We keep on exploring Central and Eastern European countries, looking for more inspiring female market players. So far we have discovered countries like Poland, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, and The Western Balkans. Now, it is high time to take a closer look at Austria.
Meet the Top Women from the Austrian VC and Startup Ecosystem!
Barbara Sladek
Founder & Managing Director, Biome Diagnostics
Barbara Sladek is a Founder and Managing Director at Bione Diagnosis, which combines the most modern microbiome diagnostics with machine learning to advance the field of personalized diagnostics and therapeutic approaches. The company's aim is to bring solid gut microbiome diagnostics into routine use. The company focuses on the development of medically certified products in the area of the gut microbiome and cancer. Previously she was working for Siemens Healthineers where she was responsible for business development of the business area Molecular Diagnostics across the CEE region and Poland. and strategic management.
Theresa Rothenbücher
Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, Revo Foods
Theresa Rothenbücher Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, a startup that produces seafood made of plants, without any compromises on taste or nutrition. The company aims to make food production more sustainable with the development of high-precision 3D Food Printing tech.
Theresa is also an ambassador of the Bold - platform which is solving the world's substantial issues faster by directly connecting business, policymaking, and research. Experienced individuals merge to build and grow their network through collective entrepreneurship.
Aylin Goekdal
Founder & CEO, ORATIS Spiritual Dating App, Oratis
Aylin Goekdal is not only an experienced entrepreneur in Austria for many years but also an expert in business law.
She is the founder and CEO of Oratis App, where she is responsible for creating, leading, and developing the company's vision, mission, and strategy. Oratis is the first spiritual dating and community app in Austria and offers their services worldwide and has customers in more than 111 countries. Aylin is also very experienced in the field of astrology and developed the matchmaking algorithm of Oratis.
She is also holding workshops in the field of conscious dating and meditation together with her sister and co-founder Rana. On top of her professional experience, she also studies a doctorate in data privacy and specializes in algorithms which she combines with her Start-Up.
Sasha Lipman
Founder, tech2impact
Sasha Lipman is another impactful woman on our list. She was an ambassador for Meaningful Business, a global community of leaders who are combining profit and purpose to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. We are championing the co-existence of people, purpose, and planet alongside profit.
Since 2018 Sasha has been a speaker liaison at TEDxVienna, where she is responsible for acquiring speakers for a conference and managing the whole relationship before, during, and after each conference. In 2019 she became 4YFN Ambassador - the startup event of the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry, GSMA MWC. The goal of the 4YFN Ambassador is to support startups, investors, and companies to connect and launch new business ventures together.
In 2020 Sasha founded Tech2Impac, which is the global digital hub for impact tech, with a network of 600+ founders, investors, mentors, accelerators, and incubators on a mission of making impact tech the new norm.
Cornelia Habacher
Co-Founder & COO, Rebel Meat
Cornelia Habacher, who has graduated from the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, gained her professional experience while working as Research Technician at Max F. Perutz Laboratories and as PostDoc Associate at Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research. Since 2019 she has been a Co-Founder and CPO at Rebel Meat which is offering meat-reduced products made half from organic meat and half from organic plant-based ingredients, to reduce meat consumption in a sustainable and enjoyable way.
Daniela Buchmayr
CEO & Co-Founder, Sarcura
In 2019 Daniela Buchmayr founded Sarcura, in which she and her team are developing a machine platform for the large-scale, industrial manufacturing of personalized cell therapies. The aim is to bring cell manufacturing to the next level, scale global manufacturing capacity for life-saving, patient-specific cancer treatments from thousands of doses per year to hundreds of thousands, cost-effective and safe for all patients.
Daniela gained her professional experience working as Group Director of Innovation & Application Development at GEA Group, Business Development Manager Life Science CE at Parker Dominic Hunter, and Key Account Manager at Pall Life Sciences. In 2017 she achieved MBA in Entrepreneurship & Innovation at WU Executive Academy.
