Only 2% of VC funding reaches female founders. Nithya Ruff argues the problem doesn’t start at the pitch table. It starts with how girls are raised and who gets to make investment decisions.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, host Dirkjan Hupkes talks with Nithya Ruff, former Head of Open Source at Amazon, chair of the Linux Foundation board, and LP in funds focused on South Asian women and diverse founders.

We cover why VC funding for female founders remains structurally stuck at 2%, what her father’s advice about financial independence built over time, and how AI and open source are changing who gets to build technology.

This episode is for female founders, women in tech, women entrepreneurs, and early-stage investors who want to understand why the funding gap persists and what structural change, not individual mindset shifts, can actually move it.

What you’ll learn in this episode

• Why the VC funding gap is an investor pipeline problem, not a founder pipeline problem, and what that distinction means for change
• How financial independence, instilled early, shapes confidence and career trajectory for women in tech
• Why women now lead the Python, Rust, Apache, and Linux foundations, while the coding side of open source remains male-dominated
• What AI is doing to the “priesthood of software development” and why it matters for non-technical founders
• Why women enter entrepreneurship later than men, and what corporate culture has to do with it
• What early-stage founders consistently underestimate beyond the go-to-market strategy
• Why building a peer support community is as important as building the product itself

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

02:43 Nithya’s Journey to the US

11:17 The Influence of Family on Confidence

18:06 Navigating Cultural Differences in Parenting

27:24 Challenging Gender Norms in Family Dynamics

27:40 The Funding Gap for Female Founders

33:00 The Need for More Female Investors

36:31 Empowering Women in Investment

41:53 The Startup Path for Women

47:04 Integrating Work and Life in Startups

50:16 The Open Source Model and Its Impact

56:35 AI: A Tool for Empowerment

1:01:57 Building Community and Support Systems

1:06:38 Underestimating the Go-to-Market Strategy

1:11:58 Governance and Flexibility in Startups

1:18:19 The Balance of AI and Human Connection

Show notes and Substack

Show notes: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/07/09/episode-160/

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-160?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Connect with Nithya Ruff

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nithyaruff

Substack: https://substack.com/@nithyaruff779075

Connect with Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

More than 90 FemTech companies in the Netherlands are working to close the gender health gap. Most didn’t know the others existed.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Maaike Steinebach and Sophie van Dijk, co-founders of FemTech NL, the organization connecting FemTech companies across the Netherlands. We talk about why the ecosystem has been so fragmented, and what FinTech has already learned about moving from competition to collaboration.

This episode is for FemTech founders raising their first round, investors building a thesis in women’s health, and women in tech curious about how a fragmented industry starts moving together.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why more than 90 FemTech companies in the Netherlands have been building in isolation from each other
• What FemTech NL’s five pillars, communication, data, collaboration, research, and funding, are meant to fix
• Why the most successful founders lead with the commercial opportunity, not the social case
• What FinTech’s shift from competition to collaboration can teach FemTech about adoption
• Why the global opportunity here is valued at $1 trillion a year, according to a McKinsey study
• Why the goal isn’t “the future is female,” but equal healthcare for men and women
• Why closing the gender health gap would take more than a century, at the current pace, and what could speed that up

Connect with Maaike Steinebach and Sophie van Dijk

Maaike Steinebach on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maaike-steinebach-8a3a304/

Sophie van Dijk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-vandijk/

FemTech NL website: femtechnl.com

Show notesBlog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/07/02/episode-159/

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-159?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors in HealthTech, FinTech, ClimateTech, and AI rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to get it in your feed.

Most fitness apps are built to track everything. That's exactly why people stop using them.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Zoe Pineau, co-founder of Fitly AI, about how she lost 150 pounds through macro tracking, spent six years building a traditional fitness app that didn’t break through, and then rebuilt from scratch in one month using AI.

We explore why friction kills fitness habits before they start, and how a chat-based agent changes that equation.

This episode is for female founders, women in tech, and health tech entrepreneurs who want to understand how AI is reshaping user experience, and for anyone building in a saturated market where being better is no longer enough.

