Start it @KBC and Women in Tech Belgium join forces to boost female tech entrepreneurship
Female founders remain a minority in the tech and startup world. Access to the right support often isn't equally distributed. That's exactly the gap Start it @KBC and Women in Tech Belgium are teaming up to close. We're proud to announce a new partnership with Women in Tech Belgium, the local chapter of the global Women in Tech network. Together, we want to give more female tech entrepreneurs the visibility, mentorship, and momentum they deserve to build a stronger pipeline of female-led tech projects in Belgium.
6% of the VC market. 15% of founders. Not enough.
The numbers speak for themselves. Globally, only about 15% of tech founders are women, and in Europe the share of female tech founders also remains under 15%. The funding gap is just as stark: female founders in Europe secured a mere 2.8% of all venture capital in 2023, and all-female founding teams still account for only 6% of the VC market today: a share that has barely grown in years. These figures show just how persistent the underrepresentation of women in tech and startups really is, and that's precisely where this partnership aims to make a difference.
As Europe’s largest startup accelerator, Start it @KBC has always believed that a stronger startup ecosystem is a more diverse one. Women in Tech shares that conviction on a global scale. Founded in 2018, Women in Tech has grown into a worldwide network of 350,000 members in 70 countries, all working toward one ambitious goal: empowering 5 million women by 2030.
Women in Tech Belgium is a much younger addition to that global movement: the local chapter has existed for just one year, yet has already gathered 1,000 members.
Closing the visibility gap
According to Zineb Bensaid, founder of the Women in Tech Belgium and Luxembourg chapter, the core issue is a lack of visibility: “Too few female tech entrepreneurs get the same exposure as their male counterparts, and that's precisely the problem Women in Tech Belgium wants to fix."
The partnership is about connecting the people who are ready to grow with the infrastructure that can help them do it. Women in Tech Belgium brings a fast-growing, engaged community of women in tech. Start it @KBC brings what it has offered founders since 2014: hands-on coaching, mentorship, a nationwide and international network, all without fees or equity taken.
By bringing these two ecosystems together, we want to make sure that ambitious women don't just have a network to lean on, but also a clear path toward the resources, mentors, and visibility that can help turn their projects into scalable businesses.
Female leadership at Start it @KBC
This partnership builds on something we've been working on for a while: making sure our own ecosystem reflects the diversity we want to see in Belgian tech. Start it @KBC has long paid attention to female entrepreneurship within its community: from dedicated resources on starting up as a woman founder, to actively encouraging more women to apply to the program and take up space in a startup landscape that is still, on average, male-dominated.
Partnering with Women in Tech Belgium is a natural next step: it lets us combine our accelerator's hands-on support with a community that's already doing the work of connecting, inspiring, and championing women in tech across the country.