Miel Satrapa
COO, SOMAREALITY
Miel Satrapa is currently a CEE at SOMAREALITY whose aim is to empower the next generation of healthcare applications by making them aware and adaptive. Miel with the team is working on developing scientifically validated cognitive digital biomarkers based on eye tracking.
She graduated from the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Vienna with a faculty in Informatics. During her studies, she started working as a Scrum Master in Haufe Advisory.
Cécile Deterre
Co-founder & Head of Data Science, Blue Planet Ecosystems
Cécile Deterre graduated from the University of Cambridge with a faculty in High energy physics and completed her doctorate in Elementary Particle Physics at University Pierre et Marie Curie. She gained her professional experience while working as a Post-Doc Researcher at DESY. In 2019 she is Co-founder and Head of Data Science at Blue Planet Ecosystems. Blue Planet Ecosystems builds, develops, and operates modular LARA (Land-based Automated Recirculating Aquaculture) systems for sustainable seafood production in extreme environments. We help farmers, agriculture businesses, and future entrepreneurs to diversify their farming methods in the face of climate change.
Victoria Dejaco
Founder & CEO, simplify.art
Victoria Dejaco is currently the CEO of simplify.art, which is an art management software for communication. It helps in managing art collection effortlessly, easily keeping track of artworks, artists, contacts, prices, and insurance. She graduated from Sorbonne University with a faculty of art history, criticism, and conservation.
Christina Primus
CMO & Co-Founder, FoodNotify
Christina Primus is a CMO & Co-Founder of FoodNotify whose mission is to develop the most intuitive and powerful F&B management platform in the world. The platform created by Christina and her team makes it easier than ever to manage orders, recipes, and inventory - all in one place. Users gain control over all locations, reduce food and operational costs, and minimize food waste.
Previously, Christina was working as a Senior Sales at J.P. Morgan and Sales Manager at Allianz Investment Bank.
Nermina Mumic
CEO & Founder, Legitary | Forbes 30u30
Graduated from the Vienna University of Technology, Nermina Mumic 2019 founded Legitary which is patented and award-winning (Midemlab Winner), AI-powered technology rapidly analyzes billions of music streams across DSPs, GEOs, artists, and tracks and utilizes historic data to flag royalty anomalies and forecast future music catalog revenues.
Nermina was gaining her professional experience during work as a Research Assistant at the Vienna University of Technology and Freelance Data Scientist as a self-employed contractor.
Vera Grablechner
Founder & CEO, myCulture
Vera Grablechner is the Founder & CEO of My Culture, a personal art and culture curator in an app format that provides art enthusiasts with personalized recommendations for exhibitions based on their interests and keeps them up-to-date about the latest cultural events.
What is more, in 2017 Vera co-founded the Women in Immersive Technologies Europe and since 2018 she is a Digital Innovation and Business Consultant. She is engaged in catalyzing unprecedented digital products and solutions, increasing my clients' organizational productivity, and leading the way into the digital age.
Theresa Imre
Founder & CEO, markta.at | Forbes 30under30
Theresa Imre is a Founder & CEO at Markta.at - Community Marketplace & Digital Farmers Market. Under the motto “from farm to fork”, markta enables and empowers farmers to sell their products at fair prices, in a circular-economy-delivery model, and last but not least, to connect with the final consumers. Markta is a well-established online farmers’ market with over 200 local producers, 20 employees, and thousands of customers.
However, Markta is not her first business. In 2015 she founded Eingebrockt & Ausgelöffelt which was a sustainable and holistic food project.
She graduated from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration in the faculty of Socio-Ecological Economics and Policy.
Desiree Jonek-Lustyk
Founder, WoMentor.at
Since 2019 Desiree Jonek-Lustyk is running the mentoring program WoMentor within which she built up a community of over 1.200 people. Furthermore, she coaches and passes on her knowledge and expertise to selected female impact founders and researches how to empower women.
Desiree started her international career in 2010 in the digital media industry as well as management consulting. Her roles included management at Norway's Schibsted Media Group, where she developed product strategies and innovative startups for leading online marketplaces, such as Willhaben in Austria and Leboncoin in France.
