Since 1980, the proportion of female entrepreneurs has increased by just one percentage point and only a quarter of all entrepreneurs in Sweden are women. To encourage more women to start and run businesses, Froda awards the "Female Entrepreneur of the Future" scholarship. This year, the scholarship received almost 200 applications and now the five finalists can be presented: Maria Niclason, Edith Heppich, Lovisa Sunnerholm, Janna Naser and Sabelle Beraki.

The winner of the Female Entrepreneur of the Future scholarship will be presented during Froda's Tomorrow's Founders event on March 7. Tomorrow's Founders is a recurring event organized by Froda that highlights today's and tomorrow's entrepreneurs. The event aims to inspire more people to start their own business in general, as well as to encourage more gender equality and diversity in business in particular. The evening will be chaired by Klara Adolphson and during the event Susanne Najafi (BackingMinds), Sania Claus Demina (sania d'mina) and Dora Palfi (imagi) will talk about their entrepreneurial journeys.

- The purpose of the grant is to help improve the conditions for female entrepreneurs and give more women the opportunity to invest in their ideas. That's why it's great that we have received so many applications and fantastic ideas. All of the finalists are really good examples of the female entrepreneurs of the future," says Olle Lundin, CEO and co-founder of Froda.

Established in 2022, the scholarship will be awarded for the second time this year. The winner is awarded SEK 100,000 to invest in their business and aims to provide women who want to, or have just started a business, with capital that enables the realization of their idea.

Do you want to be present at the event? Register for the event here: https://tomorrowsfounders2024....

The finalists:

Maria Niclason, After Class
Maria Niclason is a real estate entrepreneur from the US who moved to Sweden to explore new avenues in her entrepreneurship. Today, Maria lives in Järfälla and runs the company After Class, a platform that revolutionizes how parents and teenagers discover and engage in leisure activities. After Class brings together a wide range of classes and courses in areas such as sports, art and technology that make it easier for young people to shape their leisure time and lay the foundation for increased well-being and personal development.

Edith Heppich, Hyggligt
Edith Heppich is a lawyer from Hallsberg whose passion for climate issues led her to invest in sustainable forestry. In 2023, she founded Hyggligt, which wants to change the way we use the forest and make it economically profitable with clear-cut forestry. Hyggligt works to develop solutions that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, mitigate the effects of climate change and increase biodiversity.

Lovisa Sunnerholm, Enkei
Lovisa Sunnerholm is a marketer who left a successful career, with high positions in multinational companies, to start her own company focused on circular design. In less than a year, her company Enkei has gone from being just an idea, to having produced its first product: a table lamp made of mostly waste and designed to make the sustainable choice the attractive one and highlight circular solutions. In the process, they have also developed a proprietary material based on Europe's third largest source of waste: the construction and demolition industry. The material consists of over 90% waste and instead of conventional concrete sand, Enkei uses ceramic waste from construction sites, tackling the problems of both sand mining and improper disposal of ceramic waste that is currently landfilled.

Janna Naser, Alga Insulation
Janna Naser is the 19-year-old from Örebro who, despite being only 19 years old, has her sights set on revolutionizing the way insulation is produced. During high school, she founded Alga Insulation to address the problem created by seaweed washed up from the sea, which leads to eutrophication if it is put back. Since graduating, she has continued to run the company and, with the help of researchers at RISE, the Research Institute of Sweden, Alga Insulation is developing insulation materials based on seaweed. The method has the potential not only to lead to more sustainable construction but also to help reduce eutrophication in the oceans.

Sabelle Beraki, Bells Toys
Sabelle Beraki is the entrepreneur from the south of Stockholm who has paved the way for a more inclusive and representative toy industry in Sweden. After going her whole life without finding dolls that represented her own identity, she decided to take matters into her own hands and founded Bells Toys. With the goal of improving the confidence and self-esteem of children, Bells Toys manufactures dolls with a focus on diversity and representation and today Sabelle's dolls are sold all over the country.

In recent years, tech company Froda has expanded to the UK, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Now, the company is taking the next step in its expansion journey by setting up in Germany in partnership with German neobank Kontist, part of the Ageras Group. The expansion means that Froda is now present in six markets.

Froda's vision is to help as many entrepreneurs as possible to access finance on good terms. There are 25 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe, and in Europe's largest economy, Germany, SMEs employ 18.5 million people. Despite this, the lack of access to finance is one of the biggest obstacles for smaller companies looking to grow. In 2021, Froda launched the Froda Embedded technology platform to make business finance available in Europe through partnerships with banks and corporates.

