“I became a founder. It was really easy,” said no one, ever.
Building a company is never straightforward. But for many first-time founders, joining the right communities can make it less daunting.
From Discord channels and Slack groups to in-person meetups, these spaces go far beyond just offering a sense of belonging. They can connect founders with mentors, funding opportunities and potential cofounders and talent.
Initiatives that support underrepresented founders to start and grow companies across Europe can also be key to breaking glass ceilings.
Sifted’s found some of the most useful communities across the continent for first-time founders to explore. The full list is at the end of the piece. If we’ve missed anyone out, let us know here.
Female Founders Rise
Founded: 2022
HQ: London
Size: 10k+
Community lead: Emmie Faust
Female Founders Rise is a community of women and non-binary founders in the UK. It offers a directory of founders to encourage SMEs and corporates to buy from women-led businesses, runs in-person and online events and provides fundraising, growth and personal branding accelerators.
Ukrainian Startups
Founded: March 2025
HQ: N/A (Telegram)
Size: 1,100+
Community lead: Artem Petrusenko; Ruslan Hladchenko
Ukrainian Startups is a Telegram channel to support Ukrainian founders. It hosts active discussions on startup topics, shares Ukrainian startup news via a dedicated news bot and on a weekly basis it pairs people up (via a Telegram Bot) to expand their network. It also brings in representatives from accelerators.
{Tech: Europe}
Founded: 2024
HQ: Berlin
Size: 6,000+
Community lead: Bela Wiertz
{Tech: Europe} is a community of technical founders and operators across Europe. It hosts hackathons, runs a Discord channel and has a weekly newsletter with jobs, events and opportunities for builders. It also offers a cofounder matching service and has recently launched the Sandbox, a free co-working space in Berlin.
Colorintech
Founded: 2016
HQ: London
Size: 60k+
Community lead: Ashleigh Ainsley; Dion McKenzie
Colorintech is a Europe-wide community of underrepresented talent in tech, spanning students, professionals, corporates and organisations. It runs in-person and online events, publishes research about diversity in tech and helps students find their first role in tech. As of December 2024, 90% of the community was made up of people of colour.
Bae HQ
Founded: 2022
HQ: London
Size: 7,000+
Community lead: Amardeep Parmar; Gurvir Riyat
Bae HQ is a community for Asian-heritage founders in the UK. It runs in-person and online events, provides free incubators and has a WhatsApp group. It also produces a podcast featuring interviews with British Asian entrepreneurs, along with an accompanying chatbot, BaeGPT, which provides business advice based on the podcast archive.
Have we missed anyone out? Email us here with the relevant information about your community and we will add you.
