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Onome Amuge
The Aurora Tech Award, a global programme focused on supporting female technology founders in emerging markets, has unveiled its Top 30 finalists for 2026, highlighting where women-led innovation is gaining traction across the developing world, and where investors are beginning to pay closer attention.
Drawn from a pool of 3,400 applications spanning 127 countries, the Top 30 represents the final stage of a competitive process that began with a Top 100 shortlist.
Latin America dominates the 2026 cohort, accounting for nearly half of the finalists. Startups from Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Panama make up 46.7 per cent of the Top 30. Europe, the Middle East and Africa together account for 23.3 per cent, with founders drawn from Nigeria, Kenya, Tunisia, South Africa and Egypt, while the Commonwealth of Independent States contributes 10 per cent, represented by Kazakhstan. Asia-Pacific is also featured, with India the sole country represented, while the remaining 13.3 per cent comes from North America and Europe, including Ukraine.
The stage profile of the selected companies points to a deliberate focus on founders at the most capital-constrained point of the startup lifecycle. 16 of the Top 30 are at pre-seed stage, with the remaining 14 at seed stage.
Sectorally, artificial intelligence and fintech emerge as the strongest themes, with seven startups each. Fintech’s prominence is particularly notable in Latin America, where four of the seven shortlisted fintech companies are based, reflecting the region’s continued experimentation with financial inclusion, payments infrastructure and alternative credit models. HealthTech and MedTech account for six companies, while EdTech and enterprise software feature more selectively. A single startup represents each of several other sectors, including energy and sustainability, construction technology, agri-food technology, wellbeing, and longevity-focused life sciences.
Aurora’s organisers emphasise that the selection process is designed to go beyond symbolic recognition. Each year, companies are assessed through what the programme describes as a multi-layered evaluation model that combines internal performance benchmarks with independent reviews from a curated network of more than 40 venture capital partners across Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, Africa and South Asia.
Unlike traditional awards that rely heavily on scoring frameworks, Aurora places particular weight on what it terms “investor conviction”. Startups are evaluated independently by multiple VC partners with direct experience in the relevant geography, sector and stage, using a structured assessment framework developed alongside experienced operators. Beyond numerical scores, investors are asked to indicate which founders they would actively want to engage with.
According to Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, head of the Aurora Tech Award, this approach is intended to tackle one of the most entrenched barriers facing female founders. “Aurora’s selection process is deliberately designed to address access to investors and capital,” she said. “By involving our global VC network directly in the evaluation process, founders are seen by relevant investors while they are being assessed, not after a list is published,” Ghassemi-Smith added.
That sequencing matters, she argues, because it creates early momentum on both sides of the funding conversation. By the time the Top 30 is announced, founders have already been exposed to investor scrutiny and interest, shortening what is often a protracted and opaque fundraising process.
Finalists receive up to $50,000 in non-dilutive capital, alongside structured support aimed at improving fundraising readiness, market positioning and strategic decision-making.
The Aurora Tech Award is powered by inDrive, the global mobility and services platform, and positions itself less as a competition than as an intervention in early-stage capital markets. In an environment where female founders in emerging markets continue to attract a disproportionately small share of venture funding, programmes that combine capital with investor access are increasingly seen as a pragmatic response to structural gaps.
The Top 30 finalists will be formally announced in February 2026, with winners celebrated at a global ceremony later in the year.
