Women’s Day: discover 8 female-founded startups at STATION F
At STATION F, we are huge advocates for diversity. As a reader, what you probably want to ask is, what does this translate to beyond words? And, that of course is a very relevant question to ask. At STATION F, female founders are no longer the exception — but the rule. In the Founders Program, our in-house program which hosts 200 startups, more than 40% of companies have a female founder.
Two (public) exits in our first year of existence were female founded or co-founded — notably by Jasmine Anteunis of Recast.ai — a B2B bot platform that was acquired by SAP only 6 months after joining the Microsoft AI Factory — and Claire Bretton of Daco.io — AI for e-commerce analytics. We highly encourage women to purse their entrepreneurial projects and we hope to see more female founders on our campus, in one of our many startup programs!
For Women’s Day, we are celebrating the women working on our campus. Let’s start by discovering some of the brilliant women-led startups at STATION F!
#1 Working on a tech for good solution : Meet my Mama
Loubna Ksibi is co-founder of Meet My Mamma, the first catering service that hires “mammas” as cooks. With Youssef Oudahman and Donia Souad Amamra, her two co-founders, Loubna has worked hard to prove that it’s possible to be profitable when you’re working on a tech for good solution. And they succeeded! Meet My Mama counts big companies like Apple, Danone, BNP Paribas or Airbnb amongst their best clients.
On top of that, Loubna is also highly invested in helping entrepreneurs coming from underprivileged Parisian suburbs develop their projects. She has also been featured in Foundation, the first-ever startup documentary that was filmed at STATION F.
#2 From the Fighters Program : Konexio
Konexio, founded by Binta Jammeh and Jean Guo, is a digital learning school on a mission to fight digital exclusion while humanizing and diversifying the tech world. The Konexio girls were part of the first batch of the STATION F Fighters Program, dedicated to entrepreneurs from underprivileged background, and are now in the Founders Program.
They provide tech and social skills training to underrepresented publics, notably refugees, migrants, and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. After training, their goal is to match trainees with client companies looking to hire new talent for digital projects. They’re a network of refugees, migrants, locals, men, women, companies, NGOs, and governments who are committed to using digital learning to highlight the potential of disadvantaged publics to be the at the forefront of the digital revolution while providing their trainees with direct pathways to socio-economic inclusion.
#3 At STATION F since Day 1: Uptale
Some startups have been with us since the very opening of STATION F and Uptale is one of them. Aurélie Truchet, Uptale co-founder and her team, joined the first batch of the Founders Program in July 2017. When they arrived, they were 4 people, now they’ve grown to 12. They are developing an immersive learning platform which allows teachers and professional trainers to easily create educational experiences in virtual reality and share them across all types of devices.
In a year and a half of existence, they already worked with 50+ big accounts, mainly CAC 40 companies — like L’Oréal, Danone, Schneider Electric, or PSA — and they just signed a partnership with Harvard, in a global education program launched by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative!
#4 The most recent exit: daco
Daco, co-founded by Claire Bretton is the second public exit we had, after Recast.ai, another female-founded startup. Daco is using AI to provide competitive analysis for retailers.
They are developing an in-house technology that leverages the latest artificial intelligence and image recognition technology for retailers to benchmark on millions of products in the segment that they’re interested in, the one that matters for their business, and help them anticipate product demand. They were acquired by Veepee (previously Vente-Privée) few months after joining the program.
#5 From abroad : Wishupon
Wishupon is the first Korean startup at STATION F. Danbee and Jihyung, the two co-founders, are making a Universal Shopping Wishlist, like a Pinterest for shoppers that impressed us with a unique retail-focused web-scraping technology. Their innovation is available on App Store and Google Play. Currently, they have users mainly from South Korea, France, and the United States, and 70% are female.
With their solution, you can browse 1,000+ stores, save products all in one place, collect from any source (such as Safari, Chrome, Instagram, and other shopping apps), get notifications when the price drops, and simply share your wishlists with everybody.
#6 Serial entrepreneur : Solange Arnaud, Medoucine
When Solange Arnaud founded Medoucine in 2016, it was not her first startup. She had previously co-founded two other companies : Cherry Biotech that create instruments for biological research in 2015 and Etnoka, a community for students, in 1999.
Now, she’s working on a platform that lists all the alternative practicians in France and aims to help everyone be at the best of their health thanks to complementary medicine. Since the launch, Medoucine has expanded to more and more cities in France and raised €1M with funds like Habert Dassault Finance.
#7 Tinder for co-living (but more effective): Whoomies
Looking to meet the perfect roommate? Whoomies can probably help you! Founded by Lauren Dannay and Alexandre Assal, the app is using AI to match people for a perfect co-living. In order to do so, users have to tell Whoomies who they are, their hobbies, interests, education and lifestyle. Based on what they like and what they are looking for, the app recommends the ideal people to chat with and then helps them find the perfect place.
#8 To learn a language : Tolktoo
You have probably spent hours and hours learning a new language in school but do not actually speak them today… Tolktoo, the startup founded by Camille Morin, is a mobile app to find language buddies in your school and vicinity. On tolktoo, students are connected with other students in their school, based on common interests and shared languages to practice together with text, audio or video chat. More than just an app to learn a language, Tolktoo is also a wonderful way to meet people with other nationalities within the school and live a true multicultural experience without having to go abroad.
