Incubators for Female Entrepreneurs in Europe: 8 Programmes That Still Take Women Founders
An incubator helps you before you are ready for an accelerator: it gives you a desk or a cohort, coaching, a peer group and time to turn an idea or a small business into a company. Most "women incubator" lists for Europe mix in accelerators, grants, online portals and programmes that ended years ago. We checked every name on its own website in November 2026 and kept only incubators and incubator-style programmes that still run and take women founders, labelled by type: incubator networks, women's founder centres with offices, free coaching, a rural peer programme and online incubators. Fast-growth accelerators are in our separate accelerators for female entrepreneurs in Europe guide.
Quick answer: in France, Les Premières runs a national network of incubators for women and mixed teams (25 antennas, programmes from a 2-day start course to a 6-month, 130-hour incubation), and Force Femmes coaches women aged 45+ who want to start a business, for free. In Germany, WeiberWirtschaft in Berlin rents offices only to women, with up to 50% off the rent for founders in the first months, Grace pays a €2,500 monthly stipend to Berlin founders in its 8-month programme, and jumpp in Frankfurt runs free workshops. In rural Ireland, ACORNS opens applications in August 2027 for a six-month programme. In the UK, Hatch Enterprise runs a three-month online incubator for underrepresented founders, including women. Fe/male Switch is an online incubator open all year.
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Incubators for Women Founders in Europe Compared
Sources: each programme's own website, checked 9 November 2026. "Fee not stated" means the official page does not give a price.
The 8 Incubators for Female Entrepreneurs in Europe for 2027
France first, then Germany, Ireland and the UK, and last the online option.
1. Les Premières (France)
Les Premières is a federation of incubators that has supported women entrepreneurs and mixed teams with innovative, impact-driven projects since 2003. It has 25 antennas across mainland France, the overseas territories and abroad. Its programmes follow the founder's stage: Start-1ère (2 days, 14 hours of training, for women or mixed teams at the project stage), Go-1ère (6 months of intensive incubation, two group sessions a week, 130 hours, in a cohort of 12), Deep Tech-1ère (12 months for founders linked to research, currently only in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes), plus Boost, Play, Choose and Switch for growth, choosing a business model and taking over a company. Fees and dates depend on the region, so you apply through your regional antenna.
2. Force Femmes (France)
Force Femmes is a French association recognised as being of general interest. It supports women aged 45 and over who are looking for work, either to get back into a job or to create a business, and its support is free. For entrepreneurs, a volunteer works with you one to one to check the fit between you and the project, test whether it is realistic and set deadlines, while group workshops cover posture, building the project, marketing and social media, sales and law. Its programmes include Motivées pour créer, Booster, Bloom and IMPACTIVE. To join you must be 45 or older and registered with France Travail for less than two years, and you register only on its website. It is part of Cap Crea, a group of business-support organisations backed by Bpifrance.
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3. WeiberWirtschaft (Berlin)
WeiberWirtschaft is a women's cooperative that runs a founder and business centre for women in Berlin Mitte. It rents its offices, workshops and shops only to women, with small offices from 15 m², and founders get a rent discount of up to 50% for their first months (its "Milchmädchen-Tarife"). To move in you send a short business plan, meet the committee of tenants and board members, and join the cooperative. Its Gründerinnenzentrale, funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, points women who want to start a business to advice, events and networks.
4. Grace Berlin Accelerator (Berlin)
Grace calls its Berlin programme an accelerator, but it works like an incubator: it takes women founders and women-led teams with an idea, a prototype or an MVP and no revenue yet. The programme runs for 8 months full-time with a peer group of 15 founders and a pool of 200+ mentors. Each founder receives a €2,500 gross monthly stipend, and Grace takes no equity because the programme is funded by the European Social Fund Plus. You must live in Berlin (or move there before the start) and must not have received the GründungsBONUS, EXIST or the Berliner Startup Stipendium. The last application phase opened on 24 August 2026 for the programme that started in November 2026; watch its site for the next call.
5. jumpp (Frankfurt am Main)
jumpp (Frauenbetriebe e.V.) is a Frankfurt association that advises women on starting, growing and taking over businesses. Its free "Inspire Camp für Fempreneurs", part of its Female Founders programme, is a three-part workshop series on the business model canvas, growth and finding co-founders. The 2026 series started on 28 October and its last two workshops were set for 24 November and 4 December 2026, at jumpp in Frankfurt and mainly for women from the city.
