Introduction: Women Entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs are growing in astonishing numbers. The best part is, that ventures founded by women are getting faster traction, better VC payouts, and in many cases more innovative and creative products. The spotlight is on women these days because in past years both venture capital and founders were dominated by men. Choosing the top women entrepreneurs is a heavy task though is worth keeping up on. In this article, you'll get a quick read about the growth in women entrepreneurs, the criteria when selecting women entrepreneurs, and 5 women entrepreneurs we chose as the top women founders of 2023 to keep your eye on in 2024.

Women Entrepreneurs are Growing

The growth in women entrepreneurs has been staggering.  According to ScaleUp Institute in their 2022 Index report, female founding scalable startups increased by %34.5 from 2020 to 2022 alone.   Statistica reported that over the past ten years in the US, female founders grew steadily at around 2% a year, and from 2019 to 2022 grew by about six percent with nearly 25% of total startups having a female founding member on their team. 

Criteria Selecting Women Entrepreneurs of 2023

Digging into women-led startups is a daunting task. One reason is that finding women founders who are CEOs is one thing, and another is getting the right data of Seed to Series B startups whose main founder is or was a female and the company is scaling is challenging to find. Therefore, the selection process for these top female founders is going to be both subjective in my intuition and data-based.  

Top 5 Women Entrepreneurs of 2023

1. Julie Bliss Mullen - Aclarity 
2. Suzanne Zamany Anderson - Nitrovolt 
3. Kate Kallot - Amini  
4. Aya Suzuki  - Aavia 
5. Liyana Sulaiman - Pollen 
   

4. Julie Bliss Mullen - Aclarity

Julie Mullen is co-founder and CEO of Aclarity, a VC-backed clean-tech startup developing and selling water treatment systems to clean the world's water and wastewater. Julie is a Ph.D. candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow (NSF-GRF) in Civil Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a research focus in innovative drinking water treatment solutions.

She's a scholar and an expert in her field with a passion for solving big problems, now an innovator and found a global problem that impacts billions of people that she's out to fix. Aclaity is cleaning wastewater which is something very challenging to third world countries. People die from their areas being overridden by waste. And due to Aclaity, and Julie's passion, soon deaths will decrease and people's health and prosperity will increase. This is why Julie is the number one best women entrepreneur of 2023.

2. Suzanne Zamany Anderson - Nitrovolt

Suzanne Anderson is co-founder and CEO of Nitrovolt, a chemical engineering company that synthesizes ammonia through nitrogen reduction converting it to energy. Their primary focus for now is helping farmers have a lower cost and sustainable means of energy and giving them control over their fertilizer production. Suzanne graduated from the Technical University of Denmark, with a Ph. D in Electrochemical studies. In her studies on ammonia, she developed an innovative process of synthesizing ammonia and using it for energy which spawned her idea for Nitrovolt. 

Being a Ph.D in her field, Suzanne is an expert, in both energy systems and means of sustainability. Sustainability is currently compromised worldwide, which elevates innovation in these industries to the highest levels. Sure, innovative technologies are going on in the world today, however, this breakthrough is one of the best out there and was founded by a woman. Healthcare is also great but there are an overwhelming amount of people working on health tech and not so many in energy or sustainability. For this reason, Suzanne is the #2 top women entrepreneur in 2023.  

3. Kate Kallot - Amini 

Kate Kallot is co-founder and CEO of Amini, a data-infrastructure company empowering African farmers with quality AI environmental data in Africa and worldwide. Kate graduated with a Masters in Marketing from the EFAP École des nouveaux métiers de la University. Kate is working in a growing field with a growing demographic that has investors flowing too, which brings more president to growth with Amini. She's also worked at companies such as Intel which gave her a lot of enterprise knowledge and understanding of the market potential. 

With Amini, Kate is also impacting thousands of people across Africa with a data platform that is helping farmers understand their landscape more effectively with data. This is game-changing for farmers who otherwise haven't had access to this type of service. Furthermore, Amini is in a market that can grow globally, which is huge in regards to scaling the startup.  Giving farmers access to better data that will help the environment grow better crops has massive impact on humanity and being in a B2B spade that and grow globally is huge for Kate. This is why Kate is the #3 best entrepreneur of 2023. 

4. Aya Suzuki - Aavia

Aya Suzuki is the co-founder of Aavia, the first ovarian tracker app. Aya graduated with a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. Aya saw a need where women are challenged every month, not fully understanding their hormonal cycles and how they affect them.  Founded in June of 2017, after 5 funding rounds and six investors, Aavia raised $6.9MM towards their goals and revenue seems to be growing according to statements made by the CEO. 

With little experience as a founder and new to the market fresh out of college, Aya took a leap of faith after seizing a vision and seeing an opportunity. Today, she is hopeful and excited about the future of Aavia. As 2024 has kicked off with new employees and product launches, Aya is honing in on the company and becoming a confident CEO. Aavia has a unique component to it as there hasn't been any SaaS innovation in the field of women's menstrual cycles and helping women to view their cycles and suggestions on what they could do to help and understand their bodies more effectively. This is why Aya is our fourth-best women entrepreneur of 2023. 

5. Liyana Sulaiman - Pollen

Liyana Sulaiman is co-founder and CTPO of Pollen, a company focused on creating sustainable solutions through its B2B liquidation platform. Fin-tech is a major field and liquidating products can be difficult to make good decisions when your business doesn't have the right data points to justify the liquidation. Pollen helps companies to manage these difficult decisions and be prepared well in advance mitigating bell-curves and reducing product churn. 

Liyana is an experienced entrepreneur on her second successful venture making her a prominent figure in the technology space. She's led the creation of Pollen which is a unique fin-tech platform in the space making it easier to gain traction and penetrate the market. This is why Liyana won number 5 on the Best Women Entrepreneur of 2023.  

Conclusion: women entrepreneurship is growing 

Women's entrepreneurship has blossomed over the past ten years. There are more and more investors in the space giving women a fighting chance to be successful. The women entrepreneurs above are great examples of women working hard with creative ideas that are capitalizing on market opportunities. From healthcare, environmental innovation, and fin-tech to sustainability, women are pioneering technology in all sectors and industries. In many ways women are compiling better businesses than men these days and its great to watch. Let's keep an eye of how women tackle more problems in 2024. 

Citation links:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1214100/startups-usa-percentage-female-founder/

https://www.scaleupinstitute.org.uk/reports/scaleup-female-founders-index-2022/