ZenVita wins €30,000 top prize in She's Next Romania grants
What's the deal? Three women entrepreneurs from Bucharest won grants totalling €60,000 through the second edition of She's Next, a programme run by VisaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and ING Bank Romania in collaboration with Impact Hub Bucharest. The winners — Iulia Suciu (ZEN-VITA), Cristina Olteanu (AlbAlb), and Carina Sava (Watermelon Agency) — were selected during a Pitch Day event on May 27.
The grants were split €30,000, €20,000, and €10,000. The three founders presented their growth plans to a jury and demonstrated readiness to scale.
Why now? Romania has over 170,000 businesses with at least one woman shareholder, and a quarter are exclusively women-owned. Yet many start without an entrepreneurial model or support structure, according to Luana Sorescu, head of easy banking at ING Bank Romania's business banking division.
Nearly 1,000 women-led companies applied for this edition — a significant jump suggesting growing demand for structured support. Ten finalists were selected across sectors ranging from music and technology to hospitality, design, and accessibility.
"She's Next is more than a grant program — it's a space where entrepreneurs can validate their ideas, clarify their direction, and gain the confidence to think bigger," said Elena Ungureanu, Visa's country manager in Romania.
What could go wrong? Romania still falls below the EU average on the Gender Equality Index published by the European Institute for Gender Equality. Grants and mentoring help, but systemic gaps in access to capital and networks for women founders remain a broader challenge that single programmes can't solve alone.
The relatively modest grant sizes — even the top prize of €30,000 — may limit how far winners can stretch the funding in practice.
The signal: With both ZEN-VITA and AlbAlb classified as early-growth-stage companies on Dealroom, the grants arrive at a critical inflection point where small injections of capital can meaningfully shape a startup's trajectory. Visa's role as a corporate investor backing the programme fits a broader pattern of large corporates using grant and mentoring initiatives to cultivate ecosystems — and potential future partners — in underserved founder segments across Europe.
Read more: Business Review
