Aurora Ventures Backs Women Founders in Emerging Markets

• Supports overlooked women founders in emerging markets
• Backed by inDrive for early-stage investment advantage
• Provides funding plus mentorship and growth support

Aurora Ventures, the newly launched investment initiative by Aurora, was developed to support female business owners in the developing world who are running successful, rapidly-growing enterprises, which have typically been missed by conventional VCs.

Backed by inDrive, an international transportation and delivery service that achieved unicorn status and operates throughout the same developing areas being targeted by Aurora Ventures during its 2026 pilot phase, Aurora Ventures is launching today.

Aurora Ventures believes that there are currently far too many successful businesses created by women in the developing world that do not receive adequate recognition or appreciation based on their current performance level. The investment strategy for this fund is to take advantage of opportunities presented by identifying high-quality companies earlier than expected and investing in them with the appropriate amount of capital and resources.

Aurora recently completed research containing over 900 interviews of founders from 127 countries, and the findings show substantial evidence of an imbalance between male and female entrepreneurs. The majority of female entrepreneurs cited four key challenges to accessing sufficient capital: intersectional bias, scepticism about their skillset, a higher threshold for creating traction and doing business in a region or culture that is not their own. As Aurora identified similar characteristics in emerging markets, the idea was born that mispricing is found not only in who is funded but in how investors assess their results.

Aurora Ventures has a distinct advantage in sourcing investments through the Aurora Tech Awards. Over four years, Aurora has developed one of the largest pools of early-stage female entrepreneurs who are outside traditional venture capital firms. Rather than trying to acquire investments that are already on the market, Aurora Ventures invests when there is maximum potential and before valuations completely account for performance. Consequently, their model allows for investments to be replicated on a large scale.

As an innovation firm, Aurora Ventures has built their sourcing model using a structure that goes beyond just providing capital. Portfolio companies access a variety of different forms of support, such as introductions to targeted networks, curated introductions, and as-needed operational guidance. This support is structured to improve the companies' ability to execute, increase their readiness for investors, and expedite the timetable required to obtain additional financing on advantageous terms.

Initially, the programme was supported by inDrive, the company's New Ventures initiative. inDrive reached unicorn status by being an alternative solution to the major market players that were larger and more financed. InDrive now operates in 48 countries, including the emerging markets where Aurora is currently looking to invest. It views this programme as a logical continuation of its prior successes and its belief that the neglected, smaller companies in emerging markets can develop into future market leaders.

The Aurora Ventures Programme 2026 is being launched as a pilot year with two objectives: to establish an initial portfolio and a track record that will lay the groundwork for the next phase of Aurora Ventures - the formalisation of a GP/LP fund structure.

Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, Head of Aurora Ventures and the Aurora Tech Award, said: “Over the past four years, we’ve seen the same pattern repeat: exceptional women founders building strong businesses, but reaching institutional capital later and on worse terms than their performance justifies. Aurora Ventures is our response – a disciplined investment programme built on the conviction that women founders in emerging markets are one of the most overlooked opportunities in venture today. We’re not waiting for the market to correct itself.”

Andries Smit, Chief Growth Businesses Officer, inDrive, said: “We built inDrive against all odds – competing against platforms that were earlier, bigger and better-funded than us – and turned it into a global unicorn. We see the same thing playing out with women founders in emerging markets today: an overlooked opportunity hiding in plain sight. Backing Aurora Ventures is not charity and it is not optics. It is the same bet we made on ourselves.”