Nine Women Founders Building Scalable Companies Investors Should Know
This year marks the fifth annual Invest In Women Founders Capital Readiness Accelerator and Summit, created by The Startup Ladies to address a stubborn market failure: women continue to build high-potential companies, yet too few receive the preparation, relationships, and capital required to scale them.
The Startup Ladies is the Midwest's leading organization doing both sides of this work. We train women founders to become investor ready, while identifying and training current and future investors to evaluate and invest in women-owned companies. Building stronger founders without building a broader, better-prepared investor pool only solves half the problem. Our model develops both at the same time, creating a stronger pipeline of fundable companies and a larger community of people prepared to fund them.
That model also makes the accelerator and Summit a major economic-development initiative for Indianapolis and Indiana. We attract founders from across the country to learn from experienced executives, exited founders, investors, attorneys, financial experts, and business leaders based here. Then we bring those founders to Indianapolis to meet potential investors, clients, strategic partners, and advisors. Every introduction can become a commercial relationship. Every company exposed to Indiana's talent, expertise, and capital networks has another reason to build, hire, partner, and grow here.
This was the most competitive and sophisticated applicant pool we have received in five years. The 2026 founders were selected from businesses demonstrating serious market insight, scalable models, differentiated products, early traction, and the leadership required to turn an ambitious idea into a durable company.
Collectively, the Top 9 represent seven states and nine distinct markets. Five companies are already generating revenue, two are based in Indiana, several are commercializing patented or proprietary technology, and cohort companies are already reaching customers through retail, institutional, wholesale, and direct-to-consumer channels across the country. These are not companies united by a single industry. They are united by the scale of the problems they are solving and the commercial discipline required to solve them.
“I have spent more than a decade helping women start and scale companies, and I know what becomes possible when expertise, preparation, and capital come together,” said Kristen Cooper, Owner, Founder and CEO of The Startup Ladies. “Research shows that startups founded or cofounded by women generate more than twice as much revenue per dollar invested as startups founded by men. If you hold the purse strings, follow the money. The Great Eight are building sophisticated companies in valuable markets that traditional investor networks too often overlook.”
The accelerator began last month and is going strong. Over several months, the founders are strengthening their financial models, refining their growth strategies, preparing investor materials, improving how they communicate their businesses, and building relationships with people who can help them move forward.
By November 5, each founder will arrive with a refined business model, three-year financial projections, clearly defined capital needs, a use-of-funds plan, measurable growth milestones, investor materials, and preparation for substantive due-diligence conversations.
The Summit gives investors access to prepared founders and gives founders the opportunity to build relationships with people capable of opening doors to capital, customers, strategic guidance, and national growth.
The cohort's needs also align directly with Indiana's strengths. These founders are building in food science, health care, financial services, manufacturing, retail, logistics, employee benefits, education, consumer products, and technology. Indianapolis connects them with prospective customers, research and commercialization expertise, experienced executives, professional-service partners, and current and future investors who can help move their companies forward.
The experience culminates on Thursday, November 5, 2026, from noon to 6 p.m. at the Skyline Club in Indianapolis. The Summit is deliberately not a traditional pitch competition. Each founder is paired with an exited founder, executive, or investor for an Oprah-style interview that reveals the substance behind the company: the founder's insight, business model, traction, market opportunity, growth strategy, and leadership. After the interviews, founders and attendees connect directly to explore investment, customer, partnership, and advisory opportunities.
These nine women are building truly scalable companies.
They are solving expensive, persistent problems in markets that have been underestimated, underserved, or overlooked, while improving the lives of people, animals, communities, and the planet. Please meet the 2026 Top 9.
Nesha K. Brown
Tech Founder & Executive Director PurposeMint | Oklahoma
Nesha K. Brown is the founder of PurposeMint and executive director of Mint To Prosper Foundation. For more than eight years, she has helped underserved families across Oklahoma, Louisiana, and the South build emergency savings, strengthen financial wellness, and reduce their dependence on predatory lending. Nesha designed the foundation's Conqueror Community Savings Program around a powerful insight: even a
modest savings cushion can change the choices available to a family living on the financial edge. That community-tested model grew into PurposeMint, a behavioral-fintech platform built for households mainstream financial products have often failed to serve. Nesha is turning direct knowledge of the customer into a scalable business that creates value for both families and financial institutions.
The Company:
PurposeMint is a subscription-based behavioral-fintech savings platform sponsored by banks, credit unions, and community development financial institutions. It helps asset-limited households build savings while giving financial institutions a CRA-aligned channel for reaching and converting qualified customers.
