Blackbox Connect hosts first women founders’ edition in Silicon Valley

A few years old now, Blackbox Connect, a seed accelerator and mentoring initiative sponsored in part by Google for Entrepreneurs, concluded its first residential programme for women entrepreneurs from across the world. The two-week residency took place between April 27 and May 8 in the Silicon Valley. Swati Bhargava, Co-founder of CashKaro.com, was chosen to represent India at the event.

On her selection, Bhargava says, “I’ve always wanted to spend time in the Valley and learn from the vast experience of companies and investors there. Blackbox Connect is a great opportunity to do just that.”

Fadi Bishara founded Blackbox in late 2010 after research and extended travelling to tech hubs cross the world threw up a disconnect between the number of talented entrepreneurs in the world and the resources available to them. Over the years, Blackbox Connect has brought founders from leading start-ups across the world together for the residency. Discovering that 50 per cent of the participating companies had been founded by women led to planning around an all-female edition. “Our goal is to level the playing field for talented and ambitious entrepreneurs who are underrepresented and resource-challenged regardless of their geographic locations so they can take advantage of the resources within the Silicon Valley ecosystem and scale their start-ups globally.

“Our approach is to empower entrepreneurs so they become role models for others in their communities,” Bishara explains. He added that globally, there is still significant under-representation of talented women entrepreneurs worldwide. Moreover, research by Endeavor reportedly shows a multiplier effect created by successful role models.

Rajat Tandon, Senior Director, Nasscom 10,000 Start-ups comments, “It’s a brilliant initiative and truly exciting to see a member of the 10,000 start-ups be chosen to showcase its talent on a global stage.

“At 10,000 Start-ups, we believe it’s imperative to catalyse women-led small businesses and platforms like these will go a long way to inspire more companies to grow like CashKaro.com has.” The Blackbox partnership with Google for Entrepreneurs has allowed Blackbox to expand its reach, while partnering with organisations like Nasscom in India, Outbox in Uganda and P@sha in Pakistan.

After previous editions of Blackbox Connect, Bishara reports that about 90 per cent of the companies in the network have been recognised locally and the world over. He mentions Greedygame and Tookitaki from India and the M.Dot acquisition by GoDaddy in 2013.

“Our experience as well as many studies has shown that start-ups with diversity on the founding teams and employees have higher chance of success. Recent studies have shown that women founded companies have higher revenue and are more cash efficient,” Bishara said.

“From making valuable business connections to personal growth opportunities, I think the Blackbox team did a great job in packing in different kinds of learning experiences for us,” she says, recommending the residency programme.

Blackbox Connect aims to address the issue of the small number of women business owners featuring in the technology sector.

The Female Founders edition 2015 included interaction with Google, visiting the huge campus in Mountain View and being mentored by people like Obi Felten of Google X.