Only 7% of investor money goes to women-led startups. How do we crush this dismal stat?

Your Writing Prompt: How do we get more women-led startups funded?

Hit the button at the bottom of the page that says “Write your response”, and tell us how you think we can inspire more people to invest in women.

Folks, we have a big problem. Women and girls everywhere are missing, underrepresented, and dropping out from technology fields. As a result, today’s tech — and increasingly today’s world — does not reflect the diversity of women’s experiences or ingenuity.

It doesn’t help things that only 7% of all investor money goes to women-led startups. We need to change the statistics, the tech sector is missing out on startups and products that could be world-changing.

One way that we can change the ratio is by actually funding women-led startups. We can make sure that when we’re investing in startups, they have women on their management teams. We can start calling for more women CEOs. (Did you know that on the Forbes list of 100 leading tech investors, only 4 are women?)

I’m working with Women Who Tech to help fund women-led startups by investing in the Women Startup Challenge. We’ve gotta start somewhere.

Here’s the deal: women who are leading startups (this includes nonprofits and social impact startups) can apply here to join the Challenge. The applicants will crowdfund for their startup to showcase and raise money for innovative women-led ventures that are committed to solving problems for people, businesses, and the planet (and win prizes along the way). Then, the top 25 fundraisers will be reviewed by a panel of judges, and will have the chance to move on to the final round of the Challenge. In the final round, 10 startups will live pitch to the panel of judges at General Assembly DC for a chance to win up to $50k, among other startup friendly prizes.

The thing is the tech sector is not investing in women-led startups.

It’s time we provide women who are the real deal with as many opportunities as men. So to accompany the Women Startup Challenge, Women Who Tech is hosting its 5th annual virtual TeleSummit that’ll tackle issues like how to fund your own startup and pitfalls to avoid, disrupting the startup brogrammer culture, defining your startup vision, how to give a great investor pitch, and more.

The Women Who Tech TeleSummit will be on April 29th, and will feature more than two dozen of the biggest changemakers from the tech and startup world, including Lisa Stone, Cofounder of BlogHer, Lynne d. Johnson, former Senior Editor of Fast Company, Sarah Kunst, Partner at Fortis Partners, Julie Wainwright, CEO of The RealReal, Wendy Tan White, Cofounder of Moon Fruit, Rebecca Eisenberg, General Counsel, Formerly of PayPal and Reddit, and more.

It’s been a goal of mine to promote the work of the women in tech, since they don’t usually get the recognition they deserve, and that’s not right. This is our chance to crush the stats that’ve stayed pretty stagnant for years. Let’s fund more women. You can register to participate in the Women Startup Challenge or the Women Who Tech TeleSummit now (just click on the links).

While all of this is getting off the ground, I want to hear from you. Join me in writing a post about how we can crush these stats. I want to hear from you. How can we inspire more people to invest in women?

(My team and I will look through your responses and will share our favorite responses across my networks…)