The Diversity of Global 500 Female Founders: Across sectors, corners of the world, age groups and growth stages

TOOL Global 500 list for 2024 cover bold, powerful and inspiring founders from 67 countries across all continents (!). Only registered users can view the complete list, in the Female Founders Community Space.

Explore student entrepreneurs alongside heavyweight seniors, and across all living generations. Find social and commercial entrepreneurs, across all stages, from pre-seed up to publicly listed companies. Browse entrepreneurs representing a very broad variety of industry segments and niche areas within the world of ocean & new energy. 

TOOL´s Purpose & Ambition With Global 500 List: We wish to enable everyone to explore the amazing world of female entrepreneurship across our male-dominated industries. We aim to support & strengthen the visibility and connectivity of and between founders, while enabling them to accelerate their access to growth resources such as partners, customers, talents and funding resources. 

We hope to inspire you to follow their journeys, and to see many more women of any age and backgrounds making the leap into joining a startup, or becoming a founder.

Expanding the Map!

Help us spread the word, bring these amazing role models and change-makers on the radar. Please also share your input on founders missing from this list, and check out our company map, with almost 700 organisations currently tracked as having female founders.

Top 10 Countries in alphabetical order; Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. These pioneer countries are followed by China, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Israel, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland.

Countries each represented with 5 or less entrepreneurs on our list, where we actively wish to identify a broader range of founders include; Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Ghana, Greece, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Palestine, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Zambia.

Fair winds and following seas, 

Birgit M. Liodden , Founder & Chief Mermaid of The Ocean Opportunity Lab (TOOL)