The Problem:
Roughly one in five U.S. households is unbanked or underbanked, based on the FDIC's latest national household data. These households may rely on costly alternative financial services and often lack the emergency savings needed to absorb an unexpected expense without turning to high-cost or predatory products.
The Solution:
PurposeMint uses behavioral design to help users build consistent savings habits and connect with mainstream financial services. Its institution-sponsored model aligns social benefit with a measurable business case: participating financial institutions gain a lower-cost path to engaged, bankable customers.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
PurposeMint serves banks, credit unions, and community development financial institutions that want to reach and better serve the roughly one in five U.S. households that are unbanked or underbanked. Institutions pay annual sponsorship fees to make the platform available in asset-limited communities, while individuals may also choose paid monthly plans. This model allows PurposeMint to enter new markets through established financial institutions and reflects Nesha's customer discovery finding that the people who benefit most from the platform are not always positioned to pay for it themselves.
Community Impact:
Nesha serves as Director of Professional Development for Oklahoma Women in Technology and Vice President of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Grant Professionals Association. Her work strengthens families while expanding leadership, technical, and professional opportunities throughout her community.
Jerrica Fletcher
Founder & CEO, PawGone Good Texas
Jerrica Fletcher is the founder and CEO of PawGone Good, a woman-owned pet wellness company creating functional snacks for dogs and helping pet parents make more informed choices about everyday nutrition.
A self-described foodie, finance enthusiast, and “Bootstrap Queen,” Jerrica has learned to build resourcefully and deploy every dollar with intention. She has already generated revenue and raised $75,000 while retaining full ownership of the company. Her larger vision extends beyond a single snack line to a global pet-wellness business that can grow where the pet industry intersects with other less-saturated markets.
The Company:
PawGone Good creates functional dog snacks designed to support gut health, digestion, oral health, lean muscle, and overall wellness. Its Pawlicious Chips are available in beef, chicken, and vegan peanut butter and banana flavors.
The Problem:
Pet parents often struggle to find snacks made from recognizable foods and balanced ingredients that address more than taste. Many highly processed treats overlook everyday needs such as digestive support, oral health, and essential nutrients.
The Solution:
Pawlicious Chips combine simple ingredients with functional nutrition. Their thin, crunchy texture encourages satisfying chewing while supporting oral health, and their nutritional formulation is designed to contribute to gut health, lean muscle, and overall wellness.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
PawGone Good serves pet parents who want healthier, functional snacks for their dogs and retailers seeking distinctive wellness-focused products. The company earns revenue through online and in-person sales to consumers, wholesale distribution to retail partners, and fees and outside support for its PawPreneur Pioneer program. Its products can reach customers through independent pet stores, specialty grocers, pet-friendly hotels, airports, and travel retailers, giving the company several ways to expand distribution and generate repeat sales.
Community Impact:
Through the PawPreneur Pioneer program, Jerrica helps young people ages 5 to 17 explore entrepreneurship and develop practical business skills through the pet industry. She also partners with community and educational organizations to expand access to entrepreneurship and shares what she has learned with other emerging consumer-product founders.
Lindsay Fried Augustine
Founder & CEO, Simply Succeed
Georgia
Lindsay Fried Augustine is the founder and CEO of Simply Succeed. She has worked in college admissions since 2016, when she earned a certificate in Independent Educational Consulting from the University of California, Irvine, and founded Simply Admissions, a practice she grew and sold in 2024.
A Certified Educational Planner and Professional Member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, Lindsay also teaches in UC Berkeley's College Admissions Advising Program. Her firsthand experience building and operating an advising practice led her to create Achieve, software designed specifically for independent college advisors. The company reports that customers save more than 300 administrative hours per year and generate an average of $10,000 in additional annual revenue.
The Company:
Simply Succeed equips independent college advisors with the technology and support required to grow sustainable businesses. Its flagship product, Achieve, combines project management, college planning, business operations, and client service in one platform, supplemented by expert virtual-assistant services.
The Problem:
Independent college advisors can spend more than half of their professional time on scheduling, billing, application tracking, and other administrative work instead of serving students and families. Fragmented tools constrain capacity, revenue, and the quality of the client experience.