6. ACORNS (rural Ireland)
ACORNS (Accelerating the Creation Of Rural Nascent Start-ups) supports early-stage women entrepreneurs living in rural Ireland. It runs over six months part-time, built around round-table sessions led by women who have grown businesses in rural Ireland. According to its application page, you qualify if you set up a business in the last three years or are actively planning one, in any sector, and live outside the city boundaries of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford; selection is competitive. The next cycle runs from October 2027 to April 2028, and application forms go out in August 2027 to women who register their interest. It is funded under the Rural Innovation and Development Fund of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
7. Hatch Enterprise Incubator (UK)
Hatch Enterprise has supported underrepresented founders across the UK since 2014; women and other marginalised genders are one of the groups it serves, so its programmes are not women-only. The Incubator is a three-month online programme for trading businesses with an annual turnover of £5,000 to £50,000: weekly evening sessions with experts, 12+ hours of peer learning and coaching, one-to-one mentoring and a demo day, and most programmes let graduates compete for a business grant. Its programmes page also lists Launchpad (for founders ready to launch), an Accelerator (turnover around £50,000+) and Get Ready to Start (ages 18 to 25), and says applications are open.
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8. Fe/male Switch (online)
Fe/male Switch is our own online startup facilitator and incubator. It combines a startup game, a Skill Lab of micro-modules, AI tools for planning and validation, and help with relocating a startup to the Netherlands. It is online, so you can start any time from anywhere in Europe, and there is a free trial of 2 weeks (14 days).
Related Programmes That Are Not Incubators
- Female Founders (Vienna) is a platform for women in tech; it runs the Female Founders Bootcamp, covered in our accelerators guide, and "The Female Founders Experience", women-only gatherings of about 120 founders, investors and leaders in Vienna, Munich, Zurich and Barcelona.
- The UK Women in Innovation Awards from Innovate UK gave up to 60 women founders a grant of up to £75,000 with 12 months of support; the 2025/26 round closed on 4 February 2026. Grants like this and Women TechEU are in our grants for female entrepreneurs in Europe guide; for the EIC Accelerator see the EIC Accelerator guide on Grant-Grants.
- In Germany, the bundesweite gründerinnenagentur (bga), the national agency for women founders since 2004, lists advice centres and networks across the country.
- WEgate is still online as an EU information portal for women entrepreneurs (resources, training lists and news), not an incubator.
Closed or Changed Since the 2025 List
The 2025 version of this article listed 15 names. None of them is among the eight incubators above; Female Founders, Women TechEU and the EIC Accelerator appear only as related links. What happened to the others:
- Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders: the Europe page now redirects to Google's general accelerator page; there is no women founders track.
- Female Founders GROW F: no longer among Female Founders' offers; the Bootcamp is its current programme.
- Womenture (SpinLab): its last pre-acceleration programme ran from January to March 2024, and its newest news is from June 2024.
- StepFWD (Bucharest): its site still says applications are closed for the 2022 cohort.
- FemGems Club: its domain is for sale. WE Innovate (Imperial College London): the programme page returns an error. EIT Food Empowering Women in Agrifood: the project page returns an error.
- Orange Fab France "Women Start" and Women Startup Competition: their sites did not respond when we checked.
- Hatch and UBS Incubator: the old hatch.org.uk domain is parked; Hatch Enterprise now runs its own programmes (item 7 above).
- Women TechEU and the EIC Accelerator are grants, not incubators; see the grants guide. The Woman Entrepreneur Programme and the European Network of Mentors for Women Entrepreneurs: no current official page found.
- Left out: WILLA (Paris) and Les Déterminées (sites did not respond), Desafío Mujer Rural (site blocked our check), Startup Wise Guys (no women's programme on its site) and AllBright (now a learning and membership platform).
- Removed: all old links to Google's AI search redirects and the unsourced grant figures.
Choosing a Women's Incubator in 5 Steps
- Know your stage. An idea fits Les Premières' Start-1ère or Hatch's Launchpad; a small trading business fits Go-1ère or the Hatch Incubator.
