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Stripe Atlas Waives Fee To Help Female Founders Get A Start

Stripe Atlas Waives Fee To Help Female Founders Get A Start

Written by Ann Brown

Aug 28, 2018

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We all know there a major gender gap when it comes to tech startups. Fact remains that less than 20 percent of tech startups have a female founder. To help close this gap, a technology company called Stripe has decided to waive its $500 formation fee for any female founder who applies by Oct. 15 to its Stripe Atlas program.

In 2017, Stripe introduced its Atlas program as a way to help international entrepreneurs get incorporated and set up with everything they’d need to do business in the U.S. Now the payments startup is opening up the program to founders that are already in the U.S., Techcrunch reported.

Stripe helps companies build economic infrastructure for the internet and works with businesses of every size—from new startups to public companies. Then there’s Stripe Atlas, which the company says it created to help entrepreneurs from all over the globe start and run an Internet business, no matter which industry they’re in, where they’re based, or their gender or ethnicity.

According to Stripe, Women made up only 7 percent of founders whose companies received more than $20 million in VC funding between 2009 and 2015. Stripe Atlas helps with that.

Stripe Atlas says it is a tool to handle everything involved in establishing an Internet business. It provides advisory services, mentorship, community and support.

Stripe Atlas is one of a growing list of resources for women supporting other women, said Jae Davis, CEO and founder of Uscout, in a CIO report.

“Stripe Atlas has their female founders community. Female-founded Bumble has The Hive in LA that presents informative panels with established women in the tech world. Quilt and Six Degrees Society are a few more examples of these female-driven communities. We still have a lot more work to do combating gender inequity and harassment, but I am so encouraged by how many women are supporting other women, and in some cases, men, too,” Davis said.

Having a network to cull information from and to get support helps female tech entrepreneurs, said Sarah Heck, the head of entrepreneurship at Stripe.

“Changing the culture around entrepreneurship and making it really inclusive means having the space to make sure your ideas can flourish,” Heck told CIO. “The other thing we’re really conscious about are the signals we’re sending about entrepreneurship. In IT, it’s easy to find stories of great and successful male entrepreneurs, but we’re providing the platform to show the world that female entrepreneurs are there, they’re a force, they’re building great companies, and they deserve equal time in news cycles.”

 

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