The tech industry isn’t exactly known for its gender diversity — and that’s particularly pronounced in fintech.
According to Dealroom, female fintech founders in Europe raised a total of $1.2bn last year compared to the $7.7bn raised by non-female-founded fintechs. Meanwhile, none of the top ten most valuable fintechs in Europe was founded by a woman.
But female founders like Starling Bank’s Anne Boden, French SaaS fintech Pigment’s Eléonore Crespo and Romi Savova, founder of publicly-traded fintech PensionBee are becoming role models in the space, and paving the way for a new generation of women in fintech.
Sifted pulled from our own reporting, as well as feedback from industry experts, to find out who should be on your radar.
Danai Antoniou — Gradient Labs
HQ: UK
Danai Antoniou is one of the cofounders of Gradient Labs, a startup developing AI agents for the financial industry, founded by former Monzo employees. Antoniou previously worked at the UK neobank for four years as a machine learning engineer.
Elizabeth Rossiello — AZA Finance
HQ: London
Elizabeth Rossiello is the founder and CEO of AZA Finance, a London-based B2B fintech which provides financial services for businesses operating in Africa. According to Dealroom, Aza Finance has raised more than $50m in funding from investors including Digital Currency Group, Greycroft Partners and Pantera Capital. In June, cross-border payments platform dLocal announced its intention to acquire AZA following regulatory approval.
Eva Lundell — Swimbird
HQ: Sweden
Eva Lundell worked at Nordic corporate bank SEB for over 28 years, occupying various roles including head of product of its investor services. Swimbird is a wealth management software fintech, which enables banks and asset managers to visualise their portfolio.
Louise Brandt — Open Payments Europe
HQ: Sweden
Stockholm-based Louise Brandt spent six years at payments company Zettle before founding Open Payments. The startup provides Application Programming Interface (APIs), which enable third parties to connect with banks and has raised more than $11m from investors, including Sony Financial Ventures and Luminar Ventures.
Marie Bedu — RockFi
HQ: France
Marie Bedu led operations at proptech Beanstock and office management startup Smart-services before founding French fintech RockFi in 2023. RockFi provides digital private banking services and has raised more than $23m from investors such as Partech and Varsity.
Megan Caywood Cooper— Caywood
HQ: UK
Megan Caywood Cooper is a fintech and banking veteran. She’s previously held the roles of chief platform officer at Starling and chief product officer at UK bank Barclays. Most recently, she led product at clearing and embedded banking fintech ClearBank before departing in May last year to found her own startup, Caywood. According to her LinkedIn, Caywood is a consumer app that uses AI to deliver personalised financial planning and wealth management.
Morgan O’Hana — Defacto
HQ: France
Morgan O’Hana spent two years as head of partnerships and strategic projects at Spendesk before founding B2B lending fintech Defacto in 2021. Based in Paris, Defacto lends to over 10,000 small-and- medium-sized enterprises and has raised more than €30m in funding from investors including Northzone, Citi Ventures and Global Founders Capital.
Nicky Goulimis — Tunic Pay
HQ: UK
Nicky Goulimis has founded not one but two fintechs across her career so far. The ex-Bain & Company consultant founded US-based credit infrastructure company Novacredit in 2016.
In 2023, Goulimis founded Tunic Pay, a company building a payment control infrastructure for banks and fintechs to protect customers from payment scams.
Ritu Soni — Stealth
HQ: UK
Ritu Soni has overseen product development at various fintechs including holding leadership positions at money transfer company Lebara and payments platform Paysafe. Most recently, she was senior vice president of product at remittance fintech Zepz, until leaving the role to found her own startup in 2023. The fintech, which is currently in stealth, is building a “cross-border bank for migrant families”, Soni tells Sifted.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/female-fintech-founders/