- Check the location rules. Grace needs Berlin residence, ACORNS rural Ireland, WeiberWirtschaft a Berlin office, Force Femmes France; Fe/male Switch is online.
- Check cost and equity. Force Femmes and the jumpp workshops are free, Grace pays a stipend and takes no equity, WeiberWirtschaft discounts rent, and Les Premières' fees depend on the region.
- Note the intake date. ACORNS sends application forms in August 2027; the others take applications through the year or by cohort.
- Plan the next step. After incubation, compare accelerators for female entrepreneurs worldwide and angel investors in Europe.
Which Incubator Should You Choose?
- You live in France: Les Premières for an incubation programme; Force Femmes if you are 45+ and registered with France Travail.
- You need an affordable office in Berlin: WeiberWirtschaft.
- You want to work full-time on a Berlin startup with a stipend: Grace Berlin Accelerator.
- You are in or near Frankfurt: jumpp's free workshops and advice.
- You live in rural Ireland: ACORNS (register before August 2027).
- You are in the UK and already trading: Hatch Enterprise's Incubator.
- You want to start now, online, from anywhere: Fe/male Switch.
- You want a general (not women-only) incubator: see our startup incubators in Europe list; for science-based startups, deep tech incubators in Europe.
How Women Founders Use Incubators
Incubators work best as the first step in a plan. Pick the country first with our best countries for female entrepreneurs, and look for non-dilutive money in the grants for female entrepreneurs and female founder grants guides. Meet peers at startup events for female entrepreneurs in Europe and the country guides for France, Germany, Ireland and the UK, or the city guides for Berlin and Paris. Berlin founders can also scan the Berlin startups to watch. When you are ready to raise, read the female founder funding statistics, build a fundraising pitch deck that tells a story, avoid the classic pre-seed fundraising mistakes and compare early-stage VCs in Europe. Founders outside Europe can compare our incubators for female entrepreneurs in North America.
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FAQ About Incubators for Female Entrepreneurs in Europe
What is the difference between an incubator and an accelerator?
An incubator helps at the idea or early-trading stage, often over several months, with coaching, a peer group and sometimes an office. An accelerator is shorter and more intense and aims at fast growth and fundraising. Les Premières, WeiberWirtschaft, ACORNS and the Hatch Incubator are incubators; our accelerators guide covers the rest.
Which incubators in Europe are only for women?
Les Premières (women and mixed teams), Force Femmes (women 45+), WeiberWirtschaft (rents only to women), Grace Berlin Accelerator (women founders and women-led teams), jumpp and ACORNS focus on women. Hatch Enterprise serves several underrepresented groups, including women.
Are there free incubators for women in Europe?
Yes. Force Femmes' support is free, jumpp's Inspire Camp workshops are free, and Grace pays founders a €2,500 gross monthly stipend without taking equity. Les Premières' fees depend on the region, and ACORNS and Hatch do not state a fee on their pages.
Do these incubators take equity?
None of the programmes here says it takes equity. Grace states that it takes no stake because the programme is funded by the European Social Fund Plus.
Is there an incubator for women in France?
Les Premières runs a national network of 25 antennas with programmes from a 2-day start course to a 6-month, 130-hour incubation (Go-1ère) and a 12-month deep tech track in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Force Femmes coaches women aged 45+ who want to create a business.
Is there an incubator for women in Germany?
In Berlin, WeiberWirtschaft offers offices for women with founder rent discounts and Grace runs a stipend-funded 8-month programme; in Frankfurt, jumpp advises women founders and runs free workshops.
Can I join ACORNS if I live in Dublin?
No. ACORNS is for women living in rural Ireland, defined as outside the city boundaries of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. The next cycle runs from October 2027 to April 2028.
What happened to the Google for Startups Women Founders accelerator?
Its Europe page now redirects to Google's general accelerator page, and there is no separate women founders track, so it is no longer on this list.
Is there an online incubator for women founders?
Fe/male Switch is an online startup facilitator and incubator with a startup game, a Skill Lab and AI tools, with a free trial of 2 weeks. Hatch Enterprise's Incubator is also online, for UK founders.
How can I get my startup in front of more people?
Get covered where founders, investors and AI assistants look: you can publish a guest post in the Fe/male Switch startup blogs. Get featured and earn a backlink.
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
