Huge Thing’s Female Fundraising Academy Returns to Support Women-Led Startups Across CEE

• Huge Thing and Douglas launch their new Female Fundraising Academy for CEE’s women founders
• The Program targets female-led early-stage startups, focusing on fundraising skills and encompassing workshops, mentoring, VC networking
• A dedicated beauty sector track is added in this years’ edition
• Applications close June 18th, the program runs July–August 2026 with 20 selected startups

Started in 2012 by SpeedUp Group, Huge Thing was among the pioneers of startup acceleration programs in Poland. Over the years, the organization has played an active role in developing the startup ecosystem across Central and Eastern Europe, supporting early-stage companies through mentorship, business development, and innovation programs.

The New Initiative to Support Female Founders Across CEE

This May, Huge Thing teams up with Douglas to launch a new edition of its Female Fundraising Academy — a program aimed at supporting and educating female founders. Previous editions, organized together with Visa Foundation and completed in 2024, focused on participants from Poland and Ukraine. The new edition significantly expands the initiative, opening applications to women-led startups from across the entire CEE region. Additionally, this year’s Female Fundraising Academy offers a separate track for the beauty sector and related industries.

‘Female Fundraising Academy was created for founders building ambitious, scalable projects who want to approach fundraising consciously and strategically. This is not only about business development knowledge, but about strengthening fundraising capabilities and improving access to investors,’ Huge Thing’s CEO Monika Synoradzka states.

 As one of Europe’s leading premium beauty retailers, operating thousands of stores and e-commerce platforms across more than 20 countries, Doughlas actively invests in digital innovation and customer experience technologies within the beauty sector. Through its partnership with Female Fundraising Academy, the company provides participating startups with industry expertise, mentorship and direct access to market insights, helping founders validate products, refine business models and better understand the needs of the beauty and retail industries.

Female Founders and Their Funding Barriers

Access to venture capital remains one of the biggest barriers for women building technology startups across Europe. Despite growing entrepreneurial activity and a rising number of support initiatives, female founders still receive only a fraction of available VC funding. To help close this gap, Huge Thing and Douglas launch a new edition of the Female Fundraising Academy — an acceleration program designed to help women-led startups prepare for fundraising and scale their businesses.

The initiative targets female founders from Central and Eastern Europe who are building early-stage technology startups and preparing to raise external funding. Applications for the program are now open and will remain available until June 18.

According to research by the European Commission and the European Innovation Council, startups with at least one female founder secured only 12% of all VC capital raised in the European Union between 2020 and 2025. The share was even lower for all-female founding teams. Beyond funding itself, many founders continue to face limited access to investor networks, fundraising know-how and practical preparation for conversations with venture capital firms.

Practical Fundraising Support

Female Fundraising Academy’s mission is to address those challenges through hands-on support rather than theoretical guidance. This acceleration program focuses on practical fundraising preparation, helping participants build investor-ready strategies and improve their ability to navigate the fundraising process.

Unlike broader entrepreneurship initiatives, the Academy is designed specifically for women leading scalable technology startups at the Pre-Seed or Seed stage. Participants will benefit from workshops focused on fundraising strategy, valuation, and investor negotiations, while also gaining access to mentors, industry experts, and VC speed-dating sessions.

According to Huge Thing, its alumni record an average 85% increase in monthly revenues.

Eligibility and Roadmap

Aside from originating from the CEE region, the applying female founders need to be already building scalable solutions and either preparing for a funding round or actively raising capital. The preferred verticals are beauty, retail and related technology sectors.

Startups are to apply here before June 18th, 2026. The organizers will then take their time until July 7th to make up their minds before announcing the 20 successful applications. The program itself will begin on July 13th and run for six weeks until August 28th, 2026

For more information, please see the Program’s page and follow Huge Thing’s LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.