The Tech Bros: Creating and Backing Female-Founded Tech Companies
The startup world has long been dominated by men. In fact, 80% of founding teams are entirely male—a statistic that doesn’t just shape who gets funded, but also what products are created, which voices influence innovation, and who holds power in the next generation of venture-backed companies.
But change is on the horizon.
In a recent episode of Six Degrees of Innovation, I spoke with Millette and Sedinam, the dynamic co-founders of The Tech Bros—an organisation flipping the script by building a pipeline of all-female, all-technical founding teams. Their goal isn’t just to help more women launch companies, but to spark a systemic shift in the tech ecosystem.
From Pure Maths and Machine Learning to Systemic Change
Millette’s journey began in academia, with a PhD in pure mathematics and stints in venture capital across Hong Kong and Berlin. While she entered the ecosystem expecting women’s underrepresentation to be about “interest levels,” she quickly discovered the opposite: women were just as interested, but faced subtle, everyday biases that chipped away at their confidence.
Sedi, originally from South Africa, followed a path through economics, statistics, and data science before completing a Master’s in machine learning at Cambridge as a Google DeepMind Scholar. Meeting Millette, she says, was a moment of deep alignment: “We felt super aligned over the vision of The Tech Bros and what it could be.”
Together, they decided to stop talking about inequity and start doing something about it.Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Everyday Bias: The Invisible Barrier
One of the most striking themes of our conversation was how bias shows up in small, consistent ways. It’s rarely an explicit “no” to women founders. Instead, it’s the raised eyebrow when a woman says she wants to start a company, the patronising “are you sure you’re ready for this?” or the subtle implication that her ambition is unrealistic.
These micro-signals compound. When you hear them repeatedly—whether from investors, peers, or potential co-founders—it’s easy to start believing you don’t belong in the founder seat.
Yet The Tech Bros’ events show the opposite: women in STEM are eager to start companies. They just need support, clarity on next steps, and a community that tells them yes, you can.
The Tech Bros Model: Events, Accelerator, and Investment
The Tech Bros have three pillars to their work:
Community and Events
Panels, hackathons, and workshops across the UK that demystify entrepreneurship, connect women with potential co-founders, and show that building a startup is a viable path.Accelerator Program (Launching July)
Audience: Women in STEM/technical backgrounds, applying as individuals or pre-formed all-female teams.
Format: 8 weeks total: 2 weeks of immersive “hacker house” living, followed by 6 weeks hybrid (with in-person sessions in London).
Focus: Taking teams from zero to MVP, culminating in a demo day with angel investors.
Specialty Areas: Deep tech, robotics, aerospace, hardware, quantum, and applied AI/ML—though applications aren’t limited to these fields.
The Tech Bros Fund
Currently in development, this investment vehicle will back female-founded tech companies that emerge from the accelerator and beyond.
Their long-term vision? Create a pipeline where today’s first-time female founders become tomorrow’s unicorn builders, role models, and angel investors—feeding back into a healthier, more diverse ecosystem.
Why Focus on Female-Only Teams?
Millette and Sedi are unapologetic about their all-female focus. With 80% of teams currently all-male, they argue, the ecosystem doesn’t need “balance”—it needs a counterweight. Supporting women-only teams isn’t exclusionary; it’s corrective.
As Millette put it, “If the ecosystem were 80% mixed teams, this wouldn’t be necessary. But right now, female founders are invisible in too many rooms.”
Overcoming Academic vs. Industry Barriers
Interestingly, much of their audience comes from academia—Masters and PhD students curious about founding. Compared to people already in industry, students are often more open to risk, less attached to steady salaries, and more comfortable with the idea of uncertainty.
Industry professionals, by contrast, face the “gilded cage”: stable paychecks and established reputations make it harder to step away. That’s why The Tech Bros see a sweet spot in engaging students early, before they drift into jobs that dampen their appetite for entrepreneurship.
Building Networks (Without the Awkwardness)
Networking, Millette and Sedi emphasised, is about being proactive and “a little shameless.” The two co-founders themselves met through a cold LinkedIn message. They now encourage founders to embrace imperfection and reach out before their ideas feel “ready.”
As Millette reflected: “You have to be willing to be cringy. That’s where success comes in.”
Measuring Impact
When asked how they’ll measure success, Sedi pointed to the micro-wins: every time a woman leaves an event thinking, “I didn’t think I could found a company, but now I know I can.”
Millette, meanwhile, has her eye on scale: “If we can point to 100 female-founded companies that exist because of us, I’ll feel proud. And if just a handful of those become household names, that will trigger the whole pipeline.”
The Bigger Picture
Diverse teams don’t just create more equitable ecosystems—they create better businesses. Research consistently shows that gender-diverse founding teams outperform all-male ones. And yet, entrenched bias continues to skew opportunity.
The Tech Bros are proof that tackling the problem requires targeted interventions. By focusing narrowly on technical women at the earliest stage of founding, they aim to unlock systemic change that cascades across investment, mentorship, and representation.
Closing Thoughts
I left this conversation inspired—not just by Millette and Sedi’s clarity of purpose, but by the way they balance ambition with action. They know they can’t fix the entire pipeline at once. Instead, they’ve chosen a high-leverage point: helping women take the leap into founding.
If you’re a woman in STEM considering entrepreneurship—or if you want to back the next wave of diverse founders—The Tech Bros are building the community, accelerator, and fund to make it happen.
Innovation thrives on diverse perspectives. And with initiatives like The Tech Bros, the future of tech looks brighter, fairer, and infinitely more interesting.