What you’ll learn in this episode

• Why macro tracking is mathematically reliable but practically abandoned by most people
• How Fitly AI lets users log an entire workout and meal in a single sentence, removing the admin burden that kills consistency
• Why “better” is not a differentiator in a saturated market, and what to build instead
• How Zoe used her own transformation as proof of concept when pitching investors
• Why apps are disappearing and what the age of agents means for founders building in this space
• How a 30-day momentum report keeps founders motivated and investors informed

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:50 Introduction to Fitly AI and Personal Journey

05:45 Transformative Weight Loss Experience

08:47 Mindset Shift and Habit Formation

11:32 Understanding Weight Loss as a Mathematical Process

14:11 The Importance of Macro Tracking

16:55 Innovating Fitness Apps with AI

19:47 Simplifying User Experience in Fitness Tracking

22:53 Building Fitly AI: Lessons Learned

25:31 The Impact of AI on App Development

28:25 Leveraging AI for Business Insights

30:33 The Role of Prior Experience in AI Utilization

32:30 Data Privacy and Security in AI Applications

35:02 Collaborative Development: A Team Approach to App Building

37:17 Navigating the Fundraising Landscape

39:22 Addressing Competition: Lifestyle Changes vs. Quick Fixes

42:18 Motivation and Consistency in Fitness Tracking

45:13 The Future of Fitness Apps: Integrating AI Agents

47:55 Building a Funding Coach AI for Female Founders

Connect with Zoe Pineau and Fitly AI

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-pineau-850588105/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoepineau

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thezoepineau

Website: https://www.fitly.chat

Show notes of the episode

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/06/25/episode-158/

Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-158?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors in HealthTech, FinTech, ClimateTech, and AI rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to get it in your feed.

Most founders build their financial position in the wrong order. By the time the exit arrives, the decisions that mattered most have already been made under pressure.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Ana Herrero-Wallace, financial independence coach, former US-licensed equities trader, and founder of AdaInvest, about why financial independence is not an exit outcome but a tool you build while building your company. Ana is also the author of ‘Still Thinking? Act., a smarter money guide for women.'

We explore how money mindset shapes the way founders price, fundraise, and negotiate, and what it takes to move from overthinking to action.

If you're a female founder, entrepreneur, or woman in tech who wants to understand how financial agency changes the way you build, fundraise, and choose investors, this episode is for you.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why the fundraising ask most founders make is shaped by what they think investors will accept, not what they actually need
• How to build a personal financial floor in parallel with your company, and why liquidity matters more than home equity for founders
• What the Dutch pension gap reveals about a system that rewards part-time work without accounting for its long-term cost
• Why moving from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset is less about attitude and more about having a clear financial plan
• How unpaid labor has real financial value, and why women can and should negotiate for it to be recognized
• What "playing to win" looks like in practice, and why most women are socialized into a defensive financial posture before they ever start a company
• Why the goal of fundraising is agency, not validation, and how that difference changes the way you negotiate

Connect with Ana Herrero-Wallace and AdaInvest:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-herrero-wallace/

AdaInvest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/adainvestco/

Website: https://adainvest.co/

Still Thinking? Act.: https://mybook.to/rypMMkA

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors in HealthTech, FinTech, ClimateTech, and AI rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to get it in your feed.

Most brands are optimizing for search engines that fewer people are using. Rachel Gilley, CEO of Clarity Global, is tracking what happens when your customers stop Googling and start asking AI instead.

In this episode, Rachel breaks down Generative Engine Optimization: why it matters, what it costs brands that ignore it, and how a consistent message across every touchpoint is now a technical requirement, not a communications nice-to-have.

She also makes a sharp distinction between mentoring women and sponsoring them, and why only one of those actually changes who gets funded.

What you’ll learn:

• Why LLMs treat inconsistent brand messaging as noise — and simply ignore it
• What Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is and why it matters more than traditional search rankings
• How a deliberate GEO strategy drove a 300% increase in AI citations for Monday.com
• Why the human layer — strategy, nuance, reading a room — is the one thing AI cannot replace
• The difference between mentoring women and actually sponsoring them
• Why fewer female unicorns is a capital routing problem, not a capability problem

📋 Full episode notes + Rachel’s bio: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/06/11/episode-156/

Connect with Rachel Gilley
🌐 clarity.global

🔗 linkedin.com/in/rachelgilley

Surfacd — track your brand in AI search:

🌐 surfacd.com

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

FemTech represents a trillion-dollar opportunity. So why do all-female teams receive just 2% of early-stage venture capital?

