Nordic region to the United States, China, Kenya and Colombia. 

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Heather Henyon
Founding General Partner, Mindshift Capital

Heather Henyon is Founding General Partner of Mindshift Capital, a venture fund investing in women-led technology companies globally, and Founder of the Women’s Angel Investor Network (WAIN), the first and largest women’s angel group in the Middle East.  An activist venture investor with a passion for fintech and women-led start-ups, Heather has over 80 direct and fund investments in the US, Europe and Middle East. She started her career on Wall Street and has almost 20 years of experience in venture finance, entrepreneurship, emerging markets, angel investing, fintech, crowdfunding, credit, microfinance and impact investment.  Heather is on the Investment Committee of Dubai Angel Investors and US-based NextWave Impact Fund. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Sekem Holding Group in Egypt and several Advisory Boards. Heather has been nominated as “Investor of the Year” by Arabian Business in 2016 and 2017.  She holds an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University and a BA from Oberlin College.  Heather lives in Dubai, UAE.  

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Anna Felländer
Senior Advisor, The Boston Consulting Group

Anna Felländer has extensive experience in analyzing how digitalization is affecting organisations, society and the economy. She has published a number of reports on the subject, for example on e-commerce, Fin Tech and the sharing economy. She currently holds positions in academia, government, the digital start-up scene and large organisations focusing on digitalisation (special focus on Artificial Intelligence and Ethics). She is affiliated to the Royal Institute of Technology. Also, she is a Senior Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group and an advisor to the Minister of Digitalisation. She is also a board member and expert advisor to digital startups focusing on Artificial Intelligence and has recently joined the board for Transportstyrelsen.

Felländer has been working with the Swedish government for ten years and has held the positions as Chief Economist and Digital Economist at Swedbank. Felländer has a Master of Science in International Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics.

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Elisabeth Brevenson
Founder of Beepsend

Elisabeth has almost 20 years of experience creating and launching Internet applications of all shapes and sizes. With a passion for starting and growing new endeavours, she has the vision to see what works and why people will be drawn to certain services and products. Her tenacity and innovation have been recognized by the industry with various accolades, including: Business Woman of the Year (Dagens Industri); Technology Fast 500 EMEA winner Telecommunications/Networking (Deloitte), Entrepreneur of the Year (City of Malmö); Shooting Star, Entrepreneur of the Year (EY Ernst & Young); and Pioneer of the Year in Skåne (ALMI).


In 2006 Elisabeth founded Beepsend, a multi-million global SMS messaging provider company once named one of the fastest growing tech companies in EMEA. Known as a savvy negotiator with strong business development and relationship building skills, she served as CEO for 11 years. Her professional motto: If the elevator doesn’t work, we will take the stairs, but we’re going to the top. Beepsend was acquired by the San Francisco cloud based communications platform Twilio in 2017.

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Dr. Vedrana Högqvist Tabor
Founder of BOOST Thyroid

Vedrana is a cancer scientist turned entrepreneur, the CEO and co-founder of BOOST Thyroid, a health tech startup focused on improving lives of people with autoimmune diseases through information, data science and machine learning. Vedrana believes that the right and access to health information should be one of our basic human rights.

Born in Zagreb, Croatia, Vedrana obtained her PhD at Humboldt University Berlin, and has worked on cancer research in some of the world's most renowned institutions, such as Karolinska Institutet. Before founding BOOST Thyroid Vedrana was Director of Scientific Research at the period tracking app Clue.

Vedrana is a digital health advocate and a frequent speaker on the power of digital tools at TEDx, WIRED Health and universities such as Oxford, Stanford and Columbia. She has published several peer-reviewed research articles on intersection of digital health and patient empowerment.

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Gunilla Sydsjö
Professor Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University

The overall purpose in Gunilla's professional working life, both in clinical as well as in research, have been on bio-psychosocial approaches of reproduction, reproductive epidemiology, and women’s health, as well as child and family development. She also has a large focus on human behavior and communication skills both in research and in her clinical work.

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Kristina Söderberg
SEB Venture Capital

Kristina is Investment Manager at SEB Venture Capital since 2010, with focus on Fintech’s. She has been with the SEB Group since 2004, starting as a trainee in Merchant Banking, thereafter working with business development and sales of financial services. Kristina holds an M.S. in Business Administration from Uppsala University (2002), with studies at Freiburg Universität and Copenhagen Business School.

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Boel Swartling
Angel Investor/Working chairman

Boel Swartling has a business background as marketing manager and general manager in the IT/media/consumer goods sectors. She has a passion for business development and entrepreneurship and has served on a number of boards and committees related to startup activities and the Stockholm startup scene. For the past 10 years her main focus has been investment management and direct investments in social- and environmental impact startups.

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Moderator

Maddy Savage

Maddy Savage is a former BBC journalist turned Nordic tech specialist. She relocated to Sweden from her native Britain in 2014, and has since then made a name for herself on the Nordic tech scene. Among other things, she's moderated some of the region's largest and most prominent tech events, including Slush, STHLM Tech Fest and Stockholm Women in Tech Festival.

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