Nationwide Partners FFR to Back UK Women Entrepreneurs

Nationwide has partnered with Female Founders Rise (FFR) as its sole banking partner to strengthen support for women entrepreneurs, female founders, and women-led businesses across the UK. By providing more women with access to funding, business education, networking, and practical resources, the partnership will help them to build successful, sustainable businesses.

The partnership will help advance FFR's goals of supporting women entrepreneurs and non-binary founders from early stages of business development through growth and sustainability, with Nationwide's dedication to SME support. The initiative aims to empower founders to turn ideas into successful businesses and increase their access to funding, expert advice and access to useful professional networks.

The collaboration is timely, given the economic significance of women-led businesses is being increasingly recognized. The UK economy could generate up to £310 billion more if women matched men in starting and expanding businesses, the findings of one of the largest grassroots studies into female entrepreneurship in the UK reveals. The results underline the importance of providing more financing, business mentorship, leadership development, and networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs who remain constrained even in their role of driving innovation and jobs.

Key Highlights

• Nationwide partners with Female Founders Rise to support women entrepreneurs
• The partnership will support more than 12,000 women entrepreneurs and non-binary founders
• Women founders will gain better access to funding, networking, and business support
   

The announcement follows the National will launch its business banking offering for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) next year. The partnership is part of the organization's larger efforts to promote inclusive business growth, local businesses, and women-owned businesses.

Hannah Bernard, Director of Business Banking at Nationwide, added, "Female-led businesses are an important part of the UK economy, helping to drive growth, innovation and job creation and we are delighted to provide assistance to this group of business owners, including Female Founders Rise, to help them create successful, sustainable businesses, and also to increase our support for SMEs in the UK as a whole”.

Female Founders Rise is one of the fastest-growing communities in the UK for promoting women entrepreneurship, founded in 2022. It offers funding assistance, expert-led masterclasses, hands-on business programmes, networking events, regional events and its flagship conference. In addition, members can participate in the 8-week long Fundraising Accelerator, which is designed to help female founders get ready to get investment and build their business with confidence.

Emmie Faust, Founder of Female Founders Rise, said, “We help women to build profitable and sustainable businesses and to create financial freedom through entrepreneurship, so this partnership is an ideal fit for us – we already support 12K women and with Nationwide as our banking partner we can support many more across the UK over time.”

Nationwide and Female Founders Rise will help more women entrepreneurs break through, scale up their successful businesses and make the UK's entrepreneurial landscape more robust by providing increased access to funding, business expertise, strategic networks and growth opportunities. The collaboration underscores the critical need for investment in women entrepreneurs and their enterprises, which continue to be vital to innovation, job creation and sustained economic growth.