2025.04.30
- FR
- EN
2025 FEMALE FOUNDER CHALLENGE: VIVATECH MAINTAINS ITS COMMITMENT TO WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
Paris, 28 April 2025 - For the seventh consecutive year, Viva Technology is organizing the Female Founder Challenge, an initiative in favour to female entrepreneurship, in partnership with Forvis Mazars (Sponsor & Knowledge Partner), IRIS (Knowledge Partner), Alibaba Group (Sponsor), JCDecaux (Sponsor) and the SISTA collective (Ambassador Partner).
This iconic program pursues a key objective: to empower female founders by providing networking opportunities and access to funding through connections with international venture capital funds.
Female-founded companies received 20% of funding in 2024. When looking at companies founded exclusively by women, without male co-founders, that number drops to just 1% of venture capital funding in 2024 and 6% of all deals, according to the Inc. 2025 report. This highlights just how seriously the issue of funding for women entrepreneurs needs to be taken.
This year, 536 founders from 83 countries applied. France remains the leading contributing country with 36.9% of applications, followed by the United States (8.4%), the United Kingdom (5.2%), Germany (4.3%) and Canada (3%).
After a rigorous selection led by VivaTech, its partners and a jury of experts, five finalists were selected to pitch their solution during the grand finale of the Female Founder Challenge, on 12 June at 9:45 am on the Purple Stage (Stage 2). The winner will then be honored at the VivaTech Global Awards Ceremony, which will take place Thursday 12 June at 5 pm on the Stage 1.
The finalists of this 2025 edition are:
- HORMONA, United Kingdom
Hormona is reinventing women's hormonal health with AI and at-home testing. This start-up offers the first comprehensive solution for hormonal health, offering a revolutionary method of testing, monitoring and treating hormonal problems.
About the founder: Karolina Löfqvist is CEO of Hormona which she co-founded in 2020. Passionate about women's health, she strives to make a real difference using data and innovative solutions. The company’s goal is to redefine the future of women's health and contribute to advances that mean better health for all women.
- PARALLEL CARBON LTD, United Kingdom
Parallel Carbon combines direct air capture and electrolysis to produce carbon-negative hydrogen and pure CO₂. This innovative process helps reduce CO₂ emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors while generating carbon offset credits and clean fuels.
About the Founder: Aranzazu Carmona Orbezo, PhD in Chemistry from the University of Manchester, is the founder and Chief Technical Officer of Parallel Carbon. She is developing an innovative technology that captures CO₂ from the air while producing hydrogen, with the goal of eliminating emissions and reversing climate change. Passionate about learning and teaching, she is also a strong advocate for women's rights and actively fights against gender bias.
- RADIANT MATTER, United Kingdom
Radiant Matter is a start-up that is rethinking the design and production of textiles to address environmental challenges. This start-up designs bio-inspired and structurally colored materials that are non-toxic, biodegradable and with a low-carbon footprint, without the use of plastics, metals, minerals or pigments.
About the founder: Elissa Brunato is a British materials designer and systems thinker, founder of Radiant Matter. Its flagship innovation, BioSequin™, is a biodegradable alternative to traditional glitter, made from cellulose. The technology has won over brands such as Stella McCartney, who used it in a jumpsuit worn by Cara Delevingne in US Vogue. Elissa also co-founded AusBlau Studio, a research lab for material systems and urban ecosystems.
- VERLEY, France
Verley is a biotechnology company dedicated to transforming the dairy industry through its precision fermentation technology. Its mission is to promote the environmental transition in the industry by developing functional and sustainable dairy protein ingredients, meeting the needs of dairy manufacturers looking for innovative solutions.
About the founder: Hélène Briand began her career in Asia, including Malaysia and India, where she worked on sustainable agricultural models to reduce the usage of antibiotics. In 2020, she co-founded Bon Vivant with Stéphane Mac Millan, a Lyon-based start-up specialising in the production of animal-free dairy proteins via precision fermentation. In March 2025, the company renamed itself Verley and launched a range of patented functional proteins, meeting the needs of food manufacturers in terms of nutrition and sustainability.
- VIRTUOSIS AI, Switzerland
Virtuosis AI is a privacy-focused AI that identifies early signs of burnout, stress, anxiety, and communication issues by analyzing voice during Microsoft Teams calls. An EPFL spin-off which was voted Microsoft Startup of the Year in 2023, Virtuosis AI develops AI-based speech biomarkers to detect more than 25 mental, cognitive, respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic disorders from a 30-second recording.