- Germany is Europe's largest economy and a business-dense market. Our vision has always been to make financing available to all small and medium-sized enterprises, something we have specialized in for eight years. Expanding into the German market will therefore be an important milestone for Froda. We look forward to being able to support German entrepreneurs with their financing needs through the collaboration with Ageras," says Olle Lundin, co-founder and CEO of Froda.

Froda Embedded was launched with the aim of enabling companies and banks across Europe to offer financing directly to their customers by integrating Froda's platform into their existing product. Over the past year, lending and the number of customers via Froda Embedded has almost tripled, which has been a major contributor to Froda's near 100% growth and 800% increase in the international loan portfolio. The partnership with Ageras, one of Germany's leading providers of integrated banking, accounting and tax services via Kontist, means that 50,000 German entrepreneurs can now access SME finance.

- The solution means that payments can be made automatically via the company card and the process takes seconds, rather than several banking days. This is something that can be crucial for an entrepreneur when an opportunity arises, but perhaps even more important in tough times like now. The fact that Ageras wants to launch this product together with us on the German market is exciting to say the least," says Stella Snickare, VP Froda Embedded.

In November, Froda announced a partnership with Ageras, as part of the company's growth and expansion journey. Froda is now entering Germany together with Ageras. The partnership means that Germany will be the second market in the world to gain access to Froda's card-based embedded lending technology. Card-based embedded lending is a new innovation in the market and aims to make it easier for more entrepreneurs to access finance directly via their Visa business card.

- We know that German entrepreneurs have a great need to access business finance, but we haven't found an internal model to solve the problem. By partnering with Froda, we can now offer a scalable product to our German customers that will help more entrepreneurs grow," says Martin Hegelund, co-founder of Ageras.

The product will be launched in Germany in February 2024.

The Female Entrepreneur of the Future scholarship was established in 2022 by Froda with the aim of promoting and supporting female entrepreneurs in the start-up phase, and encouraging more women to take the plunge and start a business. The jury for 2024, consisting of prominent entrepreneurs and investors, is now announced.

The scholarship is worth SEK 100 000 and is awarded annually to a first-time female entrepreneur. It is aimed at women who have started a business in 2023 or plan to start in the coming year. This year's jury includes several renowned profiles from Astrid Wild, Imagi, Spotify and Froda.

Jury Women Entrepreneurs of the Future 2024:

DoraPalfi, CEO and Co-Founder, Imagi.
Dora is Co-Founder and CEO of imagi, an edtech company redefining access to education in programming. In 2021, she was named on Forbes 30 Under 30 list as one of Europe's leading social entrepreneurs and she is a Cartier Women's Initiative Fellow.

Olle Lundin, CEO and Co-Founder, Froda.
Olle Lundin is CEO and co-founder of Froda. With a background in finance, law and the startup world, he wants to promote diversity and equality in entrepreneurship through Froda. Being an entrepreneur should not be a class issue. Before Froda, Olle co-founded Curamando, now Arc Group.

Maria Paulsson Rönnbäck, co-founder, Astrid Wild.
Maria Paulsson Rönnbäck is co-founder and marketing manager at Astrid Wild, outdoor clothing for the female form. She has a degree in Marketing & Strategy from the Stockholm School of Economics, has been in the start-up phase of two technology companies where she has worked as COO and CMO and has been part of the management team.

Donna Hanafi, angel investor and product manager, Spotify.
Donna is a well-known investor and entrepreneur. She has co-founded Mentimeter, led the product team at Tictail (Shopify), worked on Volvo's social innovation program, and served on the board of the SSE Business Lab. Today she is Senior Product Manager at Spotify.

Simon Strindberg, investor and COO, Froda.
Simon Strindberg is a tech professional with extensive experience working at fast-growing companies. Today Simon is COO at Froda. Prior to Froda, Simon held the role of CCO, CMO and partner at Budbee and held several senior positions at Klarna. Simon is also an investor in several startups and tech companies.

About the scholarship "Female Entrepreneur of the Future"
The Female Entrepreneur of the Future was established in 2022 and is awarded annually to a female entrepreneur. The scholarship is SEK 100,000 and aims to give women with ambitions to run a business a start-up capital that enables them to invest in their idea. Requirements for the application are:

• Identify as a woman
• Registered in Sweden
• Of legal age at the time of application
• Not have operated a business before, or have established their first business no earlier than January 1, 2023.

The application for the scholarship is open until December 31, 2023: froda.se/stipendier/framtidens-kvinnliga-foretagare/