Corina Radu
Founder & CEO, Solutions4Impact
Corina Radu is another top woman on our list. Corina Radu is the CEO of the consulting firm Solutions4Impact since 2019, based in Vienna, Austria. In 2021, just a couple of years after starting, she was nominated in the top 20 "best coaches" in Vienna, as the only sustainability consultant and the only foreigner, by the “Influence Digest” a USA-based business monitor.
Corina has built her experience working in B CORP certification and sustainability reporting projects in Austria, Romania, Norway, New Zealand, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Sweden, Armenia, and Germany. As a mentor for young entrepreneurs, she has been active since 2018 within organizations such as Global Women for Energy Transition (GWNET) Austria, EIT Climate KIC Austria, East Mediterranean Accelerator Turkey, and Transformator Romania.
She has also joined this year the women investors at Bravva Angels with an investor activist mentality that she believes is the key of long-term sustainable investments, despite current trends and Silicon Valley hypes.
As she often says, the path of a business emigrant in a foreign land is full of challenges and rejections and nothing is as is seems when you are facing social discrimination. Amid all this, she believes that no matter the environment, the openness and capability to learn new things and the resilience to not fall back, are the keys that will drive anyone to keep sanity and ramp up any business.
Lola Fernandez
Founder & CEO, Green Cloud Nine
The next inspiring woman on our list is Lola Fernandez - Founder & CEO at Green Cloud Nine. She is passionate about maintaining a growth mindset, learning, building relationships, and solving problems creatively. Growth enabler executive with international experience in technology-driven industries (energy and automotive) & public sector, specialized in building and connecting ecosystems, transferring skills across functions, partners, and customers. Before in 2021, she founded Green Cloud Nine, a marketplace for sustainable merchants & responsible consumers, she was working as Global Channel Innovation Leader & Regional Channer Manager in INNIO Group and Customer Intelligence Leader in GE Jenbacher Gas engines. In 2007, as a Procurement Officer, she was supporting the United Nations in driving the professionalization and cultural transformation of the procurement function within the United Nations.
Sophie Bolzer
CEO & Founder, Audvice
Sophie Bolzer is a Founder & CEO at Audvice, an audio learning tool for companies. They focus on helping companies to make their employees’ knowledge accessible by transitioning written instructions or educational videos into podcasts. Audvice allows them to use unproductive time better, instead of sacrificing productive time.
Before 2017 when Sophie founded Audvice she was running a company called Incput whose aim was to provide startups with the self-help tools that they need to get their business running. Previously she used to work as a Marketing Manager since 2015.
Doris Magdalena Wimmer
Co-Founder, inoqo
Doris Magdalena Wimmer is passionate about linking different fields to manage resources sustainably. She graduated from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna in Civil Engineering and Water Management. Before she founded inoqo, a startup that helps combine environmental and social responsibility with daily grocery choices, she gained professional experience in Hydrology and Sanitary engineering.
Cornelia Daniel
CEO, Tausendundein Dach
Cornelia Daniel is a startup entrepreneur focusing on solar power and energy. She is an owner of Tausendundein Dach which assists companies in the implementation of their photovoltaic system, from the initial consultation to the turnkey installation and marketing afterward. Cornelia is also an ambassador of Equality in Energy Transitions. She is a huge inspiration, showing that nothing is impossible. With no background in solar and energy, she has become one of the most recognizable people in the industry.
Selma Prodanovic
Vice President, EBAN - European Business Angels Network
Selma Prodanovic is another top woman on our list. Selma is passionate about empowering people, especially (female) entrepreneurs and investors to create solutions to the grand challenges of our time. In the last 20 years, she shaped the startup and angel investing ecosystem with her business creation and advisory boutique Brainswork. As Vice President of the European Business Angel Network (EBAN), co-founder of the Austrian Angel Investors Association, Advisor to the Institute for Teaching Entrepreneurship, and founder of the global SDG platform 1MillionStartups, her mission is to create a better ecosystem for entrepreneurs and foster a more balanced and inclusive investing environment.
