An organisation dedicated to elevating female founders in the North of England, Lifted Ventures, recently delivered its dedicated-female founder innovation event, the Athena Festival, to inspire Northern entrepreneurs.
Hosted at the University of Leeds on October 15, the festival celebrated innovation, investment and inclusion, with female founders at its heart. The sell-out event was attended by over 120 delegates and focused on promoting values of wisdom, bravery and resourcefulness within the female founder community.
The Athena Festival brought together female founders, aspiring entrepreneurs, and business leaders from across the North of England to network and share insights, with expert-led workshops, mentorship sessions and pitching competitions. The inaugural event was designed to empower female entrepreneurs beyond London, and explored the unique challenges and opportunities female founders experience within northern regions, as well as providing opportunity to share best-in-class thinking on early-stage investment.
Founded by two investors, Jordan Dague and Helen Oldham have unique experience building inclusive investment capacity, growing networks and education communities, and equipping aspiring entrepreneurs with an understanding of funding.
Lifted Ventures has a longstanding relationship with NatWest as a key partner of their previous venture, Fund Her North, and the bank has provided funding to facilitate a step-by-step finance programme, designed to take early-stage founders through the process of securing investment and working with them to ensure they are business ready.
Jordan Dargue, Co-Founder of Lifted Ventures said of the event: “The Athena Festival was an amazing opportunity for interested entrepreneurs to seize an invaluable opportunity to connect, learn, and grow alongside like-minded innovators, with the possibility of securing investment from a fellow female entrepreneur.
“NatWest has been a longstanding support of our business and helped shape our journey to where we are today. It’s amazing to have other businesses involved in the event who have also worked with NatWest to learn and scale.”
Helen Oldham, Co-founder at Lifted Ventures said: “Athena is the Greek goddess associated with wisdom, bravery and resourcefulness. Throughout the day we focused on those key attributes to empower female and diverse founders with knowledge through the series of workshops, talks, and lightning pitches.”
A number of female entrepreneurs, supported by NatWest Accelerator Hubs in the North of England, were in attendance including, Caroline Kindy, founder of Yorkshire Swim Works, a social infrastructure project which encourages outdoor swimming with a safe, naturally, filtered site in Bradford. Also, in attendance was, Sophie Zienkiewicz, founder of Carbon Neutral Fuels, an award-winning enterprise committed to decarbonising hard-to-electrify industries through synthetic fuel production, and Helen Philippo, founder of Clot Protect Therapeutics, a University of Leeds spin-out company developing a new drug that will act on the blood clotting pathway to limit blood loss in several clinical settings, including traumatic injury.
Athena Festival attendees had the opportunity to hear from inspiring female speakers such as Tulip Siddiq, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Lisa Clifford, Founder of The Meant for Move Movement and keynote speaker, Adah Parris. Many of the businesses involved in the event have received support as part of NatWest’s Entrepreneur Accelerator Programme, which aims to help businesses scale and grow through its tailored business support and network of likeminded businesses.
Heidi Simpson, Regional Accelerator Director at NatWest said, “Supporting female entrepreneurs in the North is crucial for driving innovation and economic growth. The Athena Festival provides an unparalleled opportunity for local women to connect, learn, and be inspired by industry leaders.
Our longstanding partnership with Lifted Ventures underscores NatWest’s commitment to empowering female founders and fostering a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
