The Lifted Project

We couldn't be prouder of the Chair of the Lifte Project for gaining this incredible recognition. Well done, Zandra Moore!

The Lifted Project Leeds Board in action. Thanks Natalie Boswell

🚀 Exciting Times Ahead for The Lifted Project! 🚀 Yesterday, we held our second Chairs’ Board Meeting for The Lifted Project, a groundbreaking initiative designed to fuel the growth of high-potential female founders across the UK’s regions. The Lifted Project is on a mission to supercharge the flow of capital to high-growth, women-led businesses in regional areas, and our vision is clear: We’re uncovering and supercharging latent, high-growth women-led businesses in the regions by increasing their access to capital. This five-year project, in alignment with the Rose Review and Treasury, has seen Five Regional Boards established in key UK cities—each tasked with creating connected ecosystems that bring local data to life. The aim? To demonstrate the significant benefits of backing female founders and to help break down the barriers to investment. Here’s how we’re doing it: 💡 Data-Driven Ecosystems: By leveraging local insights, we’ll create targeted, action-driven ecosystems that support women-led businesses with the resources they need to grow. 🤝 Communities of Knowledge & Networks: Sharing best practices, networks, and the confidence that only strong communities can provide - ensuring ambitious women founders feel supported every step of the way. 🌍 Regional Empowerment: Connecting five UK regions to highlight the value and opportunities in backing women entrepreneurs. This is a game changer—not only for female founders but for the wider economy. It’s about creating the momentum for women to scale, grow, and lead, by ensuring they have access to the tools, networks, and most importantly, capital, to make their vision a reality. As we move forward, we’re excited to see the collective impact of this initiative, driven by collaboration, empowerment, and data-backed strategies. Together, we can create an ecosystem where women-led businesses thrive and redefine the future of entrepreneurship. We also held the second Newcastle board meeting last week. This brought together investors, founders, ecosystem stakeholders, and universities, focusing on the region’s economic and developmental goals. During the meeting, participants discussed regional disparities and identified key initiatives and projects aimed at addressing these challenges. We finalised several priority areas to drive growth, enhance collaboration, and create a stronger foundation for the region’s future. Want to know more? Explore the regional boards on our updated website: https://lnkd.in/ewCpitcR 💬 What role will you play in backing female founders? Let’s continue this conversation and build something amazing together. #WomenInBusiness #FemaleFounders #TheLiftedProject #GenderEquity #CapitalForGrowth #RegionalEntrepreneurs #InclusiveEconomy #BusinessInnovation Jordan Dargue Helen Oldham Zandra Moore Natalie Boswell Tara Attfield-Tomes Hephzi Pemberton Carolyn Currie Catherine McWilliam Lorna Green Claire Lewis Debra Leeves Dr Fozia Saleem

💜 Delighted to see the Lifted Project has been mentioned in a key report from techUK today, highlighting the work that we have been doing regionally to support high-growth female founded businesses. The Lifted Project, delivered by Lifted Ventures, is a data and ecosystem-led approach to increasing the flow of capital to regional, high growth female founders. A five-year project aligned with the Rose Review and Treasury, the Lifted Project will act as an orchestrator for positive change, sharing data and analysis by Panintelligence and The Data City to supercharge local economies by supporting ambitious women up and down the country. Read the report here: https://lnkd.in/eczWmC4U Jordan Dargue Helen Oldham Zandra Moore Tara Attfield-Tomes Natalie Boswell Debra Leeves Fozia Saleem Hephzi Pemberton Catherine McWilliam Claire Lewis Carolyn Currie Lorna Green Eleanor Baker

🚀 Exciting Announcement: The Lifted Project has officially launched its Birmingham Board! 🎉 Supported by Lloyds Bank, The Lifted Project is a game-changing initiative aimed at empowering female founders and making high-growth entrepreneurship more accessible to women across the UK. With regional growth boards in five cities—including Birmingham—this five-year project is designed to increase the flow of capital to female-led businesses outside of London and the South East. By adopting a data-driven approach with insights from Panintelligence and Data City, The Lifted Project is laser-focused on bridging the funding gap for regional female entrepreneurs. The Birmingham Board, led by co-chairs Hephzi Pemberton and Tara Attfield-Tomes, includes a powerhouse line-up of female founders and investors committed to doubling the visibility of female-led businesses and increasing access to investment in the West Midlands. Co-founder of Lifted Ventures, delivery partner of the Lifted Project Jordan Dargue states: “The West Midlands has a vibrant female founder ecosystem, but there's room for significant growth. This Board represents the best of the West Midlands business community, and together we’re confident in empowering female entrepreneurs to achieve their full potential.” Joining the board are remarkable female founders like Maxine Laceby of Absolute Collagen, Melissa Snover of Rem3dy Health, and Oyinkansola Adebayo of Niyo Hair & Beauty, alongside top regional investors and industry leaders. Together, they are poised to drive innovation, scale female-led businesses, and unlock economic growth through the power of female leadership. 💼💡 We can’t wait to see the impact! #FemaleFounders #InvestInWomen #Entrepreneurship #Birmingham #TheLiftedProject #Innovation #WestMidlands #WomenInBusiness #GenderEquality #HighGrowth Helen Oldham Zandra Moore Eleanor Baker Jem Henderson Roseanna Tanner ACIM Rebecca Beeby

