This Minnesota Startup Built a National Directory for Women-Owned Businesses

MAIA launched earlier this year with a straightforward, single-minded goal: to compile a huge list of women-owned businesses and turn it into an easily-searchable online directory.

By developing a platform that made it easy to find women-owned businesses, MAIA founders Kateri Ruiz and Angel Rowell hope to make it easy for consumers to find and support female entrepreneurs across the country.

Eden Prairie-based MAIA officially launched in late April, and now has more than 700,000 businesses from across the country listed on its site. But this is just the beginning, Ruiz and Rowell told Minne Inno. There are around 11.5 million women-owned businesses in the United States. MAIA aims to eventually reach all of them.

“These businesses are the bread and butter of our community,” Rowell said. “But often times people don’t think about them or know they exist.”

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