Lisa-Marie Fassl
Managing Partner Fund F, Co-Founder Female Founders, Vice President Austrian Angel Investors Association, Forbes 30u30
Talking about influential women from the Austrian startup and VC ecosystem it is worth mentioning Lisa-Marie Fassl, Managing Director of Fund F by Female Founders and Vice President of the Austrian Angel Investors Association. From 2016 to 2022, she held the position of CEO & Founder of Female Founders, Europe’s fastest-growing community of entrepreneurial women. In 2021 she became the Managing Director of the Austrian Angel Investors Association, Austria’s leading network for angel investors with more than 200 members.
Karin Kreutzer
Business Angel Investor Of The Year 2021, Advisory Board Member (Vice-Chairwoman), Calm/Storm Ventures
Talking about influential women from the Austrian startup and VC ecosystem it is worth mentioning Karin Kreutzer, Board Member of the Austrian Angel Investors Association and Vice-Chairwoman at Calm/Storm Ventures. As a business angel, Karin received multiple awards, including the AAIA virgin angel award, the BAND Business Angel Award, the investorinnen.com special award, and most recently also the prestigious "Business Angel of the Year 2021" award.
Arbresha Talla
Program Manager, Startup Live Global
Another impactful woman on our list is Arbresha Talla, who is passionate about driving innovation and entrepreneurship and thrives on empowering and supporting startups and female entrepreneurs to reach their full potential.
She was born and raised in Kosovo and living in Vienna (Austria) for 7 years now. She is now the head of Startup Live Global where she originally joined as a volunteer in 2017. Since then, she is actively involved in Austria's startup community.
Her expertise lies in creating and executing strategies that drive growth, from planning and executing successful events to creating and managing startup accelerator programs, where currently she manages accelerate zero21.
Arbresha is a true connector and collaborator, able to build meaningful relationships with entrepreneurs, investors, and key stakeholders across industries. Besides this, she is a mentor for some startups and the Ambassador of the Women Startup Competition in Austria, Kosovo, and a supporting team of Albania.
Carina Roth
VC Investor, Calm/Storm | Forbes 30u30
Carina Roth is a VC Investor at Calm/Storm Ventures, which is an exclusive founder network and boutique venture capital firm, built by founders for founders. From 2017 to 2022, she held the position of Co-Founder & CFO/COO at WisR, in which she and her team were building software solutions and services for an aging workforce. In 2012 Carina gained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) title at Webster Vienna Private University.
Eva Arh
Partner, VC Investor, 3VC
Eva Arh is currently a Partner and VC Investor at 3VC. Moreover, since 2020 she holds the position of ambassador to Sie., which helps to address the female funding gap by supporting female founders on their fundraising journey. Eva is interested in enterprise businesses, enabling infrastructure, and health tech. She is always up for diving into frontier technologies and exploring how they contribute to the advancement of our society.
She gained her professional experience working as an Investor at Nethone, as a Business Development & Startup Finance at INiTS Universitäres Gründerservice Wien GmbH, and as an Investor Relations & Finance at zoomsquare.com.
Laura Egg
Maganing Partner, ROI Ventures
Another impactful woman on our list is Laura Egg, who is Managing Director at ROI VENTURES. Moreover, Laura currently is also a Member of the Startup Council at The Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs which is an independent advisory body of experts from the startup ecosystem with the goal of improving the framework conditions for Austria as a location for startups and innovative growth companies and Investor & Member of the Investment Committee at EWOR, which is an education-focused early backer of the worlds greatest talent helping them to launch tech & product businesses with international scale.
Laura gained her professional experience working as a Managing Director and later as a Deputy Managing Director at Austrian Angel Investors Association. She shared her knowledge and experience by taking on the role of mentor in such programs as Female Founders Global, Startup Live Global, Vienna Business Agency, WU Gründungszentrum, and Entrepreneurship Avenue.
