WHY AREN'T THERE MORE WOMEN IN START-UPS AND VC FUNDS DESPITE THEIR EMPIRICAL SUCCESS?

The entrepreneurial bug has caught on and stayed for more than a decade, yet out of the 2000-plus companies which went public in the US between 2013 and 2020, only a disheartening 18 were founded and led by a female CEO. The lack of female representation in the most promising start-ups is in turn reinforced by the absence of female VC partners.

 

Among all US-based VC partners, only 4.9% are women, and not even half of them are able to assume control of a decisive proportion of her firm's business decisions. Without proper representation among the backers, it is therefore intuitive to think that female entrepreneurs simply do not receive the attention they reserve.

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It is particularly difficult to break the glass ceiling in the VC industry due to the perceived lack of experience for women in business, an unfair but often perpetuated gender stereotype which may not even be a conscious assumption. Such confirmation biases extend to networking, where women may face substantial barriers when attempting to integrate into high net worth individuals and family offices.

 

We endorse any and all initiatives which specifically target this disparity in VC partnerships - the GP-LP Matching Tool, for instance, helps build a more accessible fundraising ecosystem for emerging start-ups to connect with similarly positioned Limited Partners.

 

Source of data: Fast Company, Women in VC