Why We Partnered: Introducing the Female Innovators Lab by Barclays and Anthemis
It is no secret that female entrepreneurs are often overlooked in the world of venture capital and especially in fintech. According to CBInsights, there are currently 46 fintech unicorns, 24 of which are based in the US. Of those 24, two (8 percent) have at least one female co-founder. This is compared to around 15 percent of all US unicorns across all sectors that have at least one female co-founder.
The lack of funding to female founders, in fintech and otherwise, isn’t just confined to those companies that have achieved unicorn status. It is prevalent across all stages of funding. A commonly cited statistic from 2017 notes that only 2 percent of venture funding went to female-founded businesses that year and only 17 percent to businesses with at least one female co-founder.
There have been some incredible initiatives to help combat the founding and funding gap for women and other underrepresented founders. The list includes Female Founders Fund, BBG, Harlem Capital Partners, Jane VC, Backstage Capitaland many others. These firms are all doing tremendous work, but there is still a long way to go. For example, in Q1 of this year, the percentage of capital to mixed gendered and female-only teams improved; those numbers shrunk the following quarter. And at Anthemis, we’ve found the funding divide to be even greater when it comes to the more heavily regulated sectors we work within, fintech and insurtech.
The fintech industry (which will include insurtech from here on) combines two traditionally male-dominated industries: finance and technology. So, perhaps it’s unsurprising that the number of female-founded companies we see come through our fundraising pipeline is small.
The lack of female founders is especially disappointing to the team at Anthemis, as we focus heavily on diversity inside our own business, with the belief that diverse talent at our firm will help to attract diverse founders. And yet, even with women representing 38 percent of our investment team, including 62 percent of investment decision-makers, when it comes to women, our portfolio stats are lower than we’d hope. 16 percent of the Anthemis portfolio of 90+ fintech companies in the US and Europe have female founders. But we’re not satisfied. We believe there is more work to be done.
During Fintech Week in New York this April, I co-hosted an Anthemis Women in Fintech Breakfast. The event was a closed-door session led by Anthemis Co-Founder and CEO, Amy Nauiokas, and Rhian Horgan, Founder and CEO of Anthemis portfolio company, Kindur. We aimed to bring women working in tech and financial services, investors and operators, together, to search for an answer to the important question that we had been struggling with for some time: why aren’t there more female founders in fintech?
We talked about how common it is to see men from the financial services industry leave to start companies. However, of the women that leave jobs in finance to become entrepreneurs, many decide to do it outside the industry they built their careers in. That suggested to us that there might be more burgeoning female entrepreneurs inside finance than we imagined — they’re just leaving for opportunities in other sectors. Why?
Is it because they are turned off by financial services after working in the sector for so many years? Or perhaps because they struggle to raise funds from friends and family like their male counterparts, preventing them from getting their ideas off the ground?
While many of the great initiatives mentioned earlier are helping to change the funding gap in technology, at Anthemis we see a massive opportunity in doing our part to change the funding landscape in the fintech sector.
Today, we’re announcing the launch of the Female Innovators Lab by Barclays and Anthemis, a New York City-based venture studio dedicated to cultivating entrepreneurial talent in women from all sides of the financial services ecosystem. The Lab’s mission is to identify female founders at the idea stage of their journey and match them with the resources and mentorship required to develop a company and bring it to its first round of fundraising.
Amy Nauiokas and I, two alums of Barclays, saw the firm as a great partner for such an initiative. Along with Barclays’ expansion of Rise in New York and increasing focus on fostering early-stage fintech ecosystem, the company has made a big push to increase female representation at the firm.
Since our inception, Anthemis has been committed to cultivating change in financial services by building and investing in best-in-class fintech startups. Venture building alongside venture investing is nothing new to us. In 2014, Anthemis opened a discretionary venture studio in London and, a few years later, expanded the studio to build companies in collaboration with global institutional partners, including MMI Holdings and BBVA.
While many of our current venture studio companies remain in stealth, one alumna we are really proud of is Kindur, founded by Rhian Horgan. It is our hope that the Female Innovators Lab finds many more women like Rhian, who have had successful careers inside the financial services industry and are ready to take the leap into entrepreneurship.
We are also excited to welcome Katie Palencsar to the Anthemis team to lead the Lab. Through Katie’s experience as an entrepreneur from the idea stage, to funding, scaling and exit, she has an incredible understanding of what early-stage companies need to achieve success. Prior to joining us, Katie was the CEO of Unbound Concepts, a tech company focused on metadata, search and sell-through for publishers in the school and library market, acquired by Certica Solutions.
As a fintech investor, I am always looking for untapped or under-tapped opportunities and I believe that underrepresented founders represent just that. I am very excited to have played a role in forming this initiative with Barclays to identify and support these individuals.
Anthemis is committed to continuing to find new ways to support founders, especially those who feel overlooked or underserved. It is core to us at Anthemis that we support founders who are building companies with a positive impact on the world. If you are interested in learning more or applying to the Lab, I’m sure Katie would love to hear from you.
