Deadline Date: January 30, 2026
The Village Capital in partnership with Standard Chartered Foundation, is offering a powerful opportunity for early-stage women-led tech startups in the United States through its US Women in Tech Accelerator.
The initiative is built to help address persistent funding inequities faced by women founders — at present, all-women founding teams have historically received only a small fraction of total venture capital. The Accelerator aims to unlock both financial and social capital, equipping women entrepreneurs with the tools they need to grow solutions that can expand access to essential services, improve economic mobility, and generate impact in underserved communities.
Each year, the program selects a cohort of 10–12 tech-based or tech-enabled startups led by women — including cisgender, transgender, and non-binary entrepreneurs — whose businesses are small (fewer than ten employees), have less than USD 100K in annual revenue, and have a minimum viable product with some customer validation. The Accelerator is open to startups focused on a wide range of social-impact areas: from affordable healthcare, wellness, and critical services, to education, job access, financial resilience, and community-integrated solutions. Through the program, entrepreneurs work to scale ideas that aim to deliver tangible benefits for women, families, and historically marginalized or overlooked communities.
Participants receive comprehensive support to build their ventures: personalized coaching with financial analysts, help developing financial models and growth narratives, and a customized milestone development plan via VilCap’s digital platform. Beyond that, the Accelerator opens the door to mentorship and networking, connecting founders with investors, strategic partners, experienced entrepreneurs and business leaders. A distinguishing feature is the peer-driven funding decision process: at the end of the program, participants evaluate each other from an investor’s lens to select two startups to receive grant capital of USD 25,000 — giving founders not only support but also a democratic say in where funding goes.
With the launch of the 2026 cohort, this initiative represents a growing movement to level the playing field for women entrepreneurs in tech, especially from marginalized communities, giving them access to opportunities, capital, guidance and visibility that are often harder to secure through traditional channels. For early-stage, impact-driven women-led startups in the U.S., the US Women in Tech Accelerator represents more than a program — it offers a genuine pathway toward growth, stability and lasting community impact.
For more information, visit Village Capital.
