WomenTechIceland itself does not provide funding for entrepreneurs. However, many of its partners, such as EntrepreNorth, Frumtak Ventures, Crowberry Capital, RANNÍS, and others do provide various types of financing to select entrepreneurs.

EntrepreNorth, for example, has the Sinew Impact Fund. Applications open until August 31, 2026.

There are many types of funding that entrepreneurs can consider for their businesses, some of which we will highlight below in our hot takes:

• Revenue— The best possible growth resource, but not always the fastest, which can impact a company’s ability to be competitive in a fast-growing market or industry sector.

• Grants— municipal, federal, consortium, private, philanthropic, and a number of other different entities offer grants either generally or for very specific focus areas, that generally do not require the exchange of equity or return of funds. While grants can be challenging to get, they are often well worth the application effort.

• Crowd funding— community driven micro investments around a project, funded directly to the entrepreneur/company, or through established crowd-funding platforms, usually with incentives or driven by passion around the entrepreneur or project.

• Angel investors — typically individuals with disposable income or assets that enable them to make investments in companies and entrepreneurs. They generally use their own personal money.

  Angels contribute anywhere between hundreds to thousands to millions of dollars to a particular project, usually in exchange for equity in the company (or otherwise loans the company money in exchange for interest return on the payback, and/or ability to buy into the company at a discounted rate on future rounds through vehicles like SAFE agreements and convertible notes).

• Venture Capital— an impatient class of investment, usually reserved for tech, industry, and consumer goods that have the potential to hyperscale. It’s probably the more well-known vehicle due to the tech sector visibility. They usually want a return within 10 years, and preferably a lot sooner. They buy into the company (or, like angels, come into a company through SAFE agreements or Convertible Notes in the early stages of the company’s growth).

• Search Funds— aptly named, it gives entrepreneurs the capital to find, acquire, and personally run a business.

There are also other mechanisms like debt financing, personal loans, and all sorts of other ways to raise money in exchange for equity, interest, or other collateral.

TRADE OPPORTUNITIES

• First Nations Trade

  • Within and across communities, culturally-connected contacts outside of these communities

• National Trade

• International Trade

• Multi-channel /multi-product trade within segments

  • Retail/Markets and marketplaces/online stores

  • Product variations to broaden offering

Important areas to build into your business to prevent issues with your go-to-market

• Compliance, import and export regulations

• Accounting for cost-of-goods and labor in pricing

• When and what to delegate

• Regularly conducting market research and feedback

• Investing in brand and customer/partner service to develop advocates

• Preparation for opportunities and unforeseen circumstances:

  • SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

  • PESTLE: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental

E-commerce

• Shopify: Launch an online store and sell internationally without building the technology yourself. It supports international markets, currencies, payments and increasingly sophisticated global selling tools.

• Wix / Squarespace: Good alternatives for service businesses, consultants, artists and entrepreneurs who primarily need a professional global website rather than a complex online store.

• Lovable / Bubble:  Build apps, marketplaces or digital services without having to hire a development team immediately. AI and no-code tools have dramatically lowered the cost of creating an MVP.

Brand and creative:

• Canva: Create logos, presentations, social-media posts, brochures, product images and marketing material.

• ChatGPT: Help with:

  • business ideas

  • product descriptions

  • website copy

  • marketing campaigns

  • customer emails

  • translations

  • market research

  • business plans

Reach, Leads, and Customer engagement

• Instagram / Facebook / TikTok: Your local business can suddenly have a global audience.

• LinkedIn: Particularly powerful for consultants, B2B businesses, technology companies and professional services.

• Mailchimp / HubSpot: Build a customer database and communicate directly with customers instead of depending entirely on social-media algorithms.

• HubSpot can also become your CRM as the business grows.

Payments

• Stripe: Accept online payments from customers around the world.

• PayPal: Particularly useful when customers already know and trust PayPal.

• Wise Business: Useful for receiving, holding and converting multiple currencies and making international business payments.

Remote and distributed teams

• Google Workspace / Microsoft 365: Email, documents, spreadsheets, storage and collaboration.

• Zoom / Microsoft Teams / Google Meet: Meet customers, suppliers, investors and collaborators anywhere in the world.

• Slack: Particularly useful once a distributed team starts forming.

Operations and Project Management

• Notion: Keep plans, processes, projects, knowledge and documentation together.

• Trello / Asana: Simple project and task management.

• Calendly:  Let customers anywhere in the world book meetings with you automatically across time zones.

Automate where possible

• Zapier / Make: Connect different applications together.

  • For example:

Customer buys something → invoice generated → customer added to CRM → confirmation email sent → shipping task created.

The easy strategy: 

• BE FOUND
  Google + Instagram/Facebook, Tiktok

• LOOK PROFESSIONAL
  Canva + simple website

• SELL
  Shopify / Etsy + digital payments

• COMMUNICATE
  Email + WhatsApp/Messenger

• RUN THE BUSINESS
  Google Workspace/Microsoft 365 + accounting

• AUTOMATE
  Calendly + Mailchimp + Zapier

• MULTIPLY YOURSELF
  AI

  • Lovable to easily create tools to help oneself. Vibe coding.