Why It’s Incredibly Rare for Companies Led and Founded by Women to IPO
It goes back to the venture capital firms funding them, and even successful female venture partners struggle to raise the capital necessary for their funds
By Leslie Feinzaig
Earlier this year, Whitney Wolfe Herd made history when she became the youngest female founder to take her company public. She rang the Nasdaq bell dressed in a bright yellow power suit, a hat tip to Bumble’s signature color — while holding her toddler son, a hat tip to the millions of women who have been working from home with kids crawling all over them during the pandemic. Women like me.
This image stands out not just because of the bright yellow suit and the baby in hand, but also because of how extremely rare someone like Wolfe Herd is. More than 2,000 companies went public in the U.S. between 2013 and 2020. But only 18 of them were led by a female founder and CEO.
This stark statistic is itself a consequence of who gets funded. Venture capital provides the dollars that fuel companies from two guys (yes, guys) in a basement to ringing the stock exchange opening bell. And while billions of dollars are invested in the space every year, just over 2% of those go to…
