Winds of Change — Are they coming for Female Entrepreneurs?
I have always loved economics and politics. While I studied economics at university, my first stint at anything political was when I ran for the local elections in 2018. It was exciting, exhilarating and an opportunity to make a difference. I have also loved the interplay between economics and public policy; the role that the government can play in incentivising private markets to help bridge gaps in areas, be it health, infrastructure, education or in this case, the funding gap for female entrepreneurs (1). The Power of the Public-Private Partnership.
The funding gap related to female founders is what I focus on everyday– it’s what I do, it’s what I live, breathe and sleep. I invest in women and have done so for many years. As we know that women are over-mentored and under-capitalized, it seems to me like an investment arbitrage of sorts, and investing in them is common sense.
Over the years I have had the privilege of writing many small cheques for women owned companies, enabled by capital from others such as Atomico, until I was asked to join Speedinvest as a Partner earlier this year. The first Partner at a large fund that I know of with a specific focus on female founders. I’m happy to say that in my first nine months at Speedinvest, I have more than 10x’ed the capital I invested into women-owned businesses in the last 3 years. Such is the power of the pen when we can use it for good.
When I first got the email to join the “ Women-Led High-Growth Enterprise Taskforce” led by Anne Boden and sponsored by Liz Truss, I was excited but also wary. Not yet another committee I thought to myself — how many committees do we need to make a real change?
I realised the power of what Liz had sponsored when I met the other members of the taskforce in Downing Street. Some of them I had known for the work they had done for the ecosystem for many, many years, some I had heard of and some I am so glad I now know. The Taskforce includes strong women, women from diverse backgrounds, women of age, women with lived experience, women who had built and women probably like me, who had fallen many times before rising to life’s many challenges — all with a common mission — to funnel more capital into women. Here we were now, sitting across from each other brainstorming about what would move the needle and enable more capital into female enterprise.
Very quickly we spun out and created sub-working groups to deal with the most important issues that we felt we could table. As ‘Angel Investor of the Year’ in 2021 and being involved in Alma Angels, a community I co-founded to create more female angel investors, I had for years been banging on about changes to the SEIS scheme (the tax incentive scheme to encourage angel capital into early stage entrepreneurs). If only we could have a higher tax rebate for those that invest in female entrepreneurs was one of the ideas I had discussed at length with Jenny Tooth, the UKBAA chair. Women find it hardest to raise money in the earliest days of starting a business and incentives such as these could try and create a more level playing field for them. Surely if women had better access to capital in the early days, there was a higher chance of success and survival at a later stage.
Why for women only? I am sure that this is bound to come up. My simple answer:to have radical outcomes you need radical changes, especially when it is a well known fact that for every £1 of VC investment in the UK, all-female founder teams get less than 1p. All-male founder teams get 89p (1)).
More grant funding towards female founders who were building strong businesses, but which were not large enough to be funded by larger VC funds, is another case in point. There is a huge need for such businesses since they not only add to our GDP and to job creation, but also because women’s economic empowerment is key to realizing women’s rights and gender equality.
Through their businesses, women have a chance to create wealth for themselves and pay it forward by recycling some of this capital into other women. After years of talking on panels about this, I finally realized that I had an audience; that there were other women who felt similarly and a place where we could all finally be heard and induce change. We were everyday women who were given a chance to be seen, to be heard and to influence.
While it is early days at the Taskforce and we are all plugging along in our sub-groups and come together every few weeks to collaborate, I feel we are already making headway. While the central government is in flux, we are all hopeful that no matter what the outcome of the election is, we are planting seeds which will withstand the “winds of change” and grow into something beautiful. After all, “if you stick to your true north, you build greatness for the long term”.
- Source: Financial Times, August 15, 2022