The Solution:
Achieve brings operations and college planning into a single purpose-built platform, allowing advisors to complete in minutes administrative work that once took hours. That efficiency gives advisors more time for students, creates room to serve additional families, and improves the economics of an advising practice.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
Simply Succeed serves solo independent college advisors and midsize advising firms that want to grow without adding administrative burden. Its core revenue comes from monthly subscriptions to Achieve, with different plans based on the needs of the practice. The company also earns revenue from virtual-assistant services, business coaching, and marketing support offered to Achieve users and other independent advisors. It can grow by adding subscribers, expanding relationships with existing customers, and eventually bringing its technology into the high-school market.
Community Impact:
Lindsay trains the next generation of advisors through UC Berkeley and mentors professionals building their own practices. Achieve's Small Business Discount helps new women entrepreneurs access the tools they need to grow, reflecting Lindsay's belief that when consultants succeed, students succeed.
Sunandita Ghosh, Ph.D.
Founder, ClearPRO | Indiana
Sunandita Ghosh, Ph.D., is a food scientist whose research spans dairy and plant proteins, food structure, digestion, and advanced protein characterization. She also serves as a Commercialization Fellow with Purdue Research Foundation, working at the intersection of scientific discovery, innovation, and technology commercialization. Through ClearPRO, Sunandita is translating laboratory research into an ingredient and licensing business for the global food and beverage industry. The company has completed customer development, is testing its first iteration, and has secured $110,000 in non-dilutive funding.
The Company:
ClearPRO develops specialty whey-protein ingredients and licenses proprietary processing technology that allows clear, high-protein beverages to remain stable through commercial production while improving taste and clean-label appeal.
The Problem:
Many consumers understand the value of protein but struggle to incorporate enough into daily routines. At the same time, beverage manufacturers face technical challenges when adding significant protein to clear drinks, including instability during processing and compromises in taste, texture, and label simplicity.
The Solution:
ClearPRO's technology is designed to make clear, high-protein, ready-to-drink beverages commercially viable and more appealing to consumers. Its business can scale through both ingredient sales and licensing to manufacturers.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
ClearPRO serves beverage brands, dairy processors, contract manufacturers, and private-label partners developing clear, shelf-stable, high-protein drinks. The company plans to earn revenue through sales of specialty protein ingredients and licensing of its proprietary processing technology. Because the process is designed to work within existing beverage-manufacturing systems, ClearPRO can serve multiple manufacturers, brands, and product lines without building and operating its own large-scale production facilities.
Community Impact:
Born in a university research environment, ClearPRO continues to support student learning in science, entrepreneurship, and commercialization. Its work with a capstone project gives students exposure to real food-science and market-development challenges while helping translate public research into practical products.
Ashley Infausto
CEO & Co-Founder, Scoutwell Oregon
Ashley Infausto is the CEO and co-founder of Scoutwell, a personalized wellness company helping consumers navigate cannabinoid products with greater clarity and confidence. She joined the company before launch, helped shape its go-to-market strategy, and grew distribution from the first retail door to more than 50 locations. Before Scoutwell, Ashley spent more than a decade in sales and executive leadership with Estée Lauder Companies, leading large teams and multimillion-dollar businesses across North America. She was named North America Sales Director of the Year in 2022 and received the IgniteHer Award in 2025. Scoutwell has raised $930,000 and is evolving from a product brand into a broader personalized-wellness platform built around precisely dosed products and real-world outcomes data.
The Company:
Scoutwell sells precisely dosed cannabinoid wellness products for sleep and women's health, paired with a free support tool that helps customers track outcomes and learn what works best for them.
The Problem:
Millions of consumers use cannabinoids for sleep and women's health, yet inconsistent formulations, unclear dosing, stigma, and trial and error make it difficult to understand what is effective for an individual.
The Solution:
Scoutwell combines controlled dosing with outcomes tracking so customers can record their responses, reduce guesswork, and make better-informed decisions. Over time, that feedback loop can create value beyond a single product by connecting consumer wellness products with structured, real-world data.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
Scoutwell initially serves health-conscious adults, particularly women, seeking more personalized support for sleep, menopause, and other wellness needs. The company currently earns revenue by selling premium cannabinoid products through licensed dispensaries. As it expands, Scoutwell plans to add direct-to-consumer e-commerce and subscriptions where permitted, followed by strategic partnerships and potential technology-licensing opportunities. Repeat-use products support recurring purchases, while the outcomes-tracking platform can make the customer relationship more valuable over time.
Community Impact:
Ashley has served in multiple leadership roles with Habitat for Humanity and mentors women, founders, and emerging leaders. Through Scoutwell, she is also helping create more accessible, responsible conversations about sleep, women's health, and cannabinoid use.
