The NYU Female Founders Fellowship is open to NYU undergraduate and graduate student entrepreneurs who are enrolled in a degree program from any NYU school or college, 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, and we welcome applications from any student with a demonstrated commitment to women’s issues in the entrepreneurial space, regardless of gender and including but not limited to students who identify as trans*, gender non-conforming, non-binary, or genderqueer.
All applicants must personally demonstrate:
- Commitment to their venture: Applicants must be passionate and knowledgeable about the problem they hope to solve for their customer, and demonstrate continued progress on the venture, with the expectation that they’ll continue to work on their startup after graduation
- Demonstrated hustle including completion of a Startup Bootcamp: Applicants must be able to learn from, and take advantage of available resources. A key way for applicants to show initiative and progress is by meeting with the Entrepreneurial Institute for coaching and completing a Startup Bootcamp (most often) in advance of applying.
- Commitment to supporting gender equity in entrepreneurship: Applicants must demonstrate that they and/or their venture are advancing causes important to gender equity and/or are supporting gender equity in entrepreneurship.
- Community mindedness: Applicants must value being part of a community in order to contribute to the growth and success of the Female Founders Fellowship community. Fellows are expected to offer support to their peers, receive group support, and generally show great respect for one another.
Applicant's Venture Considerations:
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 non-profits).
Applications will be reviewed with the following questions in mind:
- Problem Identification: Does the venture solve a meaningful problem and how well does the team understand the problem they hope to solve and the customer segment/market they plan to address?
- Idea & Competition: Is the venture idea novel and/or a radical improvement over existing solutions?
- Milestones: What progress on the venture has been made so far - what has the team done/created? Is the venture generating revenue? How do you plan to acquire customers?
- Scalability: Does the venture have the ability to scale? What might be the potential impact and/or market opportunity of the venture at scale?
Loan Alleviation Grant Selection Criteria:
The selection criteria for the Loan Alleviation Grants is currently being finalized. Final selection criteria will be published to this website prior to opening the next round of funding. It is expected that the following will be used as high-level guidelines to determine award amounts:
- Fellow’s successful participation in the NYU Startup Bootcamp, NYU Female Founders Fellowship, completion of the NYU Startup Sprint, and participation in 6+ months of general coaching at the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute
- Fellow’s financial need (specifically - student loan amount held)
- Fellow’s commitment to their venture
- Fellow’s commitment to supporting women/gender equity in entrepreneurship