Beata Wandachowicz-Krason has spent years researching what is holding FemTech back — the funding gaps, the cultural taboos, and the structural misalignment between how healthcare systems are built and what women’s health actually requires.

In this episode, she breaks down why the relatability gap between female founders and male investors is one of the biggest blockers in the sector, and what founders can do about it right now.

You’ll hear why pitching FemTech as a social cause is the wrong move, how to pivot from risk-based investor questions back to growth, and why male allyship is not optional if the sector is going to scale.

What we cover:

• The funding paradox: 85% female-led ventures, 2% of VC funding
• Why 90% male VC decision-making creates a structural relatability problem
• Cultural taboos around menopause, miscarriage, and chronic pain — and how they suppress both patient voices and founder credibility
• How healthcare systems optimized for acute care create a prevention gap that FemTech is trying to fill
• Why AI tools are censoring the very medical terms that took decades to legitimize
• How to build a data-driven, economically aggressive pitch that moves FemTech out of the wellness niche
• The pivot technique: answering risk-based questions without losing the growth narrative
• Why male allyship — done right — accelerates the sector rather than co-opting it
• Data privacy in women’s health: why the taboo is a bigger barrier than the technology
• Practical tools for combating gender bias in the funding process

About Beata Wandachowicz-Krason
Beata is an executive at Organon and a researcher focused on the systemic barriers holding FemTech back. She works at the intersection of women’s health, venture capital, and ecosystem building.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Funding Coach: ⁠fundingcoach.ai⁠
• Pieter van Keep and early menopause research: ⁠https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9089556/⁠

Related episodes:

• Sabrina Nowicki
• Carmen van Vilsteren
• Femke Delissen
• Ida Tin
• Sara Okhuijsen

Connect with Beata: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/beata-wandachowicz-krason/⁠

Find the show notes: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/06/04/episode-155/

Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for weekly conversations with the women reshaping technology and healthcare.

The solar panels going up on rooftops everywhere are solving one problem, and quietly creating another.

This episode is for female founders, women in tech, and anyone building at the intersection of sustainability and deep technology.

Host Dirkjan talks with Andjela Bozinac, co-founder and CEO of Renovo Recycling. Andjela is building a modular, chemical-free system that uses Physical AI and robotics to deconstruct end-of-life solar panels and recover high-value materials like aluminum, silicon, and glass.

Andjela's path combines mechanical engineering, intellectual property thinking, and a black belt in Taekwondo. She applies the same discipline she learned on the mat to building deep tech: showing up anyway, treating failure as feedback, and designing not just for what works in the lab, but for what gets adopted in the real world.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why solar energy is scaling fast while quietly creating a waste problem we don't know how to handle yet
• How Renovo's "vending machine in reverse" approach recovers materials without crushing or chemicals
• Why getting technology to work is only 30% of the journey — and what the other 70% actually requires
• How to sell urgency in deep tech without selling the future
• Why regulation in climate tech is a market, not a barrier
• Why now is the moment for women to enter AI and robotics, while the rules are still being written

Andjela also shares hard-won lessons from her first startup, TreeBlock, and how shifting from building the solution to building the right path to adoption changed everything about how she runs Renovo.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

03:00 Andjela’s Founder Journey

06:02 Engineering Background and Its Impact on Entrepreneurship

08:40 Lessons from Previous Ventures: TreeBlock Experience

11:38 The Problem of Solar Panel Waste and Recycling Challenges

14:38 Identifying the Core Issues in Solar Panel Recycling

17:34 Innovative Solutions for Solar Panel Deconstruction

20:20 Modular Systems and Their Advantages in Recycling

21:19 Targeting Solar Installers: A Strategic Approach

23:51 Current Status and Future Plans for Renovo Recycling

24:02 The Role of AI in Physical Recycling

27:18 Preparing for the Solar Waste Surge

30:23 Fundraising in Deeptech

34:50 Convincing Stakeholders of Urgency

37:38 Regulatory Support and Compliance

39:04 Expanding Beyond Solar Panels

40:58 Practical Insights for Founders

45:30 Empowering Women in Tech

49:37 Building a Supportive Funding Ecosystem

Connect with Andjela Bozinac and Renovo Recycling

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bozinac-andjela24/

Website: https://www.renovo-recycling.it/

Renovo on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@renovosrl

Check out the show notes on https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/05/28/episode-154/

Women Disrupting Tech on Substack

https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-154?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Enjoyed this episode?

Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify so you never miss a conversation with the women and ecosystem builders shaping the next generation of technology.

Most fertility apps look at your past cycles and make a prediction. Sabrina Nowicki built something different.

Sabrina is co-founder of Cyclisity, the digital companion to Taking Charge of Your Fertility — the bestselling book written by her aunt, Toni Weschler. What started as an annual lunch celebrating her first period became a mission to bring body literacy to women worldwide — and to build an app that teaches you to read your own body instead of outsourcing that knowledge to an algorithm.

What you’ll learn

• The 3 biomarkers at the heart of the Fertility Awareness Method and why each one tells you something different
• Why the 28-day cycle myth is holding women back — and what stress, travel, and lifestyle really do to your cycle
• Why Sabrina’s husband, a trained physician, was never taught any of this in medical school
• The data privacy risk most women don’t know about when using free health apps
• Why self-funding was a values decision, not just a financial one

Chapters

00:00 The Influence of Family Legacy on Innovation

03:08 Understanding the Fertility Awareness Method

06:10 The Basic Principles of the Fertility Awareness Method

11:53 Cyclisity: The Role of Education About Women's Health

14:47 Challenges and Learning Curves in Fertility Awareness

17:55 The Importance of Personalization in Health Apps

20:47 The Future of Women's Health Research

23:58 Data Privacy and Women's Health

29:44 Protecting User Data and Future Studies

32:21 Impact of Roe v. Wade on Privacy

35:05 The Advantages of Low-Tech Tracking

38:01 Self-Funding and Business Strategy

41:10 Leveraging Complementary Skills in Founding

44:09 Designing for Correct Use and User Experience

46:57 The Evolution of Cyclisity's Name

50:23 Empowering Female Founders through Investment

📋 Full episode notes + Sabrina’s bio: [link to blog post]

Connect with Sabrina:
🌐 cyclisity.com

📱 TikTok & Instagram: @wanderingSabrinaThe book behind the app:
📖 Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler → https://amzn.eu/d/0cX3icbH

If this episode made you think differently about your body or your health data, hit follow so you never miss a new episode.

“I don’t need to be an expert on any of these topics… that’s what I have my colleagues for.” — Izzy Sayers

What if the real obstacle for female founders isn’t a lack of knowledge, but the idea that they have to know it all themselves?

This episode is for female founders and women in tech who want to scale without needing to know everything themselves.

Host Dirkjan talks with Izzy Sayers, who leads the Emerging Giants team at KPMG Netherlands. Izzy helps startups and growing companies tackle tricky challenges like tax, finance, risk, and expanding internationally—areas that can make a big difference to a company’s success.

Izzy didn’t follow a typical path into tech. Her history degree turned out to be her “secret weapon”—not because it made her a technical expert, but because it taught her to ask good questions, connect ideas, and bring the right people together. This approach also helped her handle imposter syndrome, focusing on where she adds value instead of trying to know everything.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why knowing when to outsource is one of the most underrated founder skills

• How to recognize the moment when complexity starts slowing you down

• What post-COVID networking has cost the startup ecosystem, and how to bring serendipity back

• Why women in tech often stay in the facilitator role, and what it takes to step forward

• How safe spaces help female founders ask the questions that actually move them forward

Izzy also talks about getting ready for motherhood while working in a fast-paced environment, and how this change is teaching her to manage her energy, be more selective, and think long-term.