Latashia Key, Ph.D.
Founder & President
Wisdom.on.Wellness LLC
Louisiana
Latashia Key, Ph.D., is the founder and president of Wisdom.on.Wellness LLC, a company expanding access to sports, recreation, swimming, water safety, and evidence-based wellness education. She brings more than 25 years of experience in management and community-focused programming, including program operations, staff development, policy implementation, and stakeholder engagement. A swim instructor for more than 35 years, Latashia also draws on her own near-drowning experience and doctoral research to understand the barriers that keep many children and families from learning essential water-safety skills. She created S.A.F.E. Kids Swim, which stands for Strong, Amazing, Fearless, Empowered, as a culturally responsive aquatic classroom where young people learn swimming, water safety, wellness, and aquatic history. As she prepares to grow, Latashia is exploring how her expertise and curriculum could reach far beyond the number of children she can teach personally.
The Company:
Wisdom.on.Wellness LLC provides sports and recreation programming, swimming instruction, water-safety education, and evidence-based wellness education to individuals, organizations, and communities. Its signature S.A.F.E. Kids Swim program combines in-water instruction with classroom learning about water safety, wellness, and aquatic history.
The Problem:
Drowning and unequal access to swimming instruction create a serious and preventable health disparity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that Black children ages 10 to 14 drown in swimming pools at 7.6 times the rate of White children. Cost, limited pool access, historic exclusion, and a lack of representation in aquatic spaces can prevent children from developing essential swimming and water-competency skills.
The Solution:
S.A.F.E. Kids Swim provides culturally responsive and inclusive swimming, water-safety, and wellness education, with particular attention to Black and Brown children and other young people who have been historically underrepresented in aquatic spaces. Its aquatic-classroom model helps children build skills and confidence while seeing themselves, their histories, and their communities represented. Latashia is also examining how the curriculum could equip parents, caregivers, educators, and community leaders to teach water-safety readiness before and alongside formal swim lessons, creating a safer and more welcoming pathway into qualified in-water instruction.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
WOW! is pre-revenue and is developing its model for families, youth organizations, school districts, park systems, after-school programs, camps, nonprofits, and other community partners. Its initial revenue can come from swimming, recreation, water-safety, and wellness programs delivered to individuals and organizations. The larger is a repeatable facilitator-training and curriculum model that institutions could use across multiple locations, supported over time by program licenses, training, digital resources, certification or renewal, and implementation services. This direction could expand S.A.F.E. Kids Swim without requiring Latashia to lead every class herself. Strategic partnerships, sponsorships, grants, and mission-aligned investment could help the company test and refine that model while increasing access for families.
Community Impact:
Latashia partners with nonprofit organizations, park districts, and community-based groups to expand access to swimming, water safety, wellness, and health education. Her work creates opportunities for children and families, particularly those in underserved communities, to develop safer practices, increase physical activity, and experience a stronger sense of belonging in and around the water.
Paden Sickles
Founder & CEO, SickFit | Texas
Paden Sickles is the founder and CEO of SickFit, a veteran-owned and woman-owned performance compression-sock company built for people who spend long shifts on their feet. She served for more than a decade as a U.S. Army Engineer Officer, leading teams and managing logistics under pressure, and is completing a doctorate in business administration. SickFit holds U.S. Patent No. 10,993,842 and has sold more than 150,000 pairs across more than 30 states without institutional capital. The brand is sold at DFW Airport, Scheels, and more than 30 military exchange locations, serves corporate clients, and sold out a Dallas Wings collaboration of more than 300 pairs in under 30 minutes. Paden is now preparing to scale retail distribution and expand the company's medical-grade line.
The Company:
SickFit sells patented performance compression socks directly to consumers and through retail and corporate partners. The products are designed for nurses, tradespeople, warehouse workers, line cooks, military personnel, and others whose work keeps them standing for extended periods.
The Problem:
Workers in trades, food service, health care, warehousing, and the military may spend most of a shift standing, yet many compression products are designed primarily for athletes or medical patients rather than someone working hour ten of a demanding shift.
