Mercedes: Grace Summer Camp for women

Twenty highly motivated female founders were supported for two and a half weeks by 50 mentors and coaches in developing their business ideas. One of them was Swiss: Clara Creitz with finelles.com.

Intensive support program
Women have great potential, and Mercedes-Benz has known this since Berta Benz's legendary pioneering journey in 1888. In 2013, Mercedes-Benz launched the She's Mercedes platform to get closer to female customers. Last year, together with startup supporter Grace-Accellerator Berlin, they ran the Grace Summer Camp for the first time, an intensive support program for female company founders.

Business ideas from 20 women
This year, 20 women participated. At the end of the two-and-a-half week intensive course, where the women benefited from the knowledge and coaching of 50 mentors, coaches, investors and many industry partners, one idea was chosen as the most viable.
The winner was Dr. Jutta Merschen with "FamilyPunk", an app with personalized coaching and eLearning for parents.

Coaching and mentoring
The majority of the participants who made it to the finals out of 250 entries came from Germany and Austria, with only one from Switzerland: Clara Creitz. She is the co-founder of finelles.com, based in Zurich and Berlin, a portal that aims to help women with financial issues.
Her experience: "I especially liked the coaching and mentoring that came from women who have also started companies. Hearing the experiences is important to move forward with your own startup idea." The next Grace Summer Camp, again supported by She's Mercedes, will take place in the summer of 2020, with interviews for that starting in March 2020.

grace-accelerator.com
mercedes-benz.com