Great meeting of the Leeds Liftrd Project Board today!

What a team!

Last week we had our first female founders event as part of The Lifted Project in Leeds over 30 female founders joined us for an evening of networking and cocktail making as we launched our community of women founders looking for support to grow and scale their companies in the region. Thank you to Squire Patton Boggs and Lloyds Banking Group for sponsoring the event. Watch this space for more events if you are interested in joining the community please DM me. #TheLiftedProject #femalefounders Alex Craven Sharon Kaur Jandu OBE Natalie Boswell Eleanor Baker Mandy Ridyard Chelsea Boothroyd James Mason Katherine Megson William Schaffer Karl Oxford Cat Smith Ana-Maria Garaba Fiona Bolam Helen Oldham Jordan Dargue Mark Roberts

A new report from EY has revealed the 45 ‘SuperScalers’ in the UK led by women founders and leaders. These impressive companies are those that have revenue of over £50m. Collectively, they made a £7bn contribution to the UK economy in 2022 and employed a combined total of more than 55,000 people. The report also identifies more than 240 female-founded and led UK companies with revenues between £20m and £50m - those that have the potential to become SuperScalers with the right support. However, this may not be possible unless current barriers to the growth of female-founded businesses are addressed, including better access to funding and tackling geographic and sector disparities that skew the entrepreneurial landscape. We here at the Lifted Project have reported on the fact that more than half (58%) of the SuperScaler companies profiled in the report are based in London and the South East, and 44% operate within the consumer goods and services industry. There is a huge regional and sector imbalance of such companies in the UK business landscape. Jordan Dargue, co-founder of Lifted Ventures, one of the organisations behind the Lifted Project said: ‘Entrepreneurship is a huge, challenging, rewarding, frustrating and scary endeavour. As female-founded businesses grow, scale, apply for grants, seek and gain investment; there needs to be more support, whether funding for those ambitious women with global ambitions, or with visible representation in the female founders around them working in a variety of sectors to see that superscale ambitions are possible. These need to be outside of London and that’s why we built The Lifted Project.’ We’ve got five regional boards in Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Newcastle, working to create ultra connected ecosystems, armed with local data to highlight the benefits of backing women. We’re sharing knowledge, networks and the confidence that only the creation of communities can bring. By supporting women who aspire to scale and grow their businesses in practical ways we can ensure that the 240 almost-superscalers can also succeed, then the next 240, and the next. #superscalers #femalefounders #athenafestivalwisdom Jordan Dargue Helen Oldham Zandra Moore Debra Leeves Fozia Saleem Natalie Boswell Lorna Green Claire Lewis Tara Attfield-Tomes Hephzi Pemberton Carolyn Currie Catherine McWilliam

The results of an annual survey in the The Times of 7,800 businesses employing fewer than 250 people found that last year only 15 per cent were owned or led by women, down from 18 per cent in 2022 and 19 per cent in 2021. Whilst women had been starting businesses at record levels pre-pandemic this trend is alarming. Inclusive growth is critical to our economic recovery. It was found that venture funding into female founders is also going declining. The Invest in Women Taskforce backed by Rt Hon Rachel Reeves and led by Debbie Wosskow, OBE is a key enabler to tackle the fundamental systemic issues women face starting and growing a business. From my experience speaking with thousands of women through Lean In Leeds and The Lifted Project It’s not a lack of ambition in women… more often than not women simply don’t have the same access to networks and people to support them starting, growing and scaling thier ideas and businesses. Initiatives like Lifted Ventures are building women angel networks that can provide that support. Women backing women will go along way to reversing this worrying trend. https://lnkd.in/eE-Z-CdM