The Grand Finale of the Prosus Found-HER Challenge Romania has awarded 5 female founders with cash prizes and international recognition for their leadership, innovation and role modelling. The jury was impressed with the quality of the entrepreneurship of the 10 Romanian finalists, who were selected from over 275 applications, submitted in only one month. This successfully concludes the first European chapter of the Found-HER Challenge, which has already, after impactful editions in India and Africa, motivated more than 1,500 women-led startups to stand-up and present themselves.
The collaboration with partner Endeavor Romania resulted in a very successful edition. The jury panel, with expert entrepreneurs and business builders Alexandra Bran, Victoria Zinchuk, Ilinca Paun, and Sebastiaan Vaessen, evaluated finalists on innovation, market traction, and scalability. They had a hard time deciding, but agreed to divide EUR 125,000 over the following winners:
- 1st Place: Gabriela Draghia, Pluria
- 2nd Place: Catrinel Hagivreta, MEDIJobs
- 3rd Place: Raluca Crisan, Etiq AI and Sorina Uleia, Recycllux
- Prosus People's Choice Award: Evelina Necula, Kinderpedia (Popular vote)
"The Found-HER Challenge reflects our commitment to expanding opportunities for female founders building at global scale," said Prajna Khanna, Chief Sustainability Officer at Prosus. "These women leaders are not only building exceptional companies—they're creating reference points for an entire generation of women who will grow up more comfortable taking risks, leading teams, and scaling businesses."
Addressing the funding gap
Romania has one of Europe's strongest representations of women in technical roles, yet globally women remain significantly underrepresented publicly and receive substantially less funding. The Found-HER Challenge addresses this gap through celebrating women entrepreneurs and awarding them with equity-free capital, access to Prosus's international network, and a limelight to help them scale.
Romania was selected as the first European market for the Prosus Found-HER Challenge, marking an important step in the expansion of the initiative and reflecting growing confidence in the strength of the country's entrepreneurial ecosystem. This third episode solidified the global need for the Found-HER program and Prosus is committed to roll it out to many more of its key markets to celebrate female entrepreneurship and leadership.
About Endeavor:
Endeavor Romania is part of Endeavor Global, a mission driven global and leading organization that supports and accelerates high-impact entrepreneurs by connecting them with talent, capital and a worldwide peer and mentor network.
Endeavor is a global organization that supports high-impact entrepreneurs by providing access to mentorship, strategic resources, and international markets. With a mission to drive economic growth and innovation, Endeavor selects and mentors entrepreneurs who have the potential to transform industries and create significant employment opportunities. Through its extensive network of business leaders and investors, Endeavor helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses and achieve long-term success.
To find out more, please visithttps://romania.endeavor.org/.
About Prosus
Prosus is the power behind the world’s leading lifestyle ecommerce brands, across Europe, India, and Latin America, unlocking an AI-first world for our 2 billion customers.
The Prosus technology ecosystem spans food delivery, payments, classifieds, travel, events, and mobility. Our integrated approach enhances user engagement and creates the foundation for unprecedented AI capabilities through proprietary data and cross-service intelligence.
Through Prosus Ventures, we invest in companies which inspire and support the Prosus ecosystem. We search for new opportunities at the leading edge of AI and ecommerce, the digital AI workforce and in frontier technologies, such as robotics, drones and synbio.
The team actively backs exceptional entrepreneurs who are using technology to improve people’s everyday lives.
To find out more, please visit www.prosus.com.
