Let’s get more females funded!

Yet another report came out last week outlining the dire situation for female founders seeking investment. The Female Founder Funding Report by Techboard shows that the needle just isn’t moving in this space for women.

Figures from the report are concerning:

• Over the 4 years covered by the report female founded companies (companies with at least 1 female founder) had secured $5.8b AUD in funding, representing 23.7% of all Startup funding.
• 19.7% was secured by companies with a mixed gender founding team and 4% by solely female founded companies.?
• 35.5% of VC/Private investment went to companies with at least 1 female founder (32.2% mixed gender team) and 4.4% (solely female founded) of the total amount of private investment of $10.9b.
• Solely female founded companies secured 12.1% of all VC deals (by number).
• Solely female founded companies, and to a lesser extent mixed teams, raised significantly less per round when compared to all male founding teams - Series A rounds are on average 66.8% smaller for solely female founded teams compared to all-male, Seed rounds were 63.3% smaller on average.?

In the five years since launching Rare Birds to provide support for women in business, I have witnessed progressive change towards equality in the Australian startup scene. There are definitely more women getting involved in entrepreneurship and yet they are still underfunded in a big way.

Even though the figures show that you get a better ROI investing in a female-led startup, the VC community is still investing disproportionately in the guys.

WHY?

There are several reasons that have been highlighted in recent reports. One is that the VC community is overwhelmingly made up of men. In late 2019, The Australian Financial Review polled leading firms and found that of 50 partners, only 11 were women.

As female founders often look to solve problems faced by women, male-only panels of investors often cannot see the opportunities in the issue which female-led companies are aiming to address.

Susan Lyne, co-founder of BBG Ventures, who set up a firm specifically to invest in consumer tech startups with a female founder, is familiar with the issues female founders face.

“I think the issue is pretty simple,” she explains. “This is an industry that has always run on relationship networks. Someone you know and respect makes a warm introduction to a great founder and you agree to hear their pitch. But if women are not part of your network, you’re just at a big disadvantage — you’re going to miss a lot of great companies. I think investors are finally starting to wake up to this. More and more VC firms are adding a female partner? — partly because there’s been a lot of noise about it, but mostly out of self interest.”

SO WHAT NOW?

I wish I could invest in many more female founded businesses, but at least I know there is something I can do to help this issue. Bridge the gap.

Because of the community I have built, I can facilitate these introductions. I can get women entrepreneurs and the investment community in the same room and let them meet each other. I can also gather a panel of experts to share their experiences in seeking or providing funding.

So that is what I am doing.

On October 21, 7.00pm - 8.30pm AEDT, women entrepreneurs and those interested in investor opportunities are all invited to join me for a ‘Meet the Investors’ event.

Please tag anyone who may benefit from attending and share with your networks so we can make this a huge success that will move the needle in the right direction for female founders in Australia.

Link to get tickets is HERE . And as a special offer, you can get in free using the code 43411 when you register.

I’d love to see you there.