The Aurora Tech Award, an annual prize launched by global mobility and urban services platform inDrive, spotlights outstanding women tech leaders from across the globe. This year’s finalists predominantly hail from emerging markets; even still, the UK landscape for female entrepreneurs remains challenging.
The finalists for the 2025 Aurora Tech Award, selected from 2,018 applicants, represent countries from across MENA, LATAM, and Asia. These forward-thinking women lead startups, which span a large spectrum of industries in the technology space. AI is the most dominant field this year, with five out of ten finalists leading AI-enabled companies, followed by HealthTech, represented by three of this year’s finalists.
Even though the Aurora Tech Award was established in 2020, its mission to support women founders remains just as urgent as it was five years ago. According to Forbes, only 2%-3% of total venture capital funding in the UK was awarded to women-founded businesses in 2024, and as many as 25% of female founders believed they would secure better funding for their startups had they been men.
Initiatives like the Investing in Women Code, launched in 2019 with support from the UK Business Angels Association, the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, UK Finance, and the British Business Bank, have been trying to work for change, but gender disparity among tech company founders remains a pressing issue.
inDrive’s Aurora Tech Award is also working hard to help level the playing field for women. The award comes with a prize fund of $85,000 and financial support for the top five selected companies. The Aurora Tech Award will also help the companies raise their profile and access networking and other relevant opportunities to help their founders scale their initiatives, including in the international arena.
The Aurora Tech Award 2025 finalists are:
- Shreya Prakash, founder of FlexiBees (India) – flexible talent platform, helping businesses source part-time and project-based workers pooled from highly qualified women seeking remote work.
- Laura Velásquez Herrera, founder of Arkangel AI (Colombia) – AI SaaS that transforms medical data into AI algorithms without code.
- Nyifamu Ogechi Manzo, founder of Farmatrix (Nigeria) – an easier means to buy and supply farm products.
- Gulnaza Khalmanbetova, founder of Mama Space (Kyrgyzstan) – an AI-guided support system for moms and moms-to-be.
- Thais Sterenberg de Oliveira, founder of Elephan (Brazilia) – an AI-enabled B2B SaaS that helps to attract and manage leads and clients.
- Leonie Korn, founder of UpLeap (Switzerland) – an AI-driven platform to revolutionise medical training through short, hands-on simulations.
- Veronica Lee, founder Borderless ( Uzbekistan) – an all-in-one AI-powered college counselling platform for international students.
- ‘Solape Akinpelu, founder of HerVest (Nigeria) – a fintech platform empowering women through inclusive financial services.
- Loretxu García, founder of Nido Contech (Chile), nature-based solutions for the construction industry.
- Heiura Itae Tetaa, founder of E-Reo (French Polynesia) – a solution for digitising indigenous languages.
The startups that these women founders represent have demonstrated impressive growth, clear business models, and proven market demand, backed by highly skilled and experienced founding teams. From leveraging cutting-edge technology to filling key industry gaps, their impact is evident through third-party recognition, strong customer engagement, and scalable business strategies.
“Aurora isn’t just a tech award—it’s a launchpad for the next generation of unicorn founders in emerging markets. With funding, high-profile investor access, and a global network, we back the boldest women in tech who are building ventures that will redefine industries,” Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, Head of the Aurora Tech Award.
The finalists were selected on the basis of their startup’s innovation, scalability, and social impact. A distinguished panel of industry experts and investors will evaluate their work before announcing the winner at the upcoming Aurora Tech Award series of events in Cairo on April 11-13, 2025. The final pitch competition will be held at SHE CAN 2025, organised by Entreprenelle, whose primary objective is to support and empower women who seek to be entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Feature Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
