Agora Venture Competition Spring 2025 ($10,000 prize)Deadline: 7 March, 2025

Applications are open for the Agora Venture Competition Spring 2025. Each year, Agora runs two venture challenges for DC-area female founders where the winner walks away with a $10K cash prize. They put female founders at the center of the conversation, gathering the top business and tech influencers in the DMV to help women fund and scale their startups.

Founded in 2024, the Agora Initiative brings founders, funders, and industry influencers together to help advance female founders in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. They believe that they can move the needle for local female founders by rallying around them.

Prize

• One winner will receive a $10,000 check, awarded as a non-dilutive grant.

Eligibility

• Applicant must self-identify as either female or non-binary.
• Must be based in DC, Maryland, or Virginia.
• Must be a founder with at least 25% equity stake and hold a C-suite executive position in the company they are representing.
• Must be past “idea stage” with revenue, active users or other performance metric to signal early product market fit. Applicant founder must be, with some limited exceptions, working full time on their venture.
• Applicant’s company should demonstrate the potential for venture-scale growth, indicating a capacity for rapid expansion and significant market impact. (Note: Founders of consultancies or other businesses that do not meet this criterion are welcome to reach out to explore other paths for involvement).
• The company must be incorporated as a for-profit entity.

Application

Applications will close on March 7, 2025. Applications will be reviewed by the investor committee throughout March & April, and finalists will pitch at their showcase event on May 7. They will notify finalists by mid-April.

Click here to apply

For more information, visit Agora Venture Competition.