Greater Boston’s Female Leaders Shaping The Startup Community

Greater Boston is one of the most active startup ecosystems in the world, consistently ranking among the top states in the U.S. for venture capital investment. In 2024, the region logged over 850 venture deals and has produced more than 20 unicorns in the last decade alone. But behind those numbers, there is a layer of the ecosystem that often goes unnoticed: the women who are building the infrastructure that makes it work.

Women leaders in Greater Boston are creating the accelerators, funds, networks, and platforms that thousands of founders rely on every day. With March marking Women's International Day, this article highlights five of them and the lasting impact they are building within Boston's startup community.

#1 Allison Byers (Founder & CEO, Scroobious)

Allison Byers is a Boston-based entrepreneur, angel investor, and capital access advocate on a mission to make the startup funding ecosystem more equitable for underrepresented founders.

After earning her MBA from Boston University, she co-founded a medical device startup spun out of MIT, securing nearly $10 million in funding before its acquisition. But when it came time to push into Series B fundraising, she hit a wall she hadn't expected: gender bias in venture capital. That led her to investigate how the capital ecosystem worked in the US, discovering that only 1.8% of VC dollars go to women-led teams, dropping to 0.6% in Massachusetts.

Instead of moving on, she decided to build a solution. In 2020, she founded Scroobious, a platform that connects founders, investors, mentors, and advisors to build real relationships that unlock opportunity, innovation, and growth. With its Pitch It Plan (PiP), the program helps founders build compelling pitch materials on their own terms to help them raise capital and get into prestigious accelerators. To date, Scroobious has supported over 1,000 founders (61% of them women), counting with JP Morgan, Boston University, and All Raise among its partners.

On the advocacy front, she co-authored California Senate Bill 54 (a first-of-its-kind law requiring venture funds to report diversity metrics) and is now pushing similar legislation in Massachusetts through Senate Bill 978. She also serves as Boston Co-Chair of the national non-profit All Raise, DEI task force member of the Angel Capital Association, and every year since 2022, she co-organizes Agents of Change, a free half-day summit in Boston that brings together women and non-binary founders, investors, and allies to tackle gender equity in the startup ecosystem.

#2 Tasneem Dohadwala (Founding Partner, Excelestar Ventures)

Tasneem Dohadwala is a significant figure in Boston’s venture capital and startup ecosystem, primarily recognized for her efforts to expand access to capital to underrepresented founders.

Today, as the Founding Partner of Excelestar Ventures,  she has built a portfolio where 61% of companies are minority-led and 50% are female-led, focusing on medtech and tech startups. Notable investments include two acquisitions by Boston Scientific (Augmenix and nVision), and the firm has been named one of the Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts by The Boston Globe.

Her commitment to women in business started early. At Wellesley College, she came to understand that the female experience in professional spaces is fundamentally different from the male one, and her first job at Lehman Brothers (where women in leadership were a rare sight) made that reality impossible to ignore. From that point on, she knew she wanted to be part of changing that. 

Beyond Excelestar, she remains active in Golden Seeds, the national angel network dedicated to fuel women-led startups. Such has been her impact that in 2024, she was named Startup Boston's Investor of the Year and received the BostInno Fire Award for her contributions to the local innovation ecosystem.

#3 Lauren Abda (Founder of Branchfood, Co-Founder Branch Venture Group)

Food and agriculture is one of the most underfunded sectors in the US startup ecosystem, and Lauren Abda, Boston-based entrepreneur and founder of Branchfood, is on a mission to change that. Since 2013, she has built one of the most comprehensive food innovation ecosystems in the country, connecting founders, investors, and industry leaders to accelerate the future of food.

Growing up in a Lebanese household, food was central to her family's life. But it wasn't until her grandmother was diagnosed with leukemia that she understood its true power. Her family began exploring the benefits of plant-based diets to support her grandmother's health, sparking Lauren's curiosity in nutrition and her dedication to building a healthier food system for all.