Nina Wöss
Managing Partner, Co-Founder, Female Founders Global & Fund F by Female Founders
Nina Wöss is currently a Co-Founder at Female Founders Global and Managing Partner at Fund F by Female Founders. During her entire professional career, Nina Wöss has been working with VCs. Before in 2016 together with Lisa Fassl, she established Female Founders to aid women-led startups with funding, connections, and expertise, she was working as a Head of Marketing & Community at Speedinvest and Chairwoman of the Board at AVCO - Austrian Private Equity and Venture Capital Organization.
Dr. Lisa Smith
Co-Founder & Managing Director, Prewave
Dr. Lisa Smith is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at Prewave, which is an AI startup developing a technology to detect sustainability and disruption risks in global supply chains. The company is a Spin-Off of the Vienna University of Technology.
Dr. Lisa Smith has 10 years of experience in the field of supply chain risk detection and holds a Ph.D. in Business Informatics. She was working as a Ph.D. Researcher at the Vienna University of Technology and a Software Engineer at CSC Austria.
Marie Muhr
COO, Resourcify
Talking about influential women from Austria it is worth mentioning Marie Muhr, Chief Operating Officer at Resourcify, the waste management and recycling platform.
Marie has spent more than a decade working in Marketing, Communications, and Operations, during which time she has developed a strong interest in building structures, processes, and teams. She has worked in a variety of industries, including politics, consumer electronics, and venture capital, and is currently employed by a German startup called Resorucify, which is dedicated to promoting a circular economy. One of her noteworthy projects, "Power Sleep," has received recognition for its innovative approach, including shortlisting for the Cannes Titanium Lion and several other awards.
Doris Agneter
Managing Director, CEO, tecnet equity
Doris Agnerter is currently Managing Director and CEO at tecnet equity, one of Austria’s largest venture capital companies, and NÖBEG, the development bank of the state of Lower Austria. She studied technical mathematics at the Vienna University of Technology, where she received her doctoral degree in 1990. After postgraduate studies at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the area of business administration, she joined FGG, an enterprise-financing institution, where she was Head of the Guarantee division until 2002. She has also held executive positions in RZB Private Equity Holding AG and Centro Property Holding AG in Vienna. Dr. Agneter is also a member of various advisory and supervisory boards and regularly teaches university courses in business financing.
Cornelia Habetler
Chief Culture & Financial Officer, Enspired Trading
Passionate about people, HR management, and recruiting with a focus on cultural fit Cornelia Habetler is currently a Chief Culture & Financial Officer at Enspired Trading, startup that drives the energy transition by enabling their clients to bring flexible assets to European power spot markets and capture their full value with our AI-based trading services.
Cornelia has vast experience in executing strategies supported by budgeting, controlling, reporting, and transparency with a strong background in technology. She thrives in entrepreneurial environments where a hands-on mentality is key and strategic decisions are taken on the go.
Clôd Priscilla Baumgartner
Founder & CEO, Agentur für Innovation und Entrepreneurship
Clôd Priscilla Baumgartner in a Founder and CEO of Agentur für Innovation und Entrepreneurship. The organization aims to teach and train people how to start a business with human-centered design methods, how to innovate their business models with a lean approach if necessary, and how to obtain seed capital from their crowd.
Clôd is incredibly active in the business community. Besides running Agentur für Innovation und Entrepreneurship, she is also the Founder & Executive Director of EXPEERTS CLUB, Program & Venture Manager at CROWDFUNDERS’ HUB, and Lecturer at The University of Music and Performing Arts. For 25 years she was MILCH.tm, an upcycling design brand.
Related Posts:
Top Women From VC and Startup Ecosystem In The Western Balkans (by Katarzyna Groszkowska, Vestbee)
Top 25 Women From VC and Startup Ecosystem In Romania (by Aleksandra Wirth, Vestbee)
Top 30 Women From VC and Startup Ecosystem In Serbia (by Aleksandra Wirth, Vestbee)
