Tech has definitely a gender issue
In France in 2017, according to the Galion Project, only 33% of people who worked in the “digital economy” were women. This figure falls down to 12% if we exclude self employees / coaches and to 8% if we narrow our focus to Tech activities only, as reported by Maddyness. Being a CEO looks like a job designed for men, as female CEOs only account for 9% of all French startups CEOs.
This issue is not specific to France but more widely spread; I will simply give you one astonishing figure to illustrate that, from Atomico 2018 report: among the 175 European startups that raised money from VCs in 2017 — in series A or series B — there was only 1 female CTO.
Those disparities can be expained by a mix of factors deeply rooted in our culture, such as the lack of girls in IT studies and programming jobs, the lack of network, the lack of information, or even the “bro culture” inherited from the US giant Tech firms and perfectly depicted in Silicon Valley TV Show.
But women are not doomed to be excluded from Tech jobs: in India for example, the ratio of programmers who are women is at least 30 percent — in the US it’s 21 percent. The main difference there? According to a workplace study conducted by sociologist Winifred Poster, Indian people have “a pervasive conviction that women and men have similar mental abilities to do technical work”. (source: Wired)
As key players in the startup financing ecosystem, VCs have both a great responsibility and a role to play in promoting diversity
Not only are women a minority in Tech, they are also struggling in receiving funding when launching their project compared to male founders.
- In France, the ratio of startups led by women among the startups that raised money from VCs has shrinked from 14.5% in 2017 to 12.5% in 2018 (source : StartHer-KPMG barometer 2019).
- The 2018 MassChallenge and BCG study has shown that for every dollar of funding, startups founded by women generate 78 cents, while male-founded startups generated only 31 cents. And yet, female-founded start-ups receive 56% less funding.
VCs have to take into account those biases in order to break the vicious circle that prevents women from launching their projects and asking for fundings.
One way for VCs to change the game is to seek diversity in their own teams, as a similar gender-based inequality is reflected on the VC side. Only 15% of investment level positions at VC firms in Europe are filled by women, according to PitchBook Data 2018.
According to an empirical study we conducted ourselves on 45 Tier-1 VCs*, we have found the following ratios of women:
- An average of 25% in French and US teams, 31% in the UK
- Ratios are even weaker if we only take into account the investment teams: 20% in French and US Tier-1 VCs, 27% in UK Tier-1 VCs
- Only 1% of US Tier-1 VCs have female Partners, whereas they account for less than 5% in French Tier-1 VCs.
That’s why we at Orange Digital Ventures chose to join the #MovingForward initiative
When we heard about the #MovingForward Initiative, it instantly resonated with our team’s values. From the start, diversity has been an essential part of our team DNA and vision, as we believe it is a key driver of performance for both our start-ups and our fund.
Since the founding in 2015, we have been determined in building a team matching our values and including people from multiple ethnical, social and professional backgrounds.
As a responsible investor, we have decided to take proactive stance in working towards a more diverse and inclusive startup community.
We start our journey by publicly engaging against harassment and misconduct in the startup-VC relationship and taking a pledge in favor of a more inclusive work culture in general.
This is the reason why we have joined, along with more than 150 other VC funds, Cheryl Yeoh Sew Hoy, Andy Coravos and Ginny Fahs in their worldwide initiative #MovingForward.
As such, we are proud to be the first French VC to join this collective movement aiming at fostering a diverse, inclusive, and harassment-free workplace.
Today, we commit to engage actively in promoting our vision of diversity and inclusion to the VC and start-up ecosystem by publishing a code of conduct along with a dedicated point of contact from the investment team for entrepreneurs to turn to. We don’t want to lecture anyone on this topic, we acknowledge that we are far from being perfect and that there is a lot of work to do to get there. However, we think realizing it and understanding our own bias is the first step for change.
We hope more VCs will join this initiative and help us raise awareness on diversity and inclusion in Tech!
Thanks to Marine Baculard, Takfarinas Chabane and Alexandra Chernyshova for helping me write this blogpost. Do not hesitate to clap, share or react to it :)
*sources: Crunchbase, Mattermark, VCs’ websites
References
- “Galion gender agreement, 45 guidelines for diversity in tech”, The Galion Project, https://thegalionproject.com/gender-agreement
- “La Tech a-t-elle un problème de diversité ?”, Maddyness, 8/03/2018, https://www.maddyness.com/2018/03/08/enquete-tech-probleme-diversite/
- “We’ve got a problem” in The State Of European Tech 2018, Atomico, https://2018.stateofeuropeantech.com/chapter/diversity-inclusion/article/weve-got-problem/
- “Silicon Valley”, a HBO TV show https://www.hbo.com/silicon-valley#/
- “What India Can Teach Silicon Valley About Its Gender Problem”, Wired, 28/08/2014, https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/
- “StartHer dévoile son baromètre StartHer-KPMG 2019 sur les levées de fonds de start-up tech dirigées par des femmes”, StartHer, 8/03/2019, http://starther.org/starther-devoile-son-barometre-starther-kpmg-2019-sur-les-levees-de-fonds-de-start-tech-dirigees-par-des-femmes/
- “Report: Women-Owned Startups Deliver Twice as Much Per Dollar Invested as Those Founded by Men”, MassChallenge, 7/03/2019, https://masschallenge.org/article/report-women-owned-startups-deliver-twice-much-dollar-invested-those-founded-men
- “Why women investing in women matters”, Pitchbook, 15/01/2019, https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/why-women-investing-in-women-matter
- “Mounia, ISAI et Sam, Elaia : « Il faut que les VC appliquent à eux-mêmes ce qu’ils conseillent aux entrepreneurs »”, Kiss My Frogs, 5/03/2018, https://kissmyfrogs.com/mounia-isai-et-sam-elaia-il-faut-que-les-vc-appliquent-eux-memes-ce-quils-conseillent-aux-entrepreneurs/
- “#MovingForward, Highlighting VCs committed to diverse, inclusive, and harassment-free workplaces”, https://wearemovingforward.github.io/
- “We are #MovingForward”, Orange Digital Ventures, 12/04/2019 https://digitalventures.orange.com/we-are-movingforward/
About Orange Digital Ventures
We stand as an early-stage corporate fund to support unconventional and driven entrepreneurs from around the world whose ambition is to imagine, design and develop tomorrow’s services and technologies. We engage with compelling technology startups, creative spirits and visionary founders to help them achieve breakthrough innovation in the digital industry, accelerate their growth and successfully bring their products and services to the market.
Since 2015, we have invested in 21 companies.
Find out more at http://digitalventures.orange.com/
