Every March, organisations across Australia post about International Women’s Day. Panels are hosted, hashtags trend, and commitments are made.
But what happens in April? Or May? Or December?
Across an Australian startup ecosystem of over 24,500 technology founders, Scalare Partners argues that women’s wellbeing cannot be a once a year campaign. It must instead be designed into the system.
Recently, I spoke with Carolyn Breeze, CEO of Scalare Partners, about why sustained commitment, not symbolism, is critical to strengthening both women founders and Australia’s broader innovation economy.
Wellbeing must be embedded into the ecosystem, not treated as an event
Scalare Partners is the ASX-listed parent of The Founders Union, an AI-enabled national, digital-first community built to unify Australia’s fragmented startup ecosystem.
The premise is simple. Founders are time-poor, overwhelmed, and navigating fragmented support systems. For women founders, the barriers are compounded by structural inequity in capital access and visibility, according to Carolyn.
“Women’s wellbeing in entrepreneurship is not separate from ecosystem design,” she said.
“If support is fragmented, funding is uneven and access to networks is inconsistent. All of that creates sustained pressure that does not disappear just because we hosted a panel in March. Much like Sydney’s now-closed SXSW event, a once-a-year approach to anything in the startup ecosystem is unlikely to produce very little tangible value.”
Instead, it is Carolyn’s view that founder wellbeing is directly shaped by access to capital, mentorship, trusted partners, and efficient pathways to growth. That is why The Founders Union was built as an always-on coordination and curation layer, rather than a short-term initiative.
“Innovation ecosystems cannot run on inspiration alone,” she pointed out. “They require infrastructure.”
Data must inform inclusion, not aspiration
One of the clearest signals of inequity in Australia’s startup landscape is funding disparity.
In 2024, startups with at least one female co-founder accounted for 15 percent of total capital raised, while all-female founding teams attracted just 2 percent.
Globally, female-founded startups are undervalued at exit, achieving valuations around 25 percent lower than male-founded counterparts.
“These are not perception issues. They are measurable gaps,” Carolyn continued. “If we are serious about women’s wellbeing in the workplace and in entrepreneurship, we must respond to the data.”
The Founders Union operates one of the largest verified databases of Australian founders and uses AI-enabled tools to match founders with relevant resources and partners at each growth stage.
Importantly, it also uses the most complete dataset of female founders in Australia – over 6,600 alumni through Tech Ready Women – to inform inclusion programs and partner pathways .
“Inclusion should not be a value statement. It should be measurable,” she said. “When you have visibility over where women are participating, where they are dropping off, and where capital is flowing, you can intervene in a sustained way.”
Reduce structural stressors that disproportionately affect women founders
Wellbeing is often framed in terms of resilience workshops and mental health days.
However, she argues that women begin building resilience from a young age, care of gender inequality. We should therefore instead focus on removing the operational friction stressors that create the need for resilience in the first place.
According to MYOB, 61 percent of Australian SMEs are non-employing businesses. More than a quarter of sole traders spend upwards of 10 hours per week on administrative tasks such as taxation, invoicing and accounting.
“That is effectively an extra business day every week spent on backend tasks,” Carolyn said. “For women founders who may already be balancing caregiving or other responsibilities, that time pressure compounds.”
Through partnerships that provide curated access to tools, technical support, and infrastructure, The Founders Union aims to remove some of that friction .
“Wellbeing is not only about mindset. It is about removing unnecessary load,” she said. “If we can give founders back time, improve access to expertise and reduce early-stage costs, that has a tangible impact on stress and sustainability.”
Create visibility and pathways, not just conversations
Carolyn’s commitment to diversity includes initiatives such as Tech Ready Women and dedicated pathways within The Founders Union that prioritise visibility, capital access and peer mentorship for under-represented founders.
“Female founders continue to attract a fraction of national venture funding,” Carolyn continued. “If we are only acknowledging that on one day a year, we are not changing outcomes.”
The Founders Union’s circular reinvestment model ensures that profits are reinvested back into the ecosystem through further startup investments made by Scalare, strengthening innovation capacity while supporting inclusive founder-led growth.
“That reinvestment model is critical,” she said. “It ensures that success feeds back into the system and supports the next generation of founders – including women.”
Build an always-on culture of accountability
A key risk in diversity conversations is over-commercialisation or superficial alignment. Carolyn counters this with governance and transparency through its ASX listing and ring-fenced reinvestment model .
“The structure matters,” Carolyn noted. “Trust matters. If you are asking women to commit their ambition and their businesses to a platform, you must demonstrate that inclusion is built into governance, not used as a marketing ploy.”
She argues that the broader innovation ecosystem, including corporates, investors and policymakers, must also move from symbolic alignment to sustained action.
“Women’s wellbeing is shaped by capital flows, policy settings, network access, and cultural norms,” she said. “It is systemic. So the response must be systemic.”
For Scalare Partners, that means designing an ecosystem where support is accessible regardless of geography or stage, where data informs inclusion and where profits cycle back into founder growth.
“International Women’s Day is obviously important,” Carolyn admitted, sighing slightly as she sat back in her chair.
She leans forward again, suddenly re-energised.
“But the real test is what we build on the other 364 days of the year.”
