EIT Food’s Post

In Aotearoa New Zealand, 11% of venture capital funding goes to female-founded organisations. Meanwhile... "Women founders produce $0.78c in revenue for every dollar of investment. Men? $0.31c. Yes, that’s more than double. Another study showed women-led companies performed 63% better than all-male teams and another that women-led teams generate a 35% greater return on investment." While you eat the cute pink cupcakes your company made you for International Women's Day, I recommend reading this piece written by Brianne West (a friend and mentor) which discusses how important it is for us to champion female entrepreneurs and change that terrible 11% statistic.

Europe’s female founders and fund managers secured record investments in 2023 according to the “State of Gender Diversity in European Venture 2024” released by Female Foundry! 🚀 Despite the challenging market conditions of 2023, female founded start-ups secured a seriously impressive €5.9bn in funding… the third highest figure EVER. Some key highlights below: 🎯They constituted 11% share of total VC deployed in Europe. 🎯Series A rounds averages €11m – a 38% increase! 🎯Average Series C round size jumped 45% to €80m in 2023. 🎯70% of surveyed VC investors now track female founders in their deal flow with 40% actively seeking investment opportunities in companies led by women. Reading about progress in the industry gives an optimistic outlook for the direction of travel. Great to see the European VC arena positively evolving to support talented and resilient women🌟 Access the report in the comments below👇

The venture capital industry has a positive social and environmental impact, accelerating breakthrough technologies, creating jobs as well as broadening the careers of women and underrepresented groups. European Women in VC's new report considers what drives institutional investors' decision-making and the reasons behind their reluctance to engage in venture capitalism. #VentureCapital #SocialImpact #EnvironmentalImpact #PensionsforPurpose https://ow.ly/KVGM50Si01j

🎧 The Future is Female: Investing with Purpose and Power with Barbara Iyayi Barbara Iyayi and Julie uncover: • How decentralized finance can open up investment opportunities worldwide. • Aligning your investments with your values to help underserved markets. • Investing in women-founded companies can help solve problems others ignore. • The importance of investing in women-led companies and creating a more inclusive innovation economy. ⬇ Tag a colleague who is investing in women-led companies ⬇ #boarddiversity #executivewomen #howwomenlead #howwomeninspire #howwomeninvest https://lnkd.in/eMXxEU5T 

🎧 The Future is Female: Investing with Purpose and Power with Barbara Iyayi Barbara Iyayi and Julie uncover: • How decentralized finance can open up investment opportunities worldwide. • Aligning your investments with your values to help underserved markets. • Investing in women-founded companies can help solve problems others ignore. • The importance of investing in women-led companies and creating a more inclusive innovation economy. ⬇ Tag a colleague who is investing in women-led companies ⬇ #boarddiversity #executivewomen #howwomenlead #howwomeninspire #howwomeninvest https://lnkd.in/eMXxEU5T 

Women are outperforming men in investment. That’s the key takeaway from the latest European Women in VC report. While data can often be interpreted in various ways, one fact stands out clearly: 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝟭𝟲% 𝗼𝗳 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 (𝗚𝗣𝘀) 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻. Women remain underrepresented in the Venture Capital ecosystem, similar to their underrepresentation as founders, with only 2% of total capital invested in VC-backed startups in 2023 in the US going to women-founded ventures (Pitchbook Data). Having worked in the Venture Capital industry for nearly a decade, what excites me the most is that VCs are financing companies that will shape our future—not just technologically, but socially as well. We’re moving in the right direction, but progress is too slow! 🐌 I also want to take this opportunity to give a huge shoutout to the incredible women working at Edda, who are also part of the Venture Capital ecosystem! Tianming Su Shameerah O. Ruby Veazey Alissa Finn Lauren Lee Y. Claudia Luna Liudmyla Shevchenko Juna Cepkova Amanda Dokas Marija Gnjatovic 🙌 Link to the full report of EWVC in comments ⬇️

