20 of the companies on this year’s Sifted 100, a leaderboard of the UK and Ireland’s fastest-growing startups by revenue figures, were founded by women. It’s a stat worth celebrating but also one that reflects tech’s gender problem.
Female-founded startups in Europe raised a dismal 12% of all VC funding last year (a 12% drop from 2023) and many of the UK’s most significant scaleups — like Revolut and Checkout.com — still have gender pay gaps higher than the national average.
Here are the women who have launched and scaled some of the UK and Ireland’s fastest-growing companies.
Murvah Iqbal — Hived
Sector: B2B Saas (supply chain and logistics)
2025 rank: 9
Role: Co-founder and CEO
Serial entrepreneur Murval Iqbal launched fully electric parcel delivery network Hived in 2021 with Mathias Krieger. As CEO, Iqbal leads 67 employees, and has helped secure €36.1m in funding for the startup. Iqbal previously headed brand marketing for food chain Archie’s, and then launched Vanvas, a startup helping vans become sites for advertisements.
Polina Priebe — Zelt
Sector: B2B SaaS (HR tech)
2025 ranking: 10
Role: Cofounder and chief product officer
Polina Priebe cofounded HR tech platform Zelt with her brother Chris Priebe in 2021. As CPO, Priebe oversees Zelt’s service offering which includes onboarding, holidays, payroll and expenses management. It has since received €9.3m in funding and employs nine people. Before Zelt, Priebe worked in product management at consumer intelligence company Gfk and social listening platform Talkworker.
Michelle He — Abound
Sector: Fintech (lending)
2025 rank: 11
Role: Cofounder and chief operating officer
Michelle He is a serial founder with more than 14 years in finance and consultancy under her belt. She launched two fintechs in 2020: the loan intelligence platform Render and the digital lending platform Abound. She serves as Abound’s COO and most recently helped it secure £250m in debt funding from Deutsche Bank.
Lourdes Agapito — Synthesia
Sector: Deeptech (GenAI)
2025 ranking: 22
Role: Cofounder
Lourdes Agapito cofounded AI-video communications platform Synthesia in 2017 with Victor Riparbelli, Steffen Tjerrild and Matthias Niessner. The startup has most recently been valued at $2.1bn and employs 198 people. Agapito has a background in academia, and is still a professor in the Department of Computer Science at University College London.
Amy Rushby — Carmoola
Sector: Fintech (lending)
2025 rank: 23
Role: Cofounder and director of product and operations
Amy Rushby cofounded car loan platform Carmoola in 2021 alongside Aidan Rushby, Jasper Dykes, Roman Sumnikov and Igor Gordiichuk. She’s director of product and operations at the startup, and formerly led marketing there. Rushby is no stranger to the world of entrepreneurship: she founded a children’s entertainment company in 2015, and was head of product at rental marketplace platform Movebubble for more than five years. Carmoola recently secured £100m in debt funding from Natwest.
Yingyan Hu — Holafly
Sector: Consumer (telecoms)
2025 rank: 29
Role: Cofounder
Yingyan Hu founded e-sim provider Holafly in 2018 with Pedro Máiquez, and has grown the startup to 520 employees. Before founding Holafly, Hu worked in management for adtech Mobusi and then online media company Kiminia.
Mikela Druckman — Greyparrot.AI
Sector: Climate tech (waste management)
2025 rank: 40
Role: Cofounder and CEO
Mikela Druckman founded waste intelligence platform Greyparrot in 2019 alongside Marco Paladini, Ambarish Mitra and Nikola Sivacki, and is CEO of the startup. After starting her career in consultancy and financial services, Druckman joined augmented reality (AR) content creation platform Blippar, where she became chief commercial officer. She also was a member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Future Council on AR and virtual reality. To date, Greyparrot.AI has raised more than €32.2m in funding.
Electra Coutsoftides — Xworks AI
Sector: Climate tech (waste management)
2025 ranking: 41
Role: Cofounder and CEO
Electra Coutsoftides cofounded Xworks AI — which is building a platform for trading between waste management professionals — with Alexander Hall in 2020. Before founding the company Coutsoftides worked in a variety of waste management and recycling commodity trading businesses, and was director of recycling company Procycle until 2023. To date, Xworks AI has secured €300k in funding.
Eliza Batten — The Cirkel
Sector: Consumer (fashion)
2025 ranking: 44
Role: Cofounder
Eliza Batten cofounded secondhand women’s fashion marketplace The Cirkel with Austin Tasker in 2021. Batten was formerly a social media influencer and reality TV personality, starring in UK show Made in Chelsea.
Dr Mridula Pore — Peppy Health
Sector: Healthtech (wellbeing)
2025 ranking: 45
Role: Cofounder and non-executive director
Dr Mridula Pore cofounded Peppy Health, an employee benefits platform for digital healthcare, in 2018 with Max Laundry and Evan Harris. She brought experience in consultancy and financial services to the startup, and as co-CEO, helped launch the app’s gender-specific healthcare offerings for men and women Since 2023, Pore has sat as a non-executive director and has been angel investing.