She started Branchfood as a simple meetup group, which rapidly gained traction among Boston's leading innovation conveners including Cambridge Innovation Center, General Assembly, and the MIT Enterprise Forum. Today, Branchfood has supported 900+ founders, formed 180+ industry partnerships, and backed by a network of 40+ mentors-in-residence and 18k+ active connections, it has become the go-to launchpad for food entrepreneurs in the region. It also powers Food Edge, an annual summit bringing together major brands, dynamic startups, and leading researchers to explore the future of food.

Recognizing that community alone wasn't enough, she co-founded Branch Venture Group, one of the first angel networks in the US focused exclusively on agri-foodtech, which has invested in 26 early-stage companies including Atlantic Sea Farms and Smash Foods. She also co-produced the Boston Food Network database, a tool that helps founders navigate the full food ecosystem, and served as a mentor and judge for leading startup programs like the Rabobank-MIT Food & Agribusiness Innovation Prize. Her work has earned her a spot on Zagat's Boston "30 Under 30" and a place on StartupBoston's list of Women Leaders Shaping Greater Boston.

#4 Senofer Mendoza (Founder & General Partner, Mendoza Ventures)

In 2016, Senofer Mendoza made history by founding Mendoza Ventures, the first woman-owned VC fund on the East Coast founded by a Latin American, based in

Before entering venture capital, she had built a career as an interior designer, working on projects like the iconic Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston. But her passion for equity and her drive to open doors for underrepresented founders pushed her to make a radical career pivot. That’s when she decided to found Mendoza Ventures. 

There, Senofer focuses on early-stage fintech, AI, and cybersecurity startups, with roughly 90% of its portfolio led by underrepresented founders. Since its founding, the firm has raised three funds with four successful exits, and is currently raising a $100 million third fund backed by Bank of America, which would break the glass ceiling for female GPs in venture capital.

But Senofer's impact goes far beyond her fund. In 2023, she founded Mendoza Impact, a nonprofit with a simple but powerful mission: close the wealth gap. Through it, she runs programs to support small businesses, fund startups in capital-constrained environments, and train the next generation of diverse investors through a fellowship program.

Her contributions to Boston's innovation ecosystem have been widely recognized. In 2022, the Boston Business Journal named her to its Business Journal Power 50 list, Axios recognized her as one of the five most influential people in the city, and BostInno honored Mendoza Ventures as an Ecosystem Supporter at its Fire Awards, highlighting her fundamental role in the growth of Boston's tech hub.

#5 Cait Brumme (CEO, MassChallenge)

Cait Brumme is the CEO of MassChallenge, the world's largest nonprofit startup accelerator headquartered in Boston, that helps connect hundreds of startups each year to mentors, global corporations, and capital.

With a background spanning finance, social impact investing, and academia, Cait had built an impressive career before joining MassChallenge. But by her own account, joining MassChallenge was the first time in her career she felt she was doing work that truly mattered, being close to founders taking real risks to change things.

Since being named CEO in 2022, she has pushed the organization to stay ahead of where Boston's ecosystem is heading. Under her leadership, MassChallenge launched dedicated tracks in AI, healthtech, and emerging technologies, and expanded its global network to support founders across industries and geographies. She is also one of the most vocal advocates for fixing Boston's biggest ecosystem gap: access to capital still runs almost entirely on warm introductions, leaving out founders who simply don't have the right network yet.

MassChallenge alumni have collectively raised over $4 billion in funding, generated more than $2.5 billion in revenue, and created over 120,000 jobs worldwide. In recognition of her contributions to the region, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce awarded her the Pinnacle Award, the city's highest honor for women leaders.

Building a Better Ecosystem

These women are building more than successful organizations, they’re building the conditions for more people to start, grow, and belong in Greater Boston. Their work proves that a strong startup community isn’t defined only by capital and headlines, but by the leaders who create access, connections, and real pathways for others. 

Together, their impact forms a shared legacy of an ecosystem made more open, more connected, and more resilient by their choice to lead with purpose. Looking ahead, the next chapter matters just as much, and the doors they’ve pushed open should keep widening for the founders and builders who come next.