Female founders don’t get the capital they need. Last year only 17.3% of venture capital went to companies with at least one female founder, according to The Q4 2021 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, and a pathetic 2.0% of capital went to all female-founded teams. Women of color fare much worse; receiving just .34% of the venture capital in the U.S. according to Crunchbase’s 2021 numbers.
We also know that women investors are more likely to factor gender of the founders into their investment strategies than their male counterparts do: 51% consider a founder’s gender to be significant compared to 6% for men. And we know that only a tiny percentage of women who qualify to be angels and LPs become investors. Why is that, when we know how much wealth is derived from investing in companies?
Obviously, to change the growth trajectory for women-led and founded companies and level the playing field for women leaders and build women’s wealth, we need to inspire more qualified women to step up as funders to drive the change we want to see in access, leadership, innovation, and distribution of wealth.
Survey To Uncover To Identify Motivators For Women To Invest In Startups And Venture Funds
Today, we are proud to announce the launch of the “How Women (and Men) Invest in Startups” Survey. Our goal in launching this survey is simple: to better understand how to motivate more amazing women to invest in startups and venture funds.
We have partnered with Ventureneer and CoreWoman, two research companies dedicated to closing the gap in financing for women, to research how to encourage women to invest in female-founded startups and venture funds. And we’re joined by over 27 like-minded partner organizations and 10 individuals dedicated to leveling the playing field for women leaders, building women’s wealth, and changing the gender dynamics in business, to join in its efforts.
Our partners include: 37 Angels, BLCK VC, California Society of CPAs, Dream Ventures, European Black Investors, Golden Seeds, Invest for Better, Next Wave, nFormation, SoGal Foundation, StageNext Fund, Supply Change Capital, Sybilla Masters Fund, Talino Venture Labs, The 22 Fund, The Artemis Fund, The JumpFund, The Trust, WBEC DMV, WBEC MetroNY, We Are Enough, WOCStar,Women Impacting Public Policy, Women in Cleantech and Sustainability, Women With Capital, and women.nyc. Individual outreach partners include Vanessa Dawson, AdaPia D'errico, Ann Drabick, Annie Evans, Tara Greco, Alicia Syrett, Jonny Price, Rochelle Stewart, and Lolita Taub.
The impact women investors can make by funding startups led by women is astronomical. The first step is to understand how to motivate more women to put their money to work to make the changes we all want to see.
Please join us by taking or sharing the survey with your network.
If you want to help us recruit survey respondents, please complete this form.
If you want to help share the survey with other groups or individuals that might help us push out the survey, you can share this note.
Let’s spark the change now, together.
Comments