Shelley Copsey — Fyld
Sector: B2B SaaS (construction tech)
2025 rank: 51
Role: Cofounder and CEO and director
Shelley Copsey founded construction site management platform Fyld in 2020, alongside Karl Simons. She previously helped startups spin out of accountancy firm PwC and then Data61, the data arm of Australia’s national science agency CSIRO. At Fyld Copsey leads a team of 35 employees; the company has raised €41.7m in funding to date.
Megha Chaturvedi — Journee
Sector: Consumer (travel)
2025 rank: 54
Role: Cofounder and chief product officer
Megha Chaturvedi founded travel platform Journee with Ed Tribe and James Gillard, and is its CPO. After beginning her career as a business analyst at Goldman Sachs, Chaturvedi met her cofounders while working at secondhand clothing marketplace Depop, where she led the startup’s growth strategy and then launched an insight team. She holds an engineering degree and an MBA. Journee has secured €4m in funding to date.
Shanshan Xu — MV.Health
Sector: Consumer (sextech)
2025 ranking: 60
Role: Cofounder and chief financial officer
Shanshan Xu cofounded MV.Health, which develops FDA-registered sexual health devices, with Dr. Soum Rakshit, Stephanie Alys and Robert Weekly in 2014. She’s currently the startup’s CFO. MV.Health is not Xu’s first startup. She also founded Mucho, a recipe-finding app, in 2013.
Cat Jones — Byway
Sector: Consumer (travel)
2025 rank: 61
Role: Founder and CEO
Cat Jones is founder and CEO of Byway, a travel platform which offers flight-free holidays and recently secured a £5m Series A from backers like Heartcore Capital, Eka Ventures and Hermesa. Jones began her career in international development, created and ran a 30-person division at video ad tech company Unruly and was then a managing director at Founders Factory, leading investments in 14 startups a year. She was also the entrepreneur-in-residence at the London-based School of Oriental and African Studies from 2022-2023.
Nina Briance — Cult Mia
Sector: Consumer (retail)
2025 rank: 62
Role: Founder and CEO
Having worked in finance for half a decade, Briance became a consultant at designer clothing retailer Moda Operandi while pursuing an MBA in entrepreneurship and luxury strategy at London Business School (LBS). During her time at LBS she founded luxury fashion marketplace Cult Mia, in 2019, which won the school’s startup award. The platform has since secured seed funding from investors such as Fuel Ventures and H&M Group Ventures.
Caroline Seton — Forest
Sector: Consumer (mobility)
2025 rank: 74
Role: Cofounder and chief legal officer
Caroline Seton founded e-bike app Forest with Agustin Guilisasti and Michael Stewart in 2020. She was first the company’s head of growth and strategy, and is now its chief legal officer. To date, Forest has raised €46.2m in funding.
Ava Vaughan — Juro
Sector: B2B SaaS (legaltech)
2025 rank: 100
Role: Co-founder and chief operations officer
Ava Vaughan founded contract management system Juro with Richard Mabey and is its chief operations officer. To date, it has raised €40.1m and employs 62 people.
Below are some of the women who founded companies on the Sifted 100 but who have moved on to pastures new.
Stephanie Alys — MV.Health
Sector: Consumer (sextech)
2025 ranking: 60
Stephanie Alys cofounded MV.Health and was its “chief pleasure officer.” Since leaving the startup in 2019, Alys has become the director of entrepreneurship at climate tech accelerator Carbon13. But she’s not completely left sextech behind: she’s an advisory board member to the Vagina Museum in London and consulted on healthtech projects for brands, retailers and investors on a freelance basis.
Sophie Adelman — Multiverse
Sector: B2B SaaS (Edtech)
2025 ranking: 81
Sophie Adelman joined Multiverse, a platform to help young people start tech apprentices founded by Euan Blair, as cofounder in 2017. She was president and then became a board member and advisor, before stepping back from the startup in 2021. It has since become the UK’s first edtech unicorn, while Adelman has launched and exited learning platform One Garden, and taken on advisory roles for other organisations and founders.
Aleksandra Woźniak — Cleo
Sector: Fintech (digital banking)
2025 ranking: 85
Aleksandra Woźniak founded financial assistance platform Cleo in 2015 with Barney Hussey-Yeo. She was its chief technology officer between 2015-2017 and oversaw its integration into Meta’s Facebook Messenger. Before and since Cleo, she’s worked as a software developer — and is currently head of engineering at Form3, a technology platform for financial institutions to offer payments infrastructure as a service.
Stephanie Leung — Tiney
Sector: Consumer (kids and parents)
2025 ranking: 86
Stephanie Leung joined Tiney, a marketplace matching certified childminders with parents founded by Brett Wigdortz, Edd Read and John Newbold, as cofounder and chief operating officer in 2020. Leung has since worked as a venture partner at early-stage VC firm LocalGlobe and in 2022 founded KareHero, a platform which helps employees add support options for adult carers.
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Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/women-founders-uk-irelands-fastest-growing-startups-2025/