Chapters:

00:00 — Introduction

05:17 — The history degree as a secret weapon

08:12 — Techstars NYC and the intensity of New York

11:20 — Transitioning from TNW to KPMG

14:05 — Overcoming imposter syndrome in a new role

16:18 — When and what to outsource as a founder

22:12 — How networking became transactional after COVID

25:04 — Strategies for better event attendance

33:22 — Safe spaces for women in the startup ecosystem

36:21 — Why women stay in the facilitator role (and how to step forward)

41:07 — Navigating motherhood and the startup world

46:30 — What makes a meaningful connection

Connect with Izzy Sayers and KPMG Emerging Giants

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/izzy-sayers/

KPMG Emerging Giants: https://kpmg.com/nl/en/home/industries/private-enterprise/emerging-giants.html

Check out the show notes on

Women Disrupting Tech Blog:

Substack:

Enjoyed this episode?

Follow Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify so you never miss a conversation with the women and ecosystem builders shaping the next generation of technology.

How do you build the next generation of global gold standards in women’s health, and why is it one of the biggest economic opportunities of our time?

In this episode, Carmen van Vilsteren — healthcare innovation leader, angel investor, and one of the Netherlands’ most experienced medical device executives — shares her mission to fund and coach seven female founders toward creating seven new gold standards in healthcare.

Having spent decades at Philips developing cardiovascular imaging systems now used every second of every day in hospitals worldwide, Carmen is done advising from the sidelines. She’s getting her hands dirty — investing, coaching, and building the ecosystem that women’s health has always deserved.

We dive deep into what it actually takes to create a global gold standard in healthcare, why women’s health represents a $1 trillion untapped economic opportunity, and how Carmen is shifting the conversation from niche issue to societal imperative.

By listening, you'll learn about:

1. The Seven Gold Standards: From microsurgery robotics to advanced breast reconstruction — why these innovations are poised to reshape global healthcare.
2. The $1 Trillion Market Failure: Three times more money is spent on solving erection problems than on all women’s health issues combined. Carmen explains why that’s not just a gender issue — it’s an economic one.
3. How to Build Credibility with Doctors: The three-level key opinion leader strategy that gets medical innovators from prototype to global adoption.
4. Angel Investing as a Multiplier: How strategic early-stage investment helps female founders reach the inflection points that unlock serious venture capital.
5. Shifting the Advocacy Language: Why framing women’s health as an economic opportunity — not a fairness issue — is the most effective way to move male-dominated Venture Capital.

Connect with Carmen van Vilsteren:
Connect with Carmen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmen-van-vilsteren-a069a49/

Resources mentioned:

Fe+Male Tech Heroes: https://femaletechheroes.com/

FemTech NL: https://www.femtechnl.com/

Borski Fund: https://borskifund.com

Health Holland: https://health-holland.com

Carmen's co-authored publication in The Lancet titled ‘Why investing in women's health is a societal imperative’: ⁠https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00404-6/fulltext⁠

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Background in Tech and Healthcare

03:57 Why Healthcare Became Carmen’s Passion

07:24 Development of Imaging Systems for Cardiovascular Applications

09:07 What Goes into Developing a Global Standard

14:43 Carmen’s Ambition to Fund Seven Global Healthcare Standards

17:01 Innovations in Preclinical and Clinical Imaging

19:08 The Role of Acceptance and Credibility in Healthcare

23:07 The Seven Golden Standards in Healthcare

32:50 Changing the Healthcare Ecosystem and Gender Balance

40:39 Women’s Health as a Societal Imperative

44:21 Engaging Men in Women’s Health Advocacy

49:24 Impact of Women’s Health on Society and Personal Life

54:00 Angel Investing and Supporting Female Founders

58:35 Paying Forward and Building a Support Ecosystem

01:10:47 Netherlands as a Global Center for Women’s Health

01:17:08 Vision for the Future of Healthcare and Innovation

01:21:32 Advice for Female Founders and Investors

01:22:48 Connecting with Carmen on LinkedIn

About Women Disrupting Tech: Hosted by Dirkjan Hupkes, Women Disrupting Tech features female founders, tech leaders, and women in STEM who are building the next generation of technology. We provide the actionable strategies and proven frameworks female entrepreneurs use to succeed.

👉 Subscribe to Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for weekly insights from women reshaping the industry.