The Solution:
SickFit engineers compression socks for sustained comfort, fit, and wearability during workdays of ten hours or more. The design starts from a practical truth: compression provides no benefit if the customer cannot comfortably keep the product on.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
SickFit is built primarily for nurses, military personnel, warehouse and logistics employees, line cooks, retail workers, tradespeople, and others who spend long shifts on their feet. The company earns revenue through direct-to-consumer sales and subscriptions, wholesale and retail distribution, and corporate or bulk orders. With products already sold through military exchanges, Scheels, and DFW Airport, SickFit can grow through repeat purchases, additional retail locations, corporate accounts, Amazon, and new performance and medical-grade products.
Community Impact:
SickFit supports veterans through product donations, mentorship, and relationship building. Paden also teaches entrepreneurship to young people using a tangible product they can price, pitch, and sell, turning a sock into a lesson in manufacturing, margins, distribution, and business ownership.
Irina Sorrels
Founder & CEO
H.E.R. Academy LLC | Indiana
Irina Sorrels is the founder and CEO of H.E.R. Academy LLC dba Sorrels Consulting, a trauma-informed education and consulting company helping employers protect their people and their bottom line. Drawing on her lived experience as a survivor of domestic violence and more than two decades of professional experience, she transformed adversity into a practical system for workplace leaders. Irina created the H.E.R. Method™ and the AWARE™ Trauma-Informed Manager Certification and brings a background in human resources, psychotherapy studies, counseling, neurocoaching, and chaplaincy to the work. She is building a scalable training and certification platform that helps employers retain employees, protect productivity, and reduce the financial, safety, and operational risks associated with domestic violence.
The Company:
H.E.R. Academy sells the AWARE™ Trauma-Informed Manager Certification, train-the-trainer programs, digital learning modules, recertification, workshops, and consulting services that help employers build safer, trauma-informed workplaces.
The Problem:
Domestic violence may occur at home, but its effects follow employees to work. Futures Without Violence's national Workplaces Respond Resource Center reports that one in five workers has experienced the effects of domestic violence on the job. In a separate 2025 national survey of more than 2,000 survivors, 79% said abuse made it harder for them to work, more than six in ten said they needed time away from work to address their mental and emotional health, and 53% did not disclose the abuse to their employer because they feared discrimination, job loss, or retaliation. For employers, the consequences can include absenteeism, reduced concentration and productivity, safety concerns, and the loss of valued employees, yet most managers have never been trained to respond safely.
The Solution:
Through the AWARE™ Trauma-Informed Manager Certification, managers learn to recognize warning signs, listen without judgment, follow company protocols, connect employees with support, and respect privacy and professional boundaries. Train-the-trainer programs, digital modules, and recertification give employers a repeatable system they can scale across locations, enabling managers to respond earlier while reducing human, financial, and operational risk.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
H.E.R. Academy serves employers that need a safe, consistent way to address how domestic violence and trauma affect employees and the workplace. The company earns revenue from organizational training and consulting contracts, manager certifications, train-the-trainer programs, digital learning, workshops, and recertification. Because its methodology can be taught to internal trainers and delivered digitally, an employer can expand the program across departments and locations without relying on Irina to lead every session herself.
Community Impact:
Irina also founded Tu Refugio Seguro, a nonprofit serving survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking across Central Indiana. Through recovery programs, advocacy, prevention education, and the development of women mentors, she multiplies the number of people prepared to help survivors move toward safety and stability.
Liz Tomon
Founder & CEO | LOO | Illinois
Liz Tomon is the founder and CEO of LOO, a Chicago-based health-technology startup developing an incontinence brief that can detect urinary tract infections during an ordinary brief change. She holds a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and an MBA and previously worked in manufacturing and process engineering at Procter & Gamble. Liz has protected the company's unique process and assembled advisors with deep experience in incontinence manufacturing and product chemistry. She is conducting proof-of-concept work through mHUB's pre-accelerator program, testing whether the chemistry remains reliable through manufacturing and shelf life. Five angel investors have committed to the company, and Liz is also pursuing non-dilutive funding as she moves toward commercialization.
The Company:
LOO is developing a disposable incontinence brief with reactive chemistry integrated through a patented process. The brief changes color when it detects indicators of a urinary tract infection, requiring no separate collection procedure or added caregiver task.
The Problem:
Infections that go undetected in older adults can escalate into emergency care and preventable hospitalization. LOO reports that unplanned elder-care hospitalizations cost the U.S. health system approximately $250 billion annually, with infections contributing to many of those events.
The Solution:
LOO embeds detection into a product caregivers already use. A visible color change during a normal brief change can signal a potential UTI earlier, creating an opportunity for assessment and treatment before the infection becomes a medical emergency.
