NewDelhi, India. May 19, 2026. inDrive, a global mobility and delivery platform, has announced the launch of a new investment program, Aurora Ventures, as part of efforts to bridge the funding gap for women founders in emerging markets, including India and South Asia.
The launch follows the successful conclusion of the 2026 Aurora Tech Award in Santiago, Chile, where women founders from across emerging markets were named among the top 10 finalists from a record-breaking field of 3,400 applicants – a significant increase from just 116 applications in 2021..
Women founders that make up the 2026 Aurora Tech Award top 10 finalists include: Adeola Ayoola-Famasi (Nigeria), Adriana Gonzalez-Tizo (Panama), Angela Acosta-Morado(Colombia), Catalina Isaza- Innmetec(Colombia), Estefania Abello- Muta(Colombia), Maria Kawas- DomestikCo(Chile), Mariana Zuliani-OncoAI (Brazil), Mercedes Bidart- Quipu(Colombia), Patricia Florencia- Pilou(Mexico), and Penny Musengi- Pesira Technologies (Kenya)
Aurora Ventures, an early-stage investment program, is designed to leverage one of the world’s largest pipelines of underserved female talent. It is built on a proprietary sourcing advantage derived from five years of Aurora Tech Award data.
With applications exploding by nearly 30 times since 2021, the Award noticed a persistent gap in market inefficiency fuelled by high-traction, high-growth businesses led by women in MENA, Africa, Latin America, and emerging Asian markets, which are consistently undervalued and overlooked by traditional venture capital.
A new Aurora research study involving 900+ founders across 127 countries found that women founders face systemic “competence scepticism” and higher traction standards. The study also identified Asia-Pacific as one of the regions most affected by distorted outcome evaluation in venture funding, highlighting persistent structural barriers faced by women entrepreneurs across emerging Asian economies, including India and South Asia.
The program, Aurora Ventures, aims to capture the “mispricing” faced by women founders by investing $180k–$250k at the pre-seed and seed stages. The program also utilises the Aurora Tech Award’s network to identify companies before their valuations fully reflect their performance, creating a repeatable model for generating alpha in emerging markets.
Speaking on the initiative, Head of Aurora Ventures, Isabella Ghassemi-Smith, described the launch of Aurora Ventures as a disciplined investment program built on the conviction that women founders are one of the most overlooked opportunities in venture capital today.
“Over the past five years, we’ve seen a repeating pattern: exceptional women building rigorous businesses but reaching institutional capital later and on worse terms than their performance justifies,” says Ghassemi-Smith.
She stated that the success stories of the top 10 finalists underscore the calibre of startups the initiative intends to back.
Also speaking, Chief Growth Businesses Officer, inDrive, Andries Smit, explained that “We built inDrive against all odds, competing against better-funded incumbents. We see the same thing playing out with women founders in emerging markets today. Backing Aurora Ventures is not charity; it is the same bet we made on ourselves.”
According to Aurora Ventures research, barriers faced by women founders are not linked to lack of innovation or business quality, but to systemic underestimation in venture ecosystems. The findings reinforce the need for more equitable access to funding, mentorship and investor networks across emerging markets.
The 2026 pilot program focuses on building an initial portfolio and generating the track record necessary to transition into a formal GP/LP fund structure. By providing capital, network access, and operational guidance, Aurora Ventures seeks to accelerate portfolio companies toward subsequent funding rounds on more equitable terms.
