The Female Founders Alliance has a brand new home. Today, we are thrilled to announce a broad national partnership with WeWork Labs, setting the stage for a meaningful collaboration that will benefit all our members — and every female entrepreneur who is a WeWork member, too. Together, FFA and WeWork labs will build a more inclusive global startup community, bridging the gap between female and underrepresented founders and the broader startup ecosystem.
WeWork Labs is an exciting homebase for the Female Founders Alliance. Their focus on incubating scalable startups, providing members with access to the best resources and opportunities from local investors and an established community, is well aligned and highly beneficial to our mission of accelerating female founders’ success.
A note from WeWork Labs leaders
WeWork Labs has built a truly special leadership team (fun fact: half of their entire team are women, many of whom are former founders themselves). In particular, I am excited to work with Elizabeth Scallon, Head of WeWork Labs NW, and Roee Adler, Global Head of WeWork Labs, who have in the past months demonstrated their commitment to our shared mission and partnership. Here’s what they had to say:
From Elizabeth Scallon, Head of WeWork Labs NW: “Partnering with Leslie and the Female Founders Alliance allows us to align with an incredible organization that is doing amazing work to accelerate female founders’ success. By leveraging the WeWork Labs platform, we have the unique opportunity to bring more female entrepreneurs together, providing them with greater accessibility, custom programming, and an established community of like-minded entrepreneurs. I can’t wait to see what we will accomplish together.”
From Roee Adler, Global Head of WeWork Labs: “The Female Founders Alliance joins WeWork Labs at an exciting time as we continue to expand our program to welcome leaders and organizations that share our vision in building an inclusive startup ecosystem. FFA and their accelerator program, Ready Set Raise, has already made a major impact in supporting female entrepreneurs and together we can create even more opportunities for startups of any background to succeed.”
Read on for more details about this new partnership. And come visit us sometime — you’ll find us at WeWork Labs!
What this means
Starting this summer, FFA will host our accelerator, Ready Set Raise, at WeWork Labs’ offices. Ready Set Raise is a pitch-focused accelerator for female CEOs of scalable companies. To make it as accessible as possible for real women, the majority of the program is conducted remotely — and this new partnership will ensure that all Ready Set Raise participants can log in to Ready Set Raise activities from their local WeWork spaces for the duration of the program.
FFA was born as a grassroots group of female founders and CEOs in Seattle who wanted to help each other succeed. As we’ve grown, women across America have asked to join our community and requested that we visit their cities and host events closer to them. That’s why, later this year, we will host special FFA events at WeWork Labs spaces across the country. Our partnership with WeWork Labs is our biggest step to date to reach female founders everywhere they are, and the first of many more to come.
Finally, our partnership will provide substantial benefits to all FFA members and all women who are in the WeWork family. All FFA members will enjoy one free month of coworking at any WeWork office nationally. In return, FFA will offer benefits to all WeWork members who qualify to join our community, and we will welcome all WeWork Labs members, women and men alike, to FFA events.
Building an inclusive startup ecosystem
Every space that welcomes female founders and prioritizes their success is a space that we want to support and see succeed, and we will continue to collaborate with any and all who promote our mission of accelerating female founder success. We are thrilled to partner with WeWork Labs as together, we are better positioned to achieve our shared commitment to building a more inclusive startup community and bridging the gap between underrepresented founders and the growing startup ecosystem.
