Let’s talk about female entrepreneurs and how the rise of them is just beginning.
In 2018, the American Mentoring platform SCORE published a report considering female entrepreneurship in which we find out that in the US women-owned enterprises employ approximately 9M people and generate more than $1.6T. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor also covered the topic and pointed out that 126M women now start or run their own business. The rise of female entrepreneurship has been highly pointed out by the media in the last years; more and more debates come to life considering the presence of women in tech, entrepreneurship, and business; this is why we decided to share with you our findings and opinion on the topic.
What’s going on in female entrepreneurship?
Female entrepreneurs are on the rise, the number has increased by 18% in 2017 and today represent 26% of all businesses. The TOP industries where female entrepreneurship is present correspond to health, fitness, retail, beauty, business services, food, cleaning, and maintenance.
59% of women explain starting a business in order to pursue their passion and 42% be their own boss. Despite the growth in female entrepreneurship; we can recognize a strong gender disparity culture and a need for things to evolve.
The Harvard Business School undertook a study where a group of males and a group of females presented the exact same business proposal for investment. The outcome of the experience shows that 39% of investors said they would offer to fund the women in contrast to 68% for the males.
Females in business face strong issues and stereotypes that need to be beaten to the root in order to engage the economic impact and new wave of leadership. Women are underrepresented business leaders; 5% of the CEO in Fortune 500 are female, and only 20% are Fortune 500 board members.
This under-presence is not the only issue; women and males have a huge gap in salaries. The world’s highest CEO pay corresponds to $87.5M for Gregory Maffin the CEO of Library Media against $47.2M for Carol Bartz, ex-CEO of Yahoo.
Let’s not desperate considering the issues that women are facing in business; day by day things are changing. More and more female leaders are empowering the case of women promoting their hard work and impact in society.
What women have to say?
We discussed with Zeynep Demirbilek; the CEO and founder of Service Club to have the point of a view directly from a woman. She points out that in business she doesn’t visualize a difference between women and males. From her point of view, it should not be based on gender but on the individual themselves.
She recognizes that as a woman, there are a lot more compromises and that it can be more complicated. Women have to take care of their career, just like they traditionally take care of the family; she admits admiring the women able to balance the upbringing of kids and the scaling of a business.
She points out that many times, she has been asked if the reason for her success, was being a woman; when the hard work and commitment should be the only recognizable values.
She considers that the presence of women in business will highly influence the future of management due to their abilities to be more considerate, understanding than their male peers. The rise of female in business will increase the use of emotional intelligence in business management.
Female Entrepreneurs in VCs
In the world of VC, females are not present enough. The UK Treasury Report shows that all-female leadership teams have received less than 1p for every £1 of investment in startups. In the US, female VCs are shadowed by the high male presence, only representing 9% of VCs; we can also point out that 74% of US VC Firms are all-men. This huge gender disparity, is, unfortunately, causing a lack of funding in female-founded projects, lacking promotion and empowerment.
However, let’s not be too negative; things are changing step by step by the hard work and development of engaged and dedicated female leaders, empowering women all across the world to believe in themselves and start their company.
Venture Capital firms in the United States for female founders and co-founders have been trending up in recent years; several women-led funds and incubators were launched in 2018 promoting the presence of females in the sector.
Source: Crunchbase
In one of their recent article, Crunchbase mentioned that 7% of partners at the top 100 ventures firms were women and that females held under 12% of the partner roles in accelerators and corporate venture firms.
Based on the data gave by pitchbook.com we know that between 2008 and 2019, the female (co)founded VC deal has increased from 3.3% to 6.1%; and the female (co)founded VC Capital went from 1.7% to 2.2%. The number is trending slowly and raising step by step showing the need for a boost in female presence in Venture Capital.
In a second place, the charts provided by pitchbook.com shows that the deal flow by female co-founded companies increased from $2.2B in 2008 to $16.2B in 2019.
We can recognize promising female-founded startups that raised heavy investment such as:
-Glossier, founded by Emily Weiss raising $192M
-RenttheRunway founded by Jennifer Hymn and Jennifer Fleis raising $321M and Humacyte founded by Laura Niklason, Juliana Blum and Shanna Daki raising $438M
We can also recognize the development of promising female-founded investment firms such as:
-TheJumpFund founded in 2013 BY Stephanie Grove and Kristina Montague investing in 33 projects, with 6 successful exits; BBG ventures founded in 2014 by Susan Lyne investing in 84 projects with 9 exists and Rethink Impact, founded by Jenny Abramson in 2015 investing in 23 projects and 1 current exit.
What can we conclude about that? The VC funding statistics for women are not high, but there are going up step by step. It’s important to recognize the need to empower women in business and engage the economic activity of female entrepreneurship.
More and more role models are empowering women and the future generation of leaders to see their potential and recognize women as important as men in the industry. This week, it is the famous tennis player Serena Williams that revealed a new venture capital ownership; the US tennis superstar launched Serena Ventures promoting diverse leadership, individual empowerment, creativity, and opportunity. This type of role model changes the way women are seen day by day and promotes the economic and business achievement of each one of them.
When asked his opinion on the topic, Albert Domingo the CEO of NextTRet said how important for women it was to grow within all industries and recognized their ability for multi-tasking. He shared with us that after being present for many years in business, he saw the need for women to present themselves more on the venture capital scene. As he mentioned, today in venture capital we see many sharks, people with no compunction that are only going after the power and money. He pointed out that women are recognized for having a deeper emotional intelligence than men and that it could give some variety to future VCs.
Female in Technology
Finally to discuss women in tech, we can point out that they only represent 20% of US’s Tech jobs, when they represent half of the American workforce. However, there has been an increase of 68% of tech businesses founded by women between 1997 and 2014.
Based on the information given by entrepreneur.com we understand that the number of a startup with a least one female increased from 9.5% to 18% between 2009 and 2014.
However, it’s a must to recognize that women are underrepresented, as they encounter only 7% of tech roles in Europe and only 11% of Software Developers roles. 5% of Tech-startups are owned by women, it is going to be critically important to engage the empowerment of women in tech in order to diversify our industries and economies.
We discussed with Adrienne Fanning, the CEO of the founder of Sawyer. She considered having received a lot of support since she arrived in Barcelona three years ago, especially by the Tech and Startup World. She recognizes that sometimes it can be challenging to be a woman in this ‘Boyzy club’. She considers that it’s time today, for women to be given more of a voice in business, VC, and Tech; to be able to spread empowerment, confidence, and the development of projects.
Finally one the last note considering women in tech, Alexis Roig mentioned that there is a lack of promotion within the technology industries for young girls; making tech look ‘for boys’. He considers that females in tech don’t have enough role models to follow and that we must make girls part of it from a very young age. He underlined the great work, done by BSC, promoting technological industries in the educational programs of girls from a very young age.
To conclude, women are taking more and more space on the Business, Tech, and Venture Capital front. They promote new management and a new perspective to business and allow the diversification of our industries. More than ever, it is important to promote the work of women to step by step change our world for a more balanced place. Now more than ever is essential to follow female entrepreneurs.