The NYU Female Founders Fellowship is an award-winning initiative that provides a community for entrepreneurs at NYU who are committed to advancing gender equity in entrepreneurship, as well as extensive training, mentorship, and networking opportunities. Founders building highly-scalable, differentiated businesses and solutions are welcome to apply to participate in the Female Founders Circle and Female Founders Fellows cohorts each semester. Upon their graduation, student/alumni Fellows are also invited to apply for student loan alleviation grants of up to $25,000.
The application cycle for the NYU Female Founders Fellowship opens twice a year: Once in the Fall semester and again in the Spring semester.
Apply to the Fellowship
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The Fellowship is structured into cohorts, segmented by stage of venture development and how much time the founder is spending working on the venture (e.g. part time vs. full time). The “Circle” cohort is for ventures who are relatively earlier than the “Fellows” cohort with some key differences being:
Each member of the Circle and Fellowship will receive access to community, mentorship, training, and resources to support their venture and themselves, including:
Female Founders Community and Network Access: Fellows and Circle members will participate in monthly cohort meetings where they will get support from the Fellows community for their venture and founder challenges. Participants will also be invited to social events – this past Spring we went to an NY Liberty Basketball game, had networking drinks at Talea Brewery, and had a private after party following the NYU Female Founders Forum.
Training: Fellows and Circle members will have access to comprehensive startup training, and will be invited to participate in the:
Coaching: Fellows and Circle members will have priority access to regular (monthly or more frequent) coaching sessions with members of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute Coaching Team and Founders in Residence.
Mentoring: Fellows (not Circle members) will be paired with seasoned entrepreneurial and investor mentors from the greater NYC and US startup communities. Further, Fellows will have access to a network of 120+ external mentors and funders through the broader network of mentors at the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute.
Office Hours: Invites to 1:1 meetings with legal advisors, accountants, VC’s and accelerators.
Invitation to apply for a Mark & Debra Leslie Female Founders Fellowship Grant: The NYU Female Founders Fellowship aims to enable more founders to pursue their ventures after graduation by removing some of the financial burden of student loan debt. NYU Female Founders Fellows (not Circle members) are invited to apply for Loan Alleviation Grants as they prepare to graduate. Grants will be awarded to 3-15 Fellows per year and the awards will range from $5K to $25K per fellow. Fellows who receive this financial award will become Mark and Debra Leslie Female Founders Fellows, to honor the generosity of the donors whose gift makes these grants possible.
The NYU Female Founders Fellowship is open to all NYU undergraduate and graduate student entrepreneurs, faculty, researchers and staff, who are actively working on a startup venture. Recent alumni entrepreneurs who have graduated within the last year (at the time of application) and who started their venture while studying at NYU are also welcome to apply.
We seek to build a diverse, inclusive cohort of fellows. We welcome applications from any student, faculty, or staff member regardless of gender, and including but not limited to those who identify as trans, gender non-conforming, non-binary, or genderqueer.
All applicants must personally demonstrate:
Students pursuing ventures in any sector may apply (social impact, healthcare, biotech, deep tech, consumer products, enterprise technology, etc.). Independent of sector, the program has a strong preference for entrepreneurs tackling meaningful problems, building novel/differentiated solutions, and for businesses capable of radically scaling (including nonprofits).
Applications will be reviewed with the following questions in mind:
After participating in the Female Founders Fellowship (and upon graduation), Fellows may apply for Mark & Debra Leslie Student Loan Alleviation Grants to help pay down their student loans. To be considered for grants, applicants must:
Those applicants who meet the above criteria may apply for grants of between $5,000 and $25,000 in grant funding, paid directly to the founder (not to the founder’s venture) for the express purpose of helping to alleviate their student loan debt.
Additional criteria will affect the amount of funding granted to each applicant including:
If funding is awarded, it will be given post-graduation in the form of a grant (with proof of graduation required to receive the funds). Grants must go toward the repayment of the applicant’s student loan debt.
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No. We seek to build a diverse, inclusive cohort of Fellows, and we welcome applications from any student with a demonstrated commitment to women’s issues in the entrepreneurial space, regardless of sex and including but not limited to students who identify as trans*, gender non-conforming, non-binary, or genderqueer. We do not consider sex or gender at all in the application process.
We hold two cycles of the Fellowship annually — one running in the fall from September-January, and the other running in the spring from February-July.
For the Fall Cohort, please apply in the previous Spring semester (April/May). For the Winter/Spring Cohort, please apply in the previous Fall semester (December).
Yes. Completing a Startup Bootcamp or Tech Venture Workshop is a prerequisite for becoming a Female Founders Fellow. A majority of applicants complete these programs prior to applying for the Female Founders Fellowship, though some do complete the Startup Bootcamp after their fellowship application is submitted. If scheduling is prohibitive, on rare occasions this prerequisite may be waived by the Fellowship program leads. To request that this prerequisite be waived, reach out to entrepreneur@nyu.edu.
Yes! All Female Founders Fellows receive the full benefits of mentorship and programmatic support. Only a subset of the Fellows apply for the Student Loan Alleviation Grants each year.
Yes! If you have student loan debt (regardless of which educational institution you attended when you incurred the debt) and meet the other criteria for the program you are eligible to apply for the Student Loan Alleviation Grant.
The Student Loan Alleviation Grants may be taxable. Please consult with an accountant prior to filing your taxes to fully understand tax consequences.
The Student Loan Alleviation Grants are paid directly to the founder (not to the founder’s venture). If funding is awarded, it will be given in the summer, post-graduation in the form of a grant, after proof of graduation is submitted.
Though the number is not finite, we anticipate awarding between 3-10 student loan alleviation grants to Fellows each year.
Yes!
No. Only students who graduated from NYU less than a year prior to their application deadline and who started their ventures while at NYU are eligible to apply for the Female Founders Fellowship.
Yes. Numerous NYU faculty, staff members, clinicians and researchers have participated in the Fellowship and have been recipients of student loan alleviation grants.
No. This program is ONLY for the individual who applies for the program, not your entire team. If multiple members of the same startup founding team want to apply to the program, they’ll have to do so separately.
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