“Globally, women account for one in three high-growth, innovation-focused entrepreneurs, demonstrating their capacity to lead in transformative sectors.”
– GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
Women’s Enterprise
The Enterprise Evolution team has over two decades of experience in women’s enterprise development, working nationally and internationally to research, design, and deliver programmes that help women entrepreneurs start, grow, and scale their businesses.
We partner with public bodies, European institutions, and funding agencies to champion gender equity in enterprise – from early-stage start-up support to advanced digital skills and deep tech acceleration.
Our work spans research and policy, funded programme delivery, capacity-building, and specialist consultancy, giving commissioners and funders a single, experienced partner for women’s enterprise at every stage..
The Importance of Women’s Enterprise Development in Europe and beyond.
Women make up just 34% of entrepreneurs across the EU-27 – a gap that researchers estimate represents around four million “missing” women entrepreneurs. These are structural barriers, not individual shortcomings, and they carry a real economic cost. Read our analysis of the latest European Commission findings.
Meanwhile, globally, women own approximately one third of businesses but receive a fraction of the finance and institutional support available to male-owned enterprises. The World Bank and ILO consistently identify closing the gender entrepreneurship gap as one of the highest-return investments a government or funder can make – and Enterprise Evolution’s work is built around turning that evidence into action.
Globally, start-up intentions are highest for women in low-income countries (25%) and lowest in middle-income countries (14.2%), where we see the smallest gender difference.
– GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
Our Approach
We recognise that women entrepreneurs face structural barriers – from access to finance and professional networks to exclusion from high-growth sectors. Our programmes are built around evidence, designed to remove those barriers, and evaluated to demonstrate measurable change.
We embed the EntreComp entrepreneurship competence framework across all our work, ensuring consistent, high-quality outcomes grounded in internationally recognised standards. As an active EntreComp practitioner and community member, Enterprise Evolution brings both the knowledge and the credibility to design interventions that genuinely work.
What We Deliver
Enterprise Evolution’s women’s enterprise work covers the full spectrum of support:
- Research and policy development on women’s entrepreneurship trends, barriers, and opportunities
- Design and delivery of specialist enterprise development programmes for women
- Digital skills training and e-learning platform development
- Acceleration support for women-led start-ups, including deep tech ventures
- Gender equity integration into enterprise, employment, and education strategies
- EU project coordination and consortium management for women’s enterprise initiatives
- Social impact measurement and evaluation of women’s enterprise programmes
Current Programmes
Enterprise Evolution’s commitment to women’s enterprise goes beyond consultancy. We actively lead and participate in European-funded programmes that create real opportunities for women entrepreneurs across the continent. Two of our current parter programmes are EPIC-X and Women 5.0.
EPIC-X
Excelling deep tech through placed-based innovation and connection ecosystems for women-led start-ups.