📖 In SISTAFUND’s library: European Women in VC provides evidence of enhanced VC performance with a gender-balanced senior management Promoting gender parity as a VC fund is not a matter of compliance but of financial performance. In this regard, the VC industry is missing out on a significant financial opportunity, as asserted by EWVC. We, at SISTAFUND, fully support this assessment and are committed to promoting parity at all levels of the tech ecosystem. ✨ Some key highlights of the report ✨ 📈 Higher representation of women in senior management teams increases the financial performance of European VC fund portfolios and reduces their risks: On average, each 10 percentage point increase in the representation of women is associated with a 1.3 percentage points increase in the IRR of a VC fund. ❌ Despite the evidence of diversity-driven financial performance, there is still a glass ceiling for women in accessing senior management and decision-making positions: in 2023, only 16% of general partners (GPs) and 30% of investment committees are women. There are still few women at the director and principal levels. 💰 And, even when women have leadership roles, they tend to raise less than their male counterparts and have less economic firepower: Female GPs have less investment power, raising only 9% of the total AUM, compared with the 91% of AUM raised by male GPs. They are also less likely to be shareholders than their male counterparts. ✅ Improving the access of women to senior positions at every level of the VC value chain (LPs, VCs, start-ups) can have trickle-down effects, increasing diversity and financial performance in the ecosystem as a whole: Women investors are 2x-3x more likely to invest in female-led startups, which are currently underrepresented in VC portfolios. Therefore, they are drivers of more diversified portfolios. 🔝 If stakeholders are increasingly aware of such necessity, there is a call for improvement in DE&I policies: only 50% of respondent VC firms have corporate strategies for addressing gender diversity. And when they exist, these corporate policies for diversity do not properly address career paths and leadership development for female roles. So, what are you waiting for to boost your returns?

According to a Pitchbook report, companies founded solely by women received only around 2.1% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the U.S. in 2023. In the same year, women made up 26% of investment professionals at VC firms and 17% were general partners.  In an effort to address gender disparity in the investment ecosystem, Triangle senior leaders Susan Wall, Jenn Summe, Melissa Crosby and Windy Zou Kohl have created Ladies Investing/Local Angels (LiLa), an informal & educational group that covers technology angel investing in the Triangle and beyond. ➡️ https://t.ly/osEzI

"Sickening." Rama Chakaki, general partner at TRANSFORM VC, calls out the lack of access to capital for diverse founders. This clip from our Women In Impact Investing panel explores the untapped potential of marginalized communities and the impact they could create with proper funding. RevHub is at the leading edge of the movement changing this paradigm. Our success is only as powerful as the collaborative work of forward-thinking individuals, organizations, research institutions, and public sector champions. For this reason, a key objective for RevHub is to continue to build a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem to address the key challenges underrepresented individuals face in starting and scaling their businesses—namely, access to social, intellectual, and financial capital. Learn more at revhuboc.com #WomenInImpactInvesting #SocialEnterprise #RevHubOC #RevHubEcosystem #DiversityMatters

Happy International Women’s Day! Who was asked to speak for free today or had a workplace that put on some cupcakes (pink ofc) to celebrate? I’m hoping that these things lessen as the years go by. But do you know what hasn’t lessened? The gaping divide in VC investment between companies led by women and those led by men. Despite outperforming their male-led counterparts, women-founded firms are stuck with less than 2% of all VC funding, a figure that has barely changed over the last three decades. Some of the stats I talk about in my latest Stuff column are even more depressing (enraging?), but most importantly it does break down what we can all do about it. So, happy International Women’s Day. Let’s celebrate female founders and talk about their financial success, so that we change the narrative that women aren’t good business leaders, or aren’t ’good with money’. Because when we invest in women, we all benefit. https://lnkd.in/gdhrW_fN #iwd #internationalwomensday #investinwomen #womeninbusiness