Female Founders House
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
Female Founders House frames a unique office community for entrepreneurs, investors, and other stakeholders, who share a desire to support female founders and promote diversity in the Danish business sector. The house is created with the vision of establishing an office community, where entrepreneurs can exchange experience across genders, ethnicity, age, professions etc. and help each other grow. In order to meet the great demand from especially female founders the house needs to be scaled.
Geographical Scope
Project Region
Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Description of the project
Summary
In September 2021, Nordic Female Founders launched Female Founders House, an office space in the heart of Copenhagen. The vision behind the office space is to support current and future female entrepreneurs and hereby promote diversity in Danish entrepreneurship and business sector. It is essential to note that entrepreneurs of all genders are welcome in the house. Female Founders House currently frames a community of entrepreneurs, investors and other stakeholders, who exchange experience across genders, ethnicity, age, professions etc. and help each other develop and grow.
Since the launch in September 2021, Nordic Female Founders have experienced a great interest in the project. We have been met with a large demand from not only entrepreneurs, who seek to rent an office space and wish to be a part of the community but also from investors and other stakeholders who wish to endorse the project and promote diversity. Due to the large demand, Nordic Female Founders have decided to scale the project and relocate Female Founders House. In collaboration with the real estate company Jeudan, Nordic Female Founders will reopen Female Founders House at a new location in Copenhagen in June 2022. The house will expand from one floor of 204 square meters and 20 office spaces to three floors of 1500 square meters and 125 office spaces. The three floors of the new house will accommodate office spaces, yoga rooms, meeting rooms, lounge areas and much more. By expanding Female Founders House, Nordic Female Founders and Jeudan will get the opportunity to not only accommodate more entrepreneurs, but also to host workshops, events, educations, counseling and mentoring courses etc. in-house. Hereby the workshops and courses etc. will be more accessible and we will be able to provide even more female entrepreneurs with the knowledge, resources and skills needed to start and grow a business.
Key objectives for sustainability
The main objective of our project in term of sustainability is to reduce gender inequality and promote diversity in Danish entrepreneurship and business sector. Hereby our project falls under SDG5, SDG8, SDG9 and SDG10.
Research conducted by Dansk Erhverv in 2020 shows that only 4% of the danish women aged from 18-64 are new entrepreneurs. This is significantly below the average for the OECD-countries, which is is 9.2 percent. The studied group of women emphasized that the greatest barrier for them to start up their own business is lack of skills and knowledge. The main purpose of Female Founders House is to break down this barrier and empower women by making education, counseling and mentoring accessible. The community at Female Founders House includes experienced entrepreneurs, investors and other stakeholders, who acts as role models and mentors for new female entrepreneurs. The community can hereby be defined as a circulation where skills and knowledge are continuously passed on and exchanged between actors, who strive to help each other start up and develop companies.
By empowering female entrepreneurs and promoting diversity in Danish entrepreneurship and business sector, our project; Female Founders House will encourage innovation and sustainable economic growth in the Danish society. This is supported by a report launched by the consulting firm McKinsey in 2020. The report indicates that companies with diverse teams have higher financial returns and are more likely to be innovative.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
The relocated Female Founders House is situated at Bredgade 45 in Frederiksstaden in Copenhagen K. The historical building was built in 1729-1730 by one of the central figures in Danish history of architecture named Philip de Lange. The facade of the building is characteristic and the building is well known in the area. Nordic Female Founders and Jeudan are aware of the fact that aesthetics in the built environment play a crucial role in terms of social and environmental sustainability. The danish council for sustainable building argue that if a building has an aesthetic expression, the willingness to keep and preserve the building and its interior is larger. Simultaneous they argue that in consideration for the environment and the climate, buildings should be preserved and renovated instead of teared down and reconstructed. Based on this, Nordic Female Founders has entered into a collaboration with Jeudan to ensure that the relocation of Female Founders House at Bredgade proceeds in a way that shows consideration for the historic building and ensures that the aesthetic expression is preserved both externally and internally. Preserving the aesthetic expression of the building does not only benefit the environment, but it does also have a positive effect on the users and the social quality of the building. Not only the expression of the house is beneficial for the users. The location of the new Female Founders House gives the users the opportunity to hold meetings as inspiring walk n’ talks in an area, where Amalienborg, Ofelia Plads and Kgs. Nytorv is just around the corner. Bus stops and metro stations are also close by. Female Founders House provides the framework for office spaces, yoga rooms, meeting rooms, lounge areas and much more - all imbued with a unique entrepreneurial spirit and an atmosphere of women's empowerment. The interior design of the house is carefully selected with a focus on accommodating the whole person.
