Aurora Tech Award names 10 women-led startups set to reshape emerging markets
Finalists chosen from 3,400 applications across 127 countries by an investor-led panel backing outstanding founders from beyond the Silicon Valley bubble.
The Aurora Tech Award, powered by inDrive, today announces the 10 finalists selected to pitch in Santiago for non-dilutive funding and access to Aurora’s global VC network, designed to help women-led tech companies scale in emerging markets
Chosen from 3,400 applications from 127 countries, this was a record-breaking year for the Award, reflecting the rapid growth of female entrepreneurship across emerging economies. The finalists span sectors including AI, fintech, healthtech, sustainability, agritech and more. All are at pre-seed and seed stage and were selected by a network of over 40 venture capital partners including DPI Venture Capital, Ventures Platform, Janngo Capital, Sarmayacar Ventures, SuperSeed, Imagine Ventures and Plus VC.
Providing access to overlooked, underfunded female founders
Women are building a growing share of the world’s venture-scale companies, but capital allocation has lagged behind. In 2025, all-women founding teams accounted for 5.6% of global VC deals but received just 1.4% of total VC funding. This is despite delivering a disproportionate amount of value - all-women-founded companies represented 6.2% of global VC exit value in 2025, and they can return 2x more revenue per dollar invested.
Follow us on: 
The Aurora Tech Award aims to close this gap between participation and capital allocation by providing its alumni with not only the funds to catalyse the growth of their companies, but access to the strategic support and connections that give them the visibility and leverage to help them scale.
Aurora finalists receive:
- Capital - non-dilutive funding for the top three winners
- Connection - referrals to Aurora’s partner network of 40 VCs, matched by region, sector and stage, plus structured investor feedback
- Community - access to a global peer network of female founders building in emerging markets, plus curated programming and expert support
- Platform - a final pitch opportunity in front of investors and an expert jury, culminating in the announcement of the 2026 winners
This includes Solape Akinpelu, co-founder of HerVest, a Nigerian fintech platform providing financially underserved women in Africa with access to savings, impact investing, and credit. After placing first in Aurora’s 2025 cohort, HerVest has reported 270% growth in loan disbursements to $284m, 36% YoY revenue growth, and 150,000+ women directly reached through its savings, lending and financial education products.
Leonie Korn, co-founder of UpLeap, a platform using AI to scale medical training globally, placed fifth last year. UpLeap has since closed a $330k pre-seed round with several strategic investors brought in via Aurora’s VC network, grown its platform to 1,600+ healthcare professionals completing 6,000+ training sessions, and built a waitlist of over 50 healthcare facilities across 8 countries in Africa and the DACH region.
The Aurora 2026 top 10 finalists:
- Adeola Ayoola, Famasi (Nigeria) - A platform that helps pharmacies manage operations and see stock in real time across a network, so prescriptions can be routed to nearby pharmacies that have the medicine available. Seed-stage
- Adriana Gonzalez, tizo (Panama) - An AI-enabled messaging platform that helps unbanked shoppers and small merchants in Latin America buy and sell online via local store networks. Seed-stage
- Angela Acosta, Morado (Colombia) - A fintech improving economic opportunity for female beauty entrepreneurs by using AI models to provide fast, fair access to credit and working capital, in turn unlocking long-term business success. Seed-stage
- Catalina Isaza, Innmetec (Colombia) - A medtech firm delivering personalised surgical implants and pre-surgery planning tools, using 3D printing and advanced biomaterials to support safer procedures, faster recovery and better patient outcomes. Seed-stage
- Estefanía Abello, Muta (Colombia) - A sustainability platform bringing digitalisation and traceability to the recycling value chain - helping recyclers reduce operational inefficiencies and meet compliance requirements, and enabling processors and brands to verify the origins and sustainability metrics of their materials. Seed-stage
- Maria Kawas, DomestikCo (Chile) - HR software that helps households formalise domestic work by automating employment contracts, payroll and employer compliance, improving access to protections for workers and providing peace of mind for household employers. Pre-seed
- Mariana Zuliani, OncoAI (Brazil) - A healthtech firm providing AI-driven clinical insights to help oncologists and healthcare institutions predict cancer recurrence and optimise treatment decisions, supporting better outcomes while reducing unnecessary interventions. Pre-seed.
- Mercedes Bidart, Quipu (Colombia) - A fintech company building an alternative credit scoring system to help informal workers get fairer access to capital when they lack traditional credit histories. Seed-stage
- Patricia Florencia, Pilou (Mexico) - An AI-powered wealthtech business helping Latin Americans, especially women, build wealth and make informed decisions by simplifying how they manage investment accounts. Pre-seed
- Penny Musengi, Pesira Technologies (Kenya) - An agritech platform bridging Africa’s agricultural digital divide by connecting farmers, agribusinesses and finance providers in one place - enabling access to financial services and marketplaces that support farm growth and more resilient supply chains Seed-stage
Investor selection with investment conviction
Aurora’s selection process is built to identify the women founders with the highest potential in emerging markets through a multi-layered assessment that combines independent investor evaluation with Aurora’s own execution benchmarks, developed with experienced operators and investors.
Aurora’s curated network of over 40 venture capital partners across Latin America, MENA, Africa, and South Asia review startups aligned with their areas of expertise, scoring them and signalling which founders they would want to engage with.
Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, Head of the Aurora Tech Award, says: "Aurora’s purpose is to make sure exceptional women founders who are already demonstrating traction in emerging markets get the visibility, the access to investors and the capital they deserve. We’ve created a rigorous selection process that ensures our finalists are investor-approved, capital-ready, and primed to disrupt their industries with bold new thinking. This top 10 sends a clear signal to the market: these are the founders you should be watching."
Javier Cueto, Managing Partner at Imagine Ventures, added: "This year has shown how much the Aurora Tech Award has grown, particularly in LATAM, where eight of this year’s cohort are based. Not only were there more applications, but there was a clear step-change in the quality of these businesses. This top 10 is proof that you don’t have to choose between impact and returns - these founders are building commercial businesses to solve real, local problems across a diverse range of industries."