AIM-HI launched the Women’s Venture Competition in 2020, despite the global pandemic. Since then, the Women’s Venture Competition has been empowering female scientist-entrepreneurs in the oncology arena. Through this annual competition, AIM-HI provides critically needed seed funding, important coaching, and continuous access to our global network to highly promising female scientist-entrepreneurs, thus empowering women in oncology and furthering the development of groundbreaking treatments.

AIM-HI launched the BRACE (Briding Research from Academia to Cancer Entrepreneurship) Award in collaboration with our partner, the Asian Fund for Cancer Research Limited (AFCR). This program aims to identify and invest in innovative oncology startups that can make an impact on cancers prevalent in underserved populations.

The annual AIM-HI Women’s Venture Competition provides critical early-stage funding for women entrepreneurs in oncology. The winning company is eligible to receive up to a $1 million equity investment from AIM-HI and co-investors, subject to due diligence, to fund pre-clinical investigations. Ultimately, this financing helps to bring next-generation therapeutics, diagnostics, and prevention technologies to patients.

In addition to seed-stage financing, AIM-HI provides other essential resources to participating startups, including:

The BRACE Award aims to provide vital support to early-stage biotechs, enabling them to accelerate their innovative therapeutics, diagnostics and cancer prevention products into the clinic, with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for patients affected by cancer globally.

The winning company will receive up to US$600,000 in investment funding from AFCR and co-investors, subject to due diligence and negotiation, which will serve as early seed money for proof of concept and proof of value on the path to clinical trials and, eventually, to new effective cancer technologies that could save patients’ lives.