Key objectives for inclusion
The key objective of our project in terms of inclusion is to create equal opportunities for all genders in terms of starting their own business and being included in the danish business sector as self-employed. Female Founders House frames a community of entrepreneurs, investors, and other stakeholders, who share a desire to create the best conditions for female entrepreneurs and strive to create an inclusive and diverse business environment in Denmark.
The community at Female Founders House is inclusive and accessible for everyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, profession etc. The project is based on the assumption that everyone has different preconditions for starting their own business and therefore experiences barriers for entering into the business sector as self-employed differently. These barriers can be identified and undermined through sparring, mentoring and counseling at Female Founders House.
Female Founders House is located in the heart of Copenhagen. The location is chosen based upon a vision of making the capital of Denmark more accessible for smaller start-up companies. Copenhagen is the one of the most popular place in Denmark to locate and start a business, and it is simultaneously the most expansive place to rent an office space. Nordic Female Founders and Jeudan wishes to make office spaces available for smaller start-up companies in the middle of Copenhagen and hereby contributing to a more diverse business environment in the Capital of Denmark.
Results in relation to category
The project has been such a big success that we are moving in to a bigger House the 1 first of July. In the new and bigger Female Founders house, which is located in Bredgade Copenhage, there will be space enough to more the 150 people.
It will be investors, founders, banks, partners as Amazon and so many people from the founders culture in whole Denmark.
We have an vison to get a Female Founders in at least 5 big cities in the newt 3 years.
How Citizens benefit
As the vision behind Female Founders House is to empower female entrepreneurs, we have based the project upon surveys conducted among women who wish to become self-employed as well as new and experienced female entrepreneurs. Both in the design phase of the current and the relocated Female Founders House we have strived to include perspective from users to make sure that the interior design and the functions of the house meet their needs. In the day-to-day running at the current Female Founders House, representives form Nordic Female Founders make sure to participate in lunch breaks and arrange monthly gatherings where we enter into dialogue with the users of the house and gain insight in how they experince the house and its facilities. Hereby we make sure that the users perspectives are not only included in the design phase, but are continuously included in the development of Female Founders House's operations and facilities.
For example, in our daily work with female entrepreneurs we have come ti learn that a shared concern is whether the women are capable of being successful in both business life and family life. This concern is not only to be found among the women that we meet at Female Founders House. The research conducted by Dansk Erhverv shows that the consulted group of danish women aged 18-64 similarly worries that a position as self-employed will lead them to downgrade family, friends and private time. Nordic Female Founders and Jeudan have made sure to employ these perspectives as a point of departure for designing the relocated Female Founders House. This house will contain room for children to join their parents at work from time to time, for coffee breaks and for starting the day with a yoga class. It will be a community where you can have success in both work and private life. At Female Founders House there is room for everyone and every aspect of your person. There is room for you to be a working person, a family person and a women with ambitions.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
The innovative character of Female Founders House compared to other actors in the field is that we have a clear vision about getting more diversity and more female founders.
The women to women culture is very strong.
Learning transferred to other parties
Nordic Female Founders strive to scale our project internationally. We believe that our project and business model have the potential to be scale across Europe.
