Cambridge Female Founders Network
A new model for Founder-led growth
The Cambridge Female Founders Network (CFFN) is a founder-led network of women building and scaling ambitious ventures in the Cambridge Cluster.
Our Thesis
Cambridge is one of the world’s most enduring innovation engines—home to over 5,000 knowledge-intensive companies, £2.3B raised in 2024, and a seed-to-Series A conversion rate that surpasses the Bay Area. It’s a place where ideas scale fast, and where institutions, capital, and talent converge at uncommon density.
The metrics are well-known: Female founders raise less capital and receive less institutional support yet consistently outperform on capital efficiency, resilience, and long-term value. Even a modest shift in funding and infrastructure could yield outsized returns.
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CFFN is building founder-driven systems to activate capital, forge strategic connections, and strengthen peer networks. Cambridge’s dense mix of research, capital, and company formation makes it the ideal testbed to unlock compounding growth for founders and the wider ecosystem.
What does it mean to be founder-led?
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​Proximity to the problem: Led by founders actively raising, scaling, and navigating the same terrain as our members.
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Iterative: Every initiative is a prototype, tested in real time against founder-defined measures of value.
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Emergent design: To build a genuinely novel model for founder support, we dive beneath the surface to uncover real needs, so founder-informed solutions can emerge.