Market Opportunity and Business Model:
LOO is initially targeting nursing homes, long-term-care facilities, home-care providers, and families that routinely purchase disposable incontinence briefs. The company plans to earn revenue by selling its premium briefs through health-care distributors, care facilities, retailers, and direct-to-consumer channels. Because the product fits into an existing caregiving routine and must be regularly replenished, each new customer can create recurring product sales without requiring caregivers to adopt a separate testing process.
Community Impact:
Liz advocates for older adults, families, and long-term-care professionals by drawing attention to the frequency and consequences of missed UTIs. She keeps caregivers close to the product-development process so LOO is built around the realities of care, not assumptions made at a distance.
Indiana’s Best Growth Opportunities Are Hiding in Plain Sight
Women founders are not asking anyone to invest in potential alone. The Top 9 entered this accelerator with customer insight, technical expertise, protected intellectual property, distribution, revenue, prior capital, or meaningful market validation. They are now doing the disciplined work required to convert those assets into defensible financial models, credible growth strategies, investor-ready materials, and productive capital conversations.
The economic case for supporting women founders is equally clear. Research has found that startups founded or co-founded by women generate more than twice as much revenue per dollar invested as companies founded by men, yet women continue to receive only a fraction of available investment capital. This is more than an equity gap. It is a market inefficiency that leaves promising companies, potential returns, and economic growth on the table.
The Startup Ladies was built to correct that inefficiency. We do not simply encourage women to start businesses or place them on a stage. We identify founders building scalable companies, assess their readiness, and provide the financial education, intensive training, expert guidance, investor preparation, and commercial relationships required to move them forward. At the same time, we prepare current and future investors to evaluate opportunities thoughtfully, conduct meaningful diligence, and invest without allowing familiarity or gender bias to substitute for sound financial judgment.
For more than a decade, The Startup Ladies has built the infrastructure required to do this work. We have delivered more than 500 programs, developed more than 100 eLearning lessons, supported thousands of entrepreneurs, produced five annual capital-readiness accelerators and summits, and helped facilitate more than $1 million in investment in member companies. Our model combines competitive founder selection, live and asynchronous education, individualized coaching, financial and due-diligence preparation, investor training, executive engagement, and measurable follow-through.
That experience matters. Effective acceleration requires more than a curriculum or a series of workshops. It requires the trust to attract strong applicants, the expertise to distinguish scalable companies from ordinary small businesses, the systems to prepare founders for scrutiny, and the relationships to connect them with capital, customers, advisors, and strategic partners. The Startup Ladies has spent years building each part of that system.
For Indiana, the opportunity is substantial. The state can wait until promising companies have established their value elsewhere and then compete to recruit them, or it can identify overlooked founders earlier and give them compelling reasons to build relationships, attract capital, hire, and grow here. Supporting women founders is not a niche economic-development strategy. It is a disciplined way to uncover high-potential companies that traditional capital networks consistently undervalue.
“Women-owned companies have demonstrated that they can produce stronger returns per dollar invested, yet women remain dramatically underfunded,” said Kristen Cooper, Owner, Founder and CEO of The Startup Ladies. “If you hold the purse strings, follow the money. Indiana should be leading the country in identifying these founders, preparing them for capital, and connecting them with the people who can help their companies scale.”
Even as Indiana steps back from its Minority and Women’s Business Enterprise program, The Startup Ladies is moving forward. We are growing, strengthening the state’s founder pipeline, and preparing more women than ever to build scalable companies. We are also developing the other side of the market: the investors, executives, customers, advisors, and civic leaders who determine which companies receive capital and which communities benefit from their growth.
Meet the Companies Before the Rest of the Market Does
The Top 9 offer a preview of what becomes possible when rigorous founder preparation meets informed investment. If you have the capacity to invest, purchase a ticket and come prepared to identify opportunity. If your company could become a customer, strategic partner, or source of expertise for one of these businesses, join us and begin those conversations early.
Organizations that want to strengthen Indiana’s pipeline of scalable women-owned companies should sponsor the Summit. Sponsorship helps make this intensive accelerator possible while positioning your organization among the investors, corporate leaders, and future economy builders helping promising companies secure customers, attract capital, create jobs, and grow.
Purchase your tickets here or become a sponsor for the fifth annual Invest In Women Founders Summit on Thursday, November 5, 2026, from noon to 6 p.m. at the Skyline Club in Indianapolis. Do not wait until these companies are widely recognized to decide they were worth knowing.
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