Aurora Tech Award is building a global ramp for female founders to take off. A 2021 World Bank report, In Search of Equity: Exploring Africa’s gender gap in startup finance, revealed that only 3% of startup funding from 2013 to 2021 was issued to all-female founding teams. That is, compared with 76% of funding that went to all-male teams.
The Aurora Tech Award, powered by inDrive, is raising the margins for female founders with its annual global prize for women entrepreneurs in tech. It is the only startup award exclusively for women building in emerging tech markets, and it strives to bridge the gap in funding for female founders. In the last three years, Africans have won the prize: Solape Akinpelu from Nigeria (2025), Folake Owodunni from Nigeria (2024), Sarah Phiri-Molema from Botswana took third place (2024), and Elizabeth Mwangi from Kenya (2023).
These women all designed impactful solutions to equip other women and the communities they live in. Akinpelu, is making finance more inclusive for the African woman with Hervest, while Phiri-Molema, founder of Deaftronics is engineering solar-powered hearing aids. Mwangi, determined to provide economic support for low-income earners, built ‘Gwiji for Women’, a mobile app that connects cleaners with their clients in Nairobi, Kenya. Owodunni, founder of Emergency Response Africa, who won first place in the prize in 2024, shares, “The biggest gap I see now is in mentorship and early-stage technical support. Many women have brilliant ideas but lack the right networks to refine, test, and scale them. With more collaborative programs that combine funding with technical mentorship, I believe we’ll see many more successful women-led startups emerging from Africa.”
One way Aurora is solving for this is through its core pillars: capital, connection, and community. Aside from providing capital, which is US$100,000 in non-dilutive funding, awarded to three winners, Aurora also facilitates warm introductions to partner VC investors and meetings with other entrepreneurs, positioning female founders to build and scale better.
Why female founders matter
- One report by the Boston Consulting Group reveals that for every dollar invested, women-led startups generated $0.78 in revenue, while men-led startups generated $0.31.
- Another report by First Round Capital revealed that companies with at least one female founder deliver 63% better returns on investments
Owodunni emphasises this, “Being a woman has deeply influenced the way I lead. Women tend to build with empathy, we think about how systems affect real people, not just numbers… I think that’s what makes female-led innovation so powerful: we build for people, with people.”
She was prompted to design a solution with her startup, Emergency Response Africa, in 2017 while living in Canada. She recalls that her son fell ill suddenly, and she dialled 911, granting her swift access to healthcare.
“Within 10 minutes, trained paramedics were at our door,” she says. “That moment changed my perspective. I realised that if the same thing had happened back home in Nigeria, the outcome could have been tragically different.”
She co-founded ERA with Maame Poku, who also lost a loved one in Ghana due to delays in emergency response. Owodunni, who is committed to making healthcare more accessible across the continent, advises female founders to build and grow traction. “Let your results speak louder than your pitch deck. Investors follow traction, so start small, test your model, gather data, and build credibility.”
2026 open call: What’s on the table?
The Aurora Tech Awards are now open for applications. To participate, the startup is required to:
- Be founded or co-founded and led by a woman
- Have a functional prototype of a product
- Fit in the investment limit of $6 million in funding, including the seed round
- Be less than 5 years old
After a long listing and shortlisting process, the winners from the 2026 awards get:
- 1st place: US$50,000, 2nd place: US$30,000, 3rd place: US$20,000 in equity-free funding
- Access to VCs who back women-led startups
- Global media exposure and PR
- Benefits from our partners
- Entry into the community of female founders
- Connections, credibility, and opportunities that change everything
To join the move, head over to auroratechaward.com
