Aurora Tech Award announces top 100 female founders
The Aurora Tech Award, the only global award dedicated to supporting outstanding female tech founders from emerging markets, has unveiled its Top 100 founders to watch for 2026. This year, a record 3,400 applications were submitted from 127 countries, reflecting unprecedented growth from last year’s 2,018 submissions across 116 nations.
The Top 100 highlights the global breadth of women-led innovation, with the highest number of applications coming from Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Colombia, Egypt, Brazil, India, Chile, Pakistan, and Mexico.
Key Sector Trends
Healthtech remains the strongest sector across the Top 13 countries represented. This year’s cohort includes 23 health-focused startups, continuing last year’s trend when healthtech also led the field. Founders are tackling many aspects of this sector, including wellbeing, longevity, digital medical tools, productivity platforms, life sciences, sports tech and more. Across these sectors, women founders consistently gravitate toward solving real, tangible problems rooted in their local communities, which strongly shapes the types of innovations emerging from each region.
Along with healthtech, agritech and edtech remain highly relevant, reflecting ongoing global demand and innovation in these sectors. AI continues its rapid expansion across these solutions, paired with blockchain and IoT technologies. In addition, this year saw a rise in fintech representation with 19 fintech startups included in the Top 100. This increase is partly due to the introduction of a dedicated fintech track in partnership with inDrive.Money which drew high-quality founders developing solutions in financial inclusion, digital payments, lending, and broader fintech innovation across emerging markets.
HR tech applications were dominated by founders from Latin America, followed by Africa and MENA, while agritech entries primarily from Africa and LATAM remain focused on B2B business models. Edtech has also retained its relevance, with 18 startups demonstrating some of the highest adoption of AI-driven tools.
Across regions like Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, agritech and foodtech startups stand out, highlighting both agricultural innovation and growing demand for energy solutions essential for the sector’s development.
Global Patterns and Founder Insights
Across all top countries, AI consistently shows up as a core enabling technology within the leading sectors, highlighting its role as a universal driver of innovation.
Two notable insights from this year’s applications:
- AI adoption is particularly prominent in healthtech and edtech, becoming a standard component of product development.
- Founders increasingly align their missions with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), signaling a shift toward impact-driven entrepreneurship.
Business model trends show a strong lean toward B2B, especially in Chile (84%), India (79%), and Peru (69%), reflecting market maturity and demand for enterprise solutions.
The award’s open call also provides insight into how much capital early-stage founders are seeking across emerging markets. Startups from India are pursuing the highest average investment, at roughly $1.25 million, followed by those in Kenya at around $840,000 and Colombia at approximately $620,000. Founders in Egypt seek close to $540,000, while those in Nigeria are looking for about $510,000 in funding.
Several other countries show more moderate capital needs, generally under $500,000—including Mexico (about $500,000), Brazil and South Africa (both just under $480,000), Pakistan (around $460,000), Chile (nearly $400,000), and Kazakhstan (around $380,000).
The least capital-seeking applicants come from Peru and Morocco, where founders are looking for approximately $300,000–$340,000 to grow their ventures.
“From more than 3,400 applications, our Top 100 represent the top three percent—truly exceptional founders. They’re building commercially powerful, category-defining companies that solve real problems their communities and markets face. We’re thrilled they chose to apply and proud to spotlight their impact” said Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, Head of the Aurora Tech Award.
VC & Investor Network Reach
Aurora’s venture network now spans four major regions—LATAM, MENA, Africa, and South Asia. Together, these regions represent roughly 70% of the world’s emerging-market innovation hubs, demonstrating both the global investor appetite for the new wave of female founders and Aurora’s growing ability to unlock downstream capital by aligning the right startups with the right investors.
The Aurora Tech Award empowers the most ambitious female founders in emerging markets with more than recognition. Winners receive up to US$50,000 in non-dilutive funding, tailored support and resources, and access to an industry-leading network of investors and experts. They also gain global visibility and media exposure, helping to amplify their business impact and scale solutions that shape the future.
Last year’s Aurora Tech Award ceremony in Cairo celebrated the achievements of exceptional female founders from emerging markets. The 2025 winners were Solape Akinpelu (HerVest, Nigeria) in first place, Loretxu Garcia Arraztoa (Nido Contech, Chile) in second, and Shreya Prakash (FlexiBees, India) in third, Laura Velásquez Herrera (Arkangel AI, Colombia) and Leonie Korn (UpLeap, Switzerland) in fourth and fifth places respectively.
The number of top finalists is set to be announced in February 2026, with the winners being celebrated at a global ceremony later in the year.