Gender Bias Contributes to Blocking Female Founders Out of Investment & Venture Capital. We Need to Fix This.
Crowdfund Insider | | Feb 20, 2019
The world of business equity raising is still dominated by men. Melinda Gates wrote in ReCode back in 2017:
“We like to think that venture capital is driven by the power of good ideas. But by the numbers, it’s men who have the keys.”
Gates argued that this was “more to do with historical inequalities than it does with innate ability.”
At the time of Gates’ comments, a U.S. analysis found that just 2% of venture capital finance went to start-ups founded by women, and with women comprising just 9% of the decision-makers at U.S. venture capital firms, the lack of female VC representation seemed a compelling reason as to why. The situation a year on shows no sign of improving.
Recently, a UK VC & Female Founders report for the Treasury discovered that for every £1 of VC investment, all-female founder teams get less than 1p.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liz Truss said it was “incredible” that in 2019 men had a “virtual monopoly on venture capital.”
See: Meet the women who are making sure blockchain is inclusive
Even within the more disruptive, and arguably progressive, realms of crowdfunding, women are underrepresented – Crowdcube found that only 18% of their funded pitches are led by females or a joint team which includes a female.
As well as being hard to believe in this day and age, this status quo also makes terrible business sense.
Businesses largely led by women do better than male-dominated ones. And this isn’t a new discovery.
Multiple studies have shown this, and just recently, a report from US accelerator Mass Challenge found that for every dollar invested, a company founded by men generated 31 cents – compared to 78 cents produced by start-ups with women on the board.
Truss says she wants to see more women starting up businesses to “supercharge economic growth”. Whether our economy can be “supercharged” given the uncertain times we face, I’m certain that investing in female-founded or female-led businesses is one of the smartest things investors can do.
Endemic sexism
I understand the raising investment challenges start-ups face, particularly female-led start-ups, because I’ve experienced them first-hand – both in my identity as an entrepreneur in my past business, and now in my investment consultancy role – and I would say there are a few factors at play.
Firstly, investment is not really an industry many women tend to enter. It is viewed as a bit of an old boy’s club and has a reputation for not being female friendly. People don’t tend to want to go to a party that they’ve pointedly not been invited to or where they will be in the minority.
There is also an unhealthy dose of old-fashioned sexism still at play here.
See: Slowly but surely, women are changing fintech
I’ve been to several board and investor meetings at investment and law firms across the city and on more than one occasion people assumed I was there as the PA or the stand-in receptionist. Not the person presenting in the boardroom to the partners of the firm. I’ve also recently been in an office filled with men whose artwork on the walls included paintings of naked women!
The gender bias of the industry is also causing a vicious circle which is contributing to locking female founders out of investment. There are very few female investors in the UK, and at the same time, investors tend to invest in sectors that they know or intrinsically “get” which makes good, solid sense. Yet if all the investors are male it makes it that much harder for female-led and female-focused businesses to secure investment.
Female-led brilliance
But in the two years of raising £18 million for businesses of all sizes, including those with female founders, I have seen flashes of brilliance from the female-led camp – both in terms of women getting behind investment propositions and in how women are turning the situation to their advantage.
We recently managed The Baukjen Group’s crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube. The brand, built on its premium Isabella Oliver maternity range and its contemporary womenswear offer, is understood by women. Its wife and husband founding team also offers the gender mix which we have found works incredibly powerfully for investors. Their raise achieved the highest number of female investors ever to invest in a company via crowdfunding – 77% of investors were women, compared to an average of 31% (Crowdcube.) It showed that women are ready to invest, and with a more democratic crowdfunding platform, they are able to play a bigger role and respond to brands they believe in.
While a lack of confidence and reticence in their approach to equity raising is holding female founders back, it is also driving them to approach investors with a more thorough and robust style.
See: Women & Minorities in Regulation Crowdfunding: High Success Rate Despite Low Representation & Lower Funding Levels
We have found in our experience with businesses that women tend to get down to the numbers, hard facts and proof-points much quicker than men when seeking investment. Female founders should play on this trait – especially when pitching a product that male investors wouldn’t intrinsically understand.
When Trinny Woodall pitched her beauty brand to investors, she knew that women would love her brand and would recognise the benefits of her make-up and the pain points it solved. However, looking around the room she recognised that she was pitching a female-focused product to a room full of men. So instead of pitching her product, she pitched purely the numbers, the margins, the market and the size of the opportunity.
In contrast, when we are dealing with an all-male founding team it can take us weeks to cut through the bravado, whereas women often take a more grounded approach – setting forth figures and projections plainly. The irony of this is that women are less likely to pursue investment in the first place, and when they do, are less likely to ask for what they need. This is a problem.
The solution? Education
One of the biggest solutions to the inequality of raising investment is around education. Female founders can be wary of investment because they view it as taking on debt but there are different forms of funding and it’s important to understand what funding actually means for your business. Equity funding is not debt and you won’t owe investors that money. You do have an obligation to do your best and use that funding wisely, with the aim to give a return but if it all goes wrong, investors lose their capital and know the risks involved.
