The European deep-tech sector is experiencing a significant market paradox: while institutional capital actively seeks out breakthrough scientific innovations, a stark financing gap remains for women-led startups, particularly within EU Widening countries. This systemic inefficiency leaves a vast pool of commercial alpha entirely untapped.
To address this challenge, the Horizon Europe EmpoWomen programme launched a 24-month, €2 million initiative. Today, TechUkraine officially announces the successful completion of the project, having received final reporting confirmations and the closing financial distributions from the European Commission.
Managing Work Package 4 (Communication, Dissemination, and Exploitation), the TechUkraine team was responsible for establishing the brand from scratch, driving international ecosystem outreach, and translating dense technical achievements into high-impact market narratives.
Key Performance Highlights:
Outreach Scale: In its second year, TechUkraine optimized its dissemination strategy by integrating over 100 National Contact Points (NCPs), driving a 47.6% increase in applications (251 proposals across 29 countries).
Conversion Efficiency: Refined, relationship-driven messaging doubled the eligible proposal conversion rate to 40.68%.
Target Overperformance: The project reached an average of 1,289 unique monthly website visitors (shattering the EC target of 300) and generated over 7,340 monthly impressions on LinkedIn.
“It was a challenging and ambitious project for us”, states Nataly Veremeeva, Director of TechUkraine. “Building a brand from scratch, developing all visual identity and the website, gathering a community, reaching the project’s communication KPIs, and, most importantly – ensuring that all countries of widening areas of the EU are covered and startups are informed about the opportunity – that was a lot of hard and regular work. I am happy to say that we have succeeded”.
Unlocking the Leverage Effect
The true validation of the consortium’s work – which included leader Sploro, Startup Wise Guys, and Business Angels Europe (BAE) – lies in the commercial trajectory of the participating startups. The programme proved to be a highly effective de-risking mechanism: follow-up data shows that every €2 of public capital injected helped unlock subsequent private investment, with Cohort 1 founders securing patent filings, achieving TRL 9 milestones, and closing venture rounds up to €3.2 million.
How did these early-stage female-led ventures convert equity-free funding into validated market traction, and what does this mean for the future of Western venture capital?
Read the full analytical case study and founder breakdown now in the TechUkraine Insights Blog:
