ALTHOUGH FEMALE FOUNDERS ARE A GREAT BET, THEY FACE MANY HURDLES.
A lot of the hurdles female founders face stem from the lack of access to funding. Not only do female founders get 2.7% of VC funding (while all male teams get 85% of funding), but women are also deeply underrepresented in the venture capital world. As the NGO All Raise notes, only 12% of decision-makers at US VC firms are women. And only 5% of US VC firms have equal gender distribution at the corporate level (!)
Female founders are an incredible bet yet they still face many hurdles, be it (sometimes ubiquitous) sexism, not being taken seriously, lack of access to funding. Not to mention the added obstacles that Black and Brown women have to overcome. We’ve seen first hand how this was the case for amazing entrepreneurs like Kathryn Finney and Deepti Sharma. As Kathryn mentioned when we interviewed her: “I was met with varying degrees of racial and sexual biases towards me - one prominent investor even told me then that I had the idea, but that he just doesn’t ‘do Black women.’”
[As I wrote on my Built By Women ‘about’ page mission statement]:
What those who perpetuate sexist tropes perhaps don't take into account is that --as the WEF’S Global Gender Gap Report also noted-- gender parity is vital for both economies and societies to thrive. It is vital to highlight the work of women --and what is BUILT BY WOMEN.
Why are female founders a great bet?
PS: Although some of these stats may (sometimes) come across as binary, or in a ‘us vs them’ manner, these stats merely point out the fact that female founders —who only get 2.7% of VC funding (whereas male founder get 85% of VC dollars)— are a great bet!!
Comments