THE GENDER-SMART SIMULATOR
Scale Up X!
CO-DEVELOPED WITH JONA REPISHTI, D-LAB
Raising funds to scale a startup is hard. Doing it as a female founder is much, much harder. Female-founded and mixed-gender startup teams still receive less than 12 percent of total global VC funding.
We have taken everything we know about the unique challenges that women have to navigate in their fundraising journey and created Scale Up X! – the first gender-smart investment readiness simulation developed specifically to help female founders succeed.
Designed for accelerators, funders, and investors, Scale Up X! builds the mindsets and the skills so female founders have better fundraising experiences and better fundraising outcomes.
Accelerating Female Founders
In Scale Up X!, participants compete to raise venture capital and scale their startup while navigating a series complex, realistic challenges that female founders often face along the fundraising journey.
Investment readiness, with a gender lens
Scale Up X! is built on the real experiences and insights of female founders working in emerging markets.
Dealing with different standards, structural barriers, closed networks, gendered expectations and unconscious bias – these are just some of the themes we have included in Scale Up X!.
The simulation is a safe space to explore these complex challenges and work together to tackle them head-on.
Learning through immersive, real world challenges
Through experiential, gamified learning, Scale Up X! facilitates critical conversations, surfaces knowledge gaps, and delivers valuable insights – in just hours!
Participants have the chance to test, experiment, and fine-tune their investment readiness skills, quickly developing the know-how, mindsets, and strategies they need to secure capital and grow better companies in real life.
Designed for scale
Built for accelerators, incubators, start-up teams, and early-stage investors, Scale Up X! is a powerful and comprehensive investment readiness solution. It can easily integrate alongside an existing training program or be deployed as a stand-alone workshop.
Delivered in-person or virtually, and has the potential to reach thousands of entrepreneurs globally.
Can You Secure the Right Investors for You?
To win at Scale Up X!, you will need to build an investor portfolio of 5 million and get across the finish line. Along the way, you need to collect investors, make difficult strategic choices, and deal with a number of unforeseen gender-based circumstances. Do you have what it takes to succeed?
Along the way, you will gain valuable insights and build your technical skills:
Key investor development skills
– Understand different types of capital and funders
– Identify and select the right investors for you
– Calculate cap tables and valuations
– Decode confusing term sheets
– Create long-term funding road maps
– Plan for value creation and exit strategies
Key gender-based learning outcomes:
– Build awareness and locate barriers outside yourself
– Use collective power to find inspiration and broaden your perspective
– Devise strategies to get unstuck and find value aligned capital
– Build resilience when dealing uncertainty and obstacles
For Actors Looking to Close the Gender Financing Gap
A great fit for funders, accelerators, universities, and VC funds working to close the gender financing gap. Scale Up X! equips you with a set of tools to support exceptional women founders in your network to raise the money they need to succeed.
Available Online or In-Person
Scale Up! X Digital is a complete and powerful gendersmart investment readiness training program.
It can be delivered 100% digitally or in person, depending on your needs. Click below to find out more.
Overcome Gender-Based Barriers
There is no playbook for the myriad of challenges that women entrepreneurs face in their fundraising and scaling journey. Scale Up! X offers a set of carefully scoped exercises designed to build the skills, strategies, and mindsets to lead from a position of power and confidence.
Challenge your inner saboteurs
Fear, guilt, insecurity… break free from the negative emotions and cognitive distortions that hold you back. Practice reframing your thoughts and centering your needs to improve not just your funding outcomes but your fundraising experience as a whole.
Stand in your power
Discover effective methods to take control of difficult and uncomfortable situations. Learn how to flip the power dynamics back in your favor when you are put on the spot. Practice aligning your conversations with your values and motivations.
Amplify your networks
Fundraising is all about human connections. Practice communicating your needs fearlessly and authentically – inviting, asking, and influencing others to join your cause. Build high-leverage relationships and the right networks you need to succeed.
Push through resistance
Along your journey, you will meet people who don’t want you to succeed. Learn to break through rejection, devaluation, and sabotage to identify the right set of partners for you. Practice setting boundaries and crafting solutions that unlock doors to get from a NO to a resounding YES.
Discover A Powerful Tools For Fundraising Success
Most founders struggle to find the right investors, build a fundraising strategy, and think about long-term value development. Scale Up X! demystifies investor readiness by introducing you to a series of tools, canvasses, and guides to supercharge your capital raise.
Investor Map
This is the investor segmentation tool that helps startups segment their investor prospects and select the right investor based on financial and strategic fit.
Long-term Funding Roadmap
The canvas helps startups develop a long-term capital strategy and help them identify ways in which they can secure long-term growth capital.
Your Investor Questions
This tool equips startups with a framework to ask the right questions in investor meetings. It helps you assess investor ‘soft attributes’ including strategic value, goal alignment, and more.
There is nothing like this in the market…
Scale Up X! is a compelling hands-on learning experience! It conveys real-life lessons in the start-up journey better than any classroom training ever could and adds a gender lens based on the real-life experience of female founders in the contemporary ecosystem. It’s super unique and an eye-opener for entrepreneurs and investors alike!
Jessica Espinoza
Chair 2X Challenge
Modeled After Real-life Startup Challenges
Scale Up! X is built on the real-world experiences and insights of successful female founders, investors, and accelerators working in 15+ countries.
The Scale Up! X program includes 200+ high-fidelity Boom, Bust, Investor, and Strategy cards. Behind each card, there is a personal story and an “aha’ moment captured to help you practice navigating fundraising dilemmas, overcoming startup growing pains, and responding to sensitive gender-based scenarios.
Try Scale Up! X and unlock crucial conversations in a safe and dynamic learning environment.