About the founder: Lara Gervaise, an EPFL-graduated AI engineer, co-founded Virtuosis AI in 2019. Under her leadership, Virtuosis AI was voted "Swiss Startup of the Year" by Microsoft in 2023 and opened an office in France in 2025. Invited to the Élysée Palace in 2024 by Emmanuel Macron as one of the "great French AI talents", Lara campaigns for ethical and inclusive technology, regularly speaking on equality in tech.
This iconic program pursues a key objective: to empower female founders by providing networking opportunities and access to funding through connections with international venture capital funds.
Female-founded companies received 20% of funding in 2024. When looking at companies founded exclusively by women, without male co-founders, that number drops to just 1% of venture capital funding in 2024 and 6% of all deals, according to the Inc. 2025 report. This highlights just how seriously the issue of funding for women entrepreneurs needs to be taken.
This year, 536 founders from 83 countries applied. France remains the leading contributing country with 36.9% of applications, followed by the United States (8.4%), the United Kingdom (5.2%), Germany (4.3%) and Canada (3%).
After a rigorous selection led by VivaTech, its partners and a jury of experts, five finalists were selected to pitch their solution during the grand finale of the Female Founder Challenge, on 12 June at 9:45 am on the Purple Stage (Stage 2). The winner will then be honored at the VivaTech Global Awards Ceremony, which will take place Thursday 12 June at 5 pm on the Stage 1.
The finalists of this 2025 edition are:
- HORMONA, United Kingdom
Hormona is reinventing women's hormonal health with AI and at-home testing. This start-up offers the first comprehensive solution for hormonal health, offering a revolutionary method of testing, monitoring and treating hormonal problems.
About the founder: Karolina Löfqvist is CEO of Hormona which she co-founded in 2020. Passionate about women's health, she strives to make a real difference using data and innovative solutions. The company’s goal is to redefine the future of women's health and contribute to advances that mean better health for all women.
- PARALLEL CARBON LTD, United Kingdom
Parallel Carbon combines direct air capture and electrolysis to produce carbon-negative hydrogen and pure CO₂. This innovative process helps reduce CO₂ emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors while generating carbon offset credits and clean fuels.
About the Founder: Aranzazu Carmona Orbezo, PhD in Chemistry from the University of Manchester, is the founder and Chief Technical Officer of Parallel Carbon. She is developing an innovative technology that captures CO₂ from the air while producing hydrogen, with the goal of eliminating emissions and reversing climate change. Passionate about learning and teaching, she is also a strong advocate for women's rights and actively fights against gender bias.
- RADIANT MATTER, United Kingdom
Radiant Matter is a start-up that is rethinking the design and production of textiles to address environmental challenges. This start-up designs bio-inspired and structurally colored materials that are non-toxic, biodegradable and with a low-carbon footprint, without the use of plastics, metals, minerals or pigments.
About the founder: Elissa Brunato is a British materials designer and systems thinker, founder of Radiant Matter. Its flagship innovation, BioSequin™, is a biodegradable alternative to traditional glitter, made from cellulose. The technology has won over brands such as Stella McCartney, who used it in a jumpsuit worn by Cara Delevingne in US Vogue. Elissa also co-founded AusBlau Studio, a research lab for material systems and urban ecosystems.
- VERLEY, France
Verley is a biotechnology company dedicated to transforming the dairy industry through its precision fermentation technology. Its mission is to promote the environmental transition in the industry by developing functional and sustainable dairy protein ingredients, meeting the needs of dairy manufacturers looking for innovative solutions.
About the founder: Hélène Briand began her career in Asia, including Malaysia and India, where she worked on sustainable agricultural models to reduce the usage of antibiotics. In 2020, she co-founded Bon Vivant with Stéphane Mac Millan, a Lyon-based start-up specialising in the production of animal-free dairy proteins via precision fermentation. In March 2025, the company renamed itself Verley and launched a range of patented functional proteins, meeting the needs of food manufacturers in terms of nutrition and sustainability.
- VIRTUOSIS AI, Switzerland
Virtuosis AI is a privacy-focused AI that identifies early signs of burnout, stress, anxiety, and communication issues by analyzing voice during Microsoft Teams calls. An EPFL spin-off which was voted Microsoft Startup of the Year in 2023, Virtuosis AI develops AI-based speech biomarkers to detect more than 25 mental, cognitive, respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic disorders from a 30-second recording.
About the founder: Lara Gervaise, an EPFL-graduated AI engineer, co-founded Virtuosis AI in 2019. Under her leadership, Virtuosis AI was voted "Swiss Startup of the Year" by Microsoft in 2023 and opened an office in France in 2025. Invited to the Élysée Palace in 2024 by Emmanuel Macron as one of the "great French AI talents", Lara campaigns for ethical and inclusive technology, regularly speaking on equality in tech.