Women Raising Money — Uggh…
I spoke at an event last week in Rochester sponsored by Chloe Capital and The Entrepreneurs Network which was a Women’s Investors Forum and a funding challenge for women led start-ups. In my presentation I shared some of the most recent data from the Elephant in the Valley Research. But I also mined the open-ended feedback for specific insights regarding funding/ entrepreneurship. The remarks are bleak…
“I am afraid to take on a fundraising-facing role, since the statistics say that having a woman do fundraising is a great way to tank your valuation.”
“Fundraising is tough normally, but really tough when you are not in the club. Worse if you are geographically outside of the valley.”
“Men invite other men to join early startups or form one.”
“It was nearly impossible for me to raise VC funding without succumbing to unwanted sexual advancements.”
“As a female startup co-founder, we were constantly treated with great bias. So much so that we had the one male co-founder in the group speak as much as possible.”
“After our CEO physically violated me the second time, our Venture Capital firm’s General Partner advised me that the “market rate” for sexual harassment was 6 months severance. (As CFO and Head of HR, I had raised $15MM for the company, and tripled our headcount.)”
Double ughh… Wish I had more positive stories to share, but hoping that this next generation of female entrepreneurs learn that all money is not good money… And, hoping that with more women led VCs and hopefully the next generation of ‘woke’ male VCs these challenges will go away.
