Meet the former finalists

Our mission is to fundamentally redesign the core infrastructure of European capital markets, driving efficiency and scalability in the equities sector. Receiving the UBS Female Founder Award is a significant milestone. It grants us visibility from the largest European bank in the equities market and underscores a powerful commitment: to amplify female founders and foster diversity in a market that has historically lacked diversity across all levels of decision-making.

Winning the UBS Female Founder Award 2025 would be a transformative milestone for me and my co-founder, Carina Abreu, and for the entire C-MORE team. It would amplify our mission to democratize access to ESG, sustainability, and risk intelligence for the 99% of businesses that remain underserved. We are building something cutting-edge — new financial and risk metrics such as Return on Saving and Return on Intelligence — tools that are like adding a new letter to the alphabet, expanding the vocabulary companies use to measure value, resilience, and impact. This recognition would accelerate our journey to become the AI-native intelligence layer for a more transparent, efficient, and equitable global economy.

Winning the Female Founder Award 2025 would accelerate MetricsLM’s mission to build global trust in AI at a critical moment of regulatory transformation and enterprise adoption. It would open doors to enterprise and insurance pilots for our Compliance Passport, TrustScore and Intelligence Scan, and amplify the impact of Responsible AI Trust (RAI) as the neutral governance backbone. As a woman founder building core digital infrastructure in a space where female leadership is rare, this recognition would elevate my voice, unlock strategic partnerships, and prove that women can lead innovation, governance and systems at the frontier of technology.

Recognition from UBS validates what we've known all along: wealth protection should be accessible, straightforward, and empowering for everyone. This award accelerates our mission to bring modern financial planning tools to the next generation

Winning the UBS Female Founder Award 2025 would be a powerful validation of our belief that personalized financial advice begins with understanding the human behind the portfolio. This recognition would amplify Knomee’s mission to deepen the already strong relationships advisors work so hard to build by giving them richer, client-driven insight at the moments that matter most. It would open doors to global partners and expand our ability to support millions of individuals navigating life transitions with clarity and confidence. With UBS’s support, we can help make truly personal, values aligned advice accessible at scale

Winning the Female Founder Award 2025 would be far more than personal recognition, it would be a catalytic moment for our company’s mission. At AI Light we are building the trust and authenticity layer the digital world urgently needs, protecting people and brands from manipulation across images, videos, and online identities. This award would amplify our voice, expand our reach, and help accelerate our fight against misinformation and synthetic media harm. It would give us the platform to scale our impact, open doors to new partners and markets, and empower us to lead the next wave of responsible AI innovation

Winning the UBS Female Founder Award would affirm that building financial infrastructure differently (e.g. quietly, rigorously, and with purpose) matters. At Knova, we’re unifying traditional and digital asset systems so institutions can operate with clarity, trust, and real-time precision. After years of deep R&D solving one of finance’s hardest infrastructure problems in creating a true multi-asset system, this recognition would help us accelerate partnerships with institutions ready to modernize how assets move. For me, it would underscore the importance of female leadership in shaping the next era of global finance through durable systems and technology that actually works. It would also stand as proof that women can lead at the intersection of technology and capital markets, not just by fitting into existing systems, but by rebuilding them for what comes next.

To be named a finalist is deeply meaningful—not just for me as a founder, but for every parent, every adult child, every family quietly navigating the emotional toll of money across households. I built SupportPay because I lived this pain: the sleepless nights, the silent resentment, the constant anxiety that comes when love and money collide. Traditional financial tools assume money lives in a single household, but that’s not the reality for modern families. We support aging parents. We split expenses between parents. We loan money to friends and relatives and carry the invisible weight of keeping everyone afloat—all without structure, support, or transparency. SupportPay exists to change that. We are creating a new category that acknowledges this overlooked truth: families are financially intertwined, and without the right tools, that reality leads to conflict and breakdown. We bring order to the chaos. Transparency where there’s confusion. And trust where there’s been tension. This recognition fuels our mission to end family fights over money—by giving families, across all structures, the clarity and compassion they deserve.

As women we continue to break barriers and redefine norms and prove how diversity in the boardroom to the marketplace does make a difference. Just like those who went before us, it's what we have to do for the women of today and tomorrow.  Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You must do the things you think you cannot do.”

I'm humbled and also extraordinarily surprised to be the only female finalist this year representing Asia Pacific. The genesis of our success at Hupo was in leveraging AI in creating highly localized solutions for the learning and coaching needs of frontline employees to level-up in client conversations. Especially employees across Asia, who don't speak English. Winning this award validates that innovative, impactful solutions that are inclusive, accessible, and empowering for everyone, can come from anywhere, everywhere.

Nothing feels like walking startup journey with likeminds, it's no doubt a lonely road. In a world where female founders attract insignificant percentage of startup funding and support, UBS female founders support is capable of transforming female founder startups to making global and sustainable impacts. I'm indeed excited to be a finalist and looking forward to learning and sharing with other female startup founders and possible collaborations

Winning the Female Founder Award 2025 would be a profound affirmation of our mission at Deepchecks: ensuring that AI systems are safe, fair, and trustworthy for everyone, especially the weakened and vulnerable communities most harmed when AI fails and discriminates.

This recognition would give our work a powerful platform, helping us accelerate the adoption of a true AI Trust Layer across industries.

For me personally, it would highlight the importance of female leadership in deep tech, and the impact we can have when technical excellence is matched with a commitment to equity and societal responsibility