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Read More
Read More
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Read More
Read More
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Read More
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Read More
Read More
Sifted | Nicolas Colin | Apr 14, 2021 The Greensill debacle shows that startups have a lot to learn when it comes to winning friends and influencing people. Startups are getting stuck into some highly-regulated industries — and they need to start taking those regulations seriously. Long gone are the days when founders could “move fast and break things”, to echo Mark Zuckerberg’s famous words. Now startups are handling people’s money; they’re responsible for children’s education; and some of them are even taking our lives in their (healthtech) hands. But staying on the right side of regulation is not easy. Most rules were designed a long time ago, well before the internet came about and made it possible to solve old problems with new solutions. Many things that are now possible don’t exactly fit in the old regulatory boxes that we inherit from the past — whether it’s rules that relate to taxi medallions or the 1835 Highways Act that effectively prohibits anyone in the UK from riding an electric scooter on the road. For some startups to take off while strictly complying with existing regulations in sectors such as transportation, financial services or healthcare, the sequence would have to ...
Read More
Read More
MarketWatch | Mark DeCambre | Apr 14, 2021 Coinbase is the talk of Wall Street on Wednesday, as the largest crypto platform in the U.S. gears up for its public debut on a traditional exchange, arriving via a direct listing rather than a more traditional initial public offering. The arrival on the public markets of Coinbase COIN, 34.38% is a big moment in the world of cryptocurrencies. The company was created just over a decade ago with the genesis of bitcoin BTCUSD, -2.43% and today stands at what many in the industry have described as a tipping point. There are few ways to secure direct ownership of crypto currencies, outside of buying them directly, a service that Coinbase provides for a fee, and which investors appear willing to pay for. Coinbase, whose users primarily deal in bitcoin and ethereum, reported last week that its revenue soared 847% in the first quarter to $1.8 billion, and that it now has 56 million verified users. See: ETF investors say Coinbase listing will cause explosion in crypto investing Leeor Shimron, an analyst at FundStrat Global Advisors, described the Coinbase listing as seminal. “Coinbase’s direct listing is a watershed moment for the crypto industry.” ...
Read More
Read More
Yahoo Finance | Release | April 13, 2021 LONDON, April 13, 2021 /CNW/ - Emerging technology research company D-Core released its latest analysis reviewing the future of the cryptocurrency landscape, calling for CoinPayments to remain the leading crypto payments processor in 2026. D-Core's report surveyed 161 experts, asking them: "Which crypto payment processor will definitely be operating in five years time?" Of those surveyed, 37% picked CoinPayments, giving it the top spot. The other crypto payment processors included in the report were Bitpay (29%), BTCpay (19%), SpicePay (13%), CoinGate (1%), among others. "It is great to be recognized as a top crypto payment processor among experts in the industry," noted Jason Butcher, CEO of CoinPayments. "Since 2013, our aim has always been to fuel crypto adoption and the most effective way to give digital assets their rightful place as mediums of exchange is by enabling businesses and consumers to use them for everyday purchases." See: Jason Butcher, CEO Coinpayments speak at the 7th Fintech & Financing conference: FFCON21 Breaking Barriers May 11-13 The report's timely release comes as notable companies like Paypal and Tesla announce that they will be facilitating crypto payments for customers. Crypto adoption is steadily on the ...
Read More
Read More
Montreal in Tech | Joseph Czikk | Apr 2, 2021 Sam Presti made a risky bet in the summer of 2018. The general manager of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder traded for star player Paul George. There was just one problem. George had one year left on his contract before he was free to sign with whomever he wanted, and he made it clear he wanted to return home to Los Angeles to play for the Lakers. Presti made a bet on an asset that would probably skip town in a year’s time. In doing so, he risked his job in Oklahoma City, a small market team that doesn’t often lure high-end free agent players. See: 4 Ways the Startup Landscape Will Shift in 2021 “Scared money don’t make none,” Presti famously remarked at the press conference, referencing a lyric from Midnight, by A Tribe Called Quest. Presti’s big bet paid off. George liked it so much in the midwest that he spurned the Lakers and signed on for another year with the Thunder, shocking many. Montreal’s next tech unicorn? Like Presti’s gamble, risk-taking is sometimes necessary in life. And for so long it felt like Canadian tech markets like ...
Read More
Read More
Forbes | Jack Kelly | Apr 9, 2021 A little bad publicity goes a long way. In late March, the legendary investment bank, Goldman Sachs, was accused by a group of young bankers of making them work 100 hours a week. The Wall Street analysts claimed that they were forced to endure a punishing schedule that left them exhausted and unable to have a social life. To ameliorate the situation, Goldman decided to offer them Saturdays off and said they’d find additional help to alleviate the workload. One day off doesn’t seem like much, but in the hustle culture on Wall Street, it's a start. Investment banking is a highly competitive field. Now that Goldman set the precedent, other banks are one-upping each other by giving lavish salary increases, bonuses, days off and Peloton bikes to Gen-Z bankers. Bank of America Corp., one of the nation’s largest banks, said it will enhance the salaries of its junior investment bankers starting May 1, according to Reuters. The salary increases are being awarded to show its recognition. While many sectors have been hit hard by the effects of Covid-19, financial firms have done well. Trading throughout 2020 and the first quarter of ...
Read More
Read More
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