This year’s International Women’s Day was all about “Gender equality today for a sustainable future”. And here at Nauta, we know a thing or two about putting our money where our mouth is. Quite literally. With nearly twenty years’ experience of having “skin in the game” by investing in the technology of tomorrow, we know that to continue being at the forefront of innovation, diversity of thought and experience must be at the core of what we do.Within our portfolio, currently we have 15% of female founders with a further 48.9% in C-suite and leadership positions. As a pan-European VC that primarily invests in B2B software companies, we are proud to have 38% of women in our team spread across our three locations in London, Barcelona and Berlin each bringing in a wealth of knowledge and insight into their roles.Things can always be better. We know this. Most current data shows only 2% of venture capital funding went to female founders in 2021.We want to increase the volume on the conversation to bring about real change. This is why for this year’s IWD we reached out to the female stakeholders and asked them the loaded question:How can the start-up ecosystem in Europe help women have a more equitable future?Read below to find out their answers:

Cledara is the all-in-one SaaS purchasing, management and compliance for companies. The startup combines management tools for teams with a payments platform to deliver a solution for dynamic teams working in the subscription economy. Location: London, UK

Mercaux enables retailers to transform the customer shopping experience by bringing the benefits of digital into physical stores, delivering the speed, convenience, and personalisation of online into the hands of salespeople and customers. Location: London, UK

MishiPay brings the best of the online checkout experience to physical stores, giving shoppers the ability to scan and pay for their shopping using their mobile phones. Location: London, UK

Climedo have developed a cloud-based platform for cutting-edge clinical validation and post-market surveillance of medical devices and pharmaceutical products.Location: Munich, Germany

Hullabalook develop personalised product discovery experiences that allow shoppers to find the products they want to buy faster.Location: London, UK

Emjoy, the audio-based intimate wellbeing startup has made it its mission to close the orgasm gap by enabling women to discover their bodies and (re)gain confidence in their sex lives. Location: Barcelona, Spain

Napptive is a tooling platform to simplify the design, development, and maintenance of cloud native and edge-ready applications. The start-up is part of the Nauta Labs programme.Location: Barcelona, Spain

Pratima is a Venture Partner at Nauta Capital and is based in London. At Nauta, Pratima focuses on enterprise software and deep tech domains.Whether you're still at the drawing board with your start-up idea or a seasoned founder, you will find our list of resources helpful for whatever stage you're at on your entrepreneurial journey.As always, if you’re an ambitious b2b SaaS, Enterprise Software or b2b deep-tech early-stage startup in Europe, raising Seed or Series A then feel free to contact us.