Investing in Women
While I know it makes great business sense to invest in female founders, hire women, and have women on company boards, I often get challenged on this by those who have not read the same research and understand the same data.
In order to make it easier to share this information, I decided to create this post. As I continue to read and gather information on this topic, I will update this post so please bookmark the post so that you, too, can use it as a reference tool.
Here’s some of the data around the female founders, investing in women, female investors, and diversity in general. Click on the links for the data sources.
Women led start ups have a 35% higher ROI when venture backed and generate 12% higher revenue than their mail counterparts (2015)
$50B: the amount of money required to reach gender parity across all stages of venture capital to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs
6% of VCs are women (compared to 10% in 1999). 7% of partners at top VC firms are women (2017) Less than 6% of the VC decision makers were women in 2016
68%: the increase in the number of women-led startups in the US between 1997 and 2014 (2015)
2.19% of VC funding went to female founders in 2016 compared to 7% received by female founders as of mid 2015
3%: the percentage of total VC funding that goes to companies with a female CEO (2015)
Men start businesses with twice as much capital than women (2015)
Average VC investment by year for female founders: $4.5M (2016), $6.1M (2015), $5.1M (2014). Average VC investment by year for male founders: $10.9M (2016), $9.7M (2015), $8.4M (2014).
86% of venture funded start ups have no female founders or management (2015)
54% of start ups have no female leaders in 2017 versus 46% in 2016
70% of start ups with no female directors in 2017 versus 66% in 2016
“Without diverse leadership, women are 20% less likely than straight white men to win endorsement for their ideas; people of color are 24% less likely; and LGBTs are 21% less likely. This costs their companies crucial market opportunities, because inherently diverse contributors understand the unmet needs in under-leveraged markets.”
