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Good practice Imported

With Purpose - Startup School

Denmark · Copenhagen · National · See the Denmark profile

"With Purpose" is a Nordic initiative aimed at diminishing the gender gap in entrepreneurship by supporting female entrepreneurs with the necessary tools and connections to succeed in business creation and development. The program's core mission is to enhance skill sets, increase

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
With Purpose - Startup School — website
Power domain
Economic Power
Methods / tools
Gender Training, Competence development, Awareness-raising
Region (NUTS)
DK01
Keywords
Start-up School, Women in Entrepreneurship, Nordic Female Founders & Mentors Network, Skill-Building Workshops, Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship

Context

Despite companies with women founders or co-founders generating 45% more revenue than male-only-led companies, only 1.3% of total capital raised in the Nordics in 2019 went to female-founded teams (around 1% in Denmark, Sweden and Norway individually) — a stark investment and opportunity gap that 'With Purpose' set out to address.

Objectives

Diminish the gender gap in entrepreneurship by enhancing female entrepreneurs' skills, increasing their visibility, and building a Nordic network of female founders and mentors.

Activities

With Purpose offers workshops, networking opportunities and mentorship to Nordic female entrepreneurs, helping them build the tools and connections needed to start and grow businesses.

Conclusions

The record is a self-reported description of the initiative's mission and rationale (citing external investment-gap statistics); no independent evaluation of its own outcomes on founders' funding or business success is described.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — Low direct cost: workshop and mentorship delivery model rather than direct capital provision to founders.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Ongoing, scaling initiative across the Nordic region; no fixed end date given.
Staffing & skills
Mentors and workshop facilitators, Network coordinators building the Nordic female-founders/mentors network

Conditions for success

  • A critical mass of experienced mentors willing to support new founders
  • Regional (Nordic) framing to build a cross-border founder network
  • Clear rationale (documented investment gap) to attract participants/partners

Common failure modes

  • Skills/visibility support does not itself change VC investment decisions, so the underlying funding gap may persist
  • No independent evaluation of whether participants achieve improved funding or business outcomes
  • Relies on volunteer/mentor time

Where it fits

Governance type
NGO/founder-led initiative
Scale
national (with Nordic ambitions)
Income level
high-income (Nordic countries)

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes ESF+ — European Social Fund Plus

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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