Growth for everyone: Growth Academy partners with Google
How Google for Startups x Growth Academy support women founders to drive sustainable growth
Similar to our public growth strategy programs, Growth Academy and Google for Startups DACH created an exclusive invite-only program to support the growth of startups founded by women (original post by Google).
The product is launched, the first customers have been acquired and the company is developing at a rapid pace. This exciting phase of a startup is characterized by one thing in particular: The company is ready to grow. Now startups have to invest in marketing and sales as well as in product and service development to gain new customers and market share.
This is easier said than done. That's why Google for Startups partnered with Growth Academy: To support growth stage founders with a targeted, invite-only program where they can learn results-oriented growth strategies to achieve systematic and, more importantly, sustainable growth.
For this year's cohort, eight female founders were selected who are in this exciting growth phase:
Rica Klitzke, co-founder of fin:marie, and her team will join this year's female founder cohort. The mission of her company, a virtual financial coaching solution for women, is to provide more financial independence and access to the financial market for women.
“Especially in the startup world, where female founding teams are still a minority, the exchange and mutual support with other female founders are an important foundation and advantage for success.”
—Rica Klitzke, Co-Founder & CMO, fin:marie
Together with her co-founders Karolina Decker and Leitha Matz, she realized that many women lack self-confidence, or simply a point of contact, when it comes to investing and similar financial matters. Taking into account that poverty amongst seniors is currently rising, this matter gets even more pronounced. Being one of the first companies in Europe to tackle this challenge, fin:marie is currently pioneering the female fintech segment.
Empowerment is at the core of fin:marie’s company values and it also plays an important role for the female founders themselves: "Especially in the startup world, where female founding teams are still a minority, the exchange and mutual support with other female founders are an important foundation and advantage for success ," Rica reports. The opportunity for networking and business synergies was ultimately what led her to participate in the Growth Academy female founders cohort, in addition to the extensive and practical growth coaching sessions.
A catalyst for digital companies
In our individual, in-depth program Rica and seven other aspiring female founders receive growth advisory as well as support and best practices for Google products. They will also be able to connect with the global startup community which provides vital industry contacts and other important synergies. Additionally, the female founders are enrolled in a private and personalized version of the Growth Strategy Deep Dive course consisting of growth frameworks, lectures, toolkits, case studies, workshop modules, and more.
“Prior to founding Growth Academy, I worked as Growth Lead at Google for over seven years, including several years in the Silicon Valley headquarters.
There, I helped to develop growth strategies for products such as the Google Assistant, which grew from 0 to 500 million users in a short time. I realized that Silicon Valley has a different approach and mindset to growing companies than the rest of the world.
That's why I founded Growth Academy, to bring these growth strategies and the corresponding mindset to the rest of the world. We help entrepreneurs and digital professionals to acquire and retain customers in a systematic and sustainable way.”
—Nikolas Vogt, Founder & CEO Growth Academy
The participants of the Female Founders cohort 2022
Who are this year's Google for Startups x Growth Academy participants and what problems are their startups working on? Let’s take a look at the aspiring female founders and their companies:
Dr. Sarah Bechstein - Founder of FORMEL Skin, Berlin
With FORMEL Skin, the dermatology specialist and her team of medical and pharmaceutical experts offer the possibility of obtaining individually tailored care and treatment products as well as continuous medical advice without having to rely on appointments. The company takes a holistic approach to treatment, including areas such as nutrition.
Maria de Bettencourt Tavares - Founder & CEO of LOONAWELL, Zurich
The doctor of biology, cancer researcher and entrepreneur worked intensively on the interaction between nutrition and health. And not only in humans. With her company LOONAWELL, she offers nutritious, organically produced dog food, which thanks to its high quality is intended to ensure a long, healthy dog life.
Dr. Vanessa van den Boom - Founder & CEO of Mamigut, Frankfurt
As a PhD economist and mother of two children, Dr. Vanessa van den Boom founded MamiLab to develop MamiGut, a vitamin and protein shake for women who want to have children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, which is not only effective but also pleasant for users who struggle with pregnancy sickness, for example.
Rica Klitze - Co-founder and CMO of fin:marie, Berlin
As mentioned earlier, Rica and her co-founders are conquering the Female Fintech market. Their personalized and customer-focused financial coaching breaks the "taboo topic" of finance and offers very targeted advice on the path to economic equality.
Sophia Sauter - Founder & CEO of baybies, Munich
The initial idea for baybies - her company for sustainable, vegan and especially gentle baby care products - came to founder Sophia Sauter based on her own experiences with highly sensitive skin. Today, her search for the best ingredients and producers flows into the final product.
Margaret Trainor - Founder & GEO of Atmo Home, Berlin
With Atmo Home, founder Margaret and her team have rethought cleaning products in favor of the environment, practicality and space savings. The team makes sure that not only the product itself meets high ecological standards, but that the product is environmentally friendly throughout its entire life cycle.
Katharina Wäschenbach - Co-Founder & CEO of Dearest, Berlin
Dearest describes itself as the "#1 app for healthy relationships" and offers users:inside the opportunity to get to know themselves, their needs and those of their partner better through coaching and knowledge transfer, in order to work on a good partnership or to overcome crises. Katharina and her co-founder and partner Lukas thus complement the rather fast-moving dating (app) scene with their sustainable love approach.
Carina Zehetmaier - Co-Founder & CEO of Taxtastic, Vienna
Taxtastic offers different API (Application Programming Interfaces) that are able to understand and contextually allocate tax-relevant expenses. For example, the Vision API can read and independently evaluate cash receipts. Founder Carina is a legal expert and human rights lawyer and has been working with new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, for many years.
Almost all of the founders are planning a fundraising round this year. Growth Academy is the perfect preparation to boost their metrics up for an upcoming Series A and become "VC ready". We are looking forward to working with these female founders to grow their companies and successfully prepare them for fundraising!
If this got you excited about outcome-oriented growth strategies, make sure to check out our regular growth strategy courses designed by leaders from Silicon Valley and the European Tech Scene (Google, Amazon, TikTok, Spotify, Skyscanner, and more).
