Women in Entrepreneurship

issue brief about women in entrepreneurship

• SQUO
• what's happening now (problems they're facing)
• relevant policy (jobs act)
• what's being done (tax credit in canada, crowd funding by women, what's the US doing)

SQUO facts

• Texas claims the worst record of supporting women seeking venture capital. Last year, 42 Texas startups got Series A rounds. Zero of them had female founders. [1]
• The cities in the United States where the combined economic clout of female founders is growing fastest are San Antonio; Portland, Oregon; Houston; Atlanta; and Riverside, California. [2]
• Facts about female founders and raising capital

15. No matter which crowdfunding platform they choose, female founders perform equal to or better than their male counterparts when raising money online.

16. Offline, it's a different story. Only 10 percent of startups which raised Series A last year had female founders. Today's venture capital environment clocks some 305 active funds over $100 million. These funds collectively put $114 billion to work. Ninety percent of it never sees a female founder.

17. That said, venture capital firms with women partners are more than twice as likely to invest in companies with a woman on the executive team.

18. Venture firms with a woman partner are more than three times as likely to invest in companies with women CEOs.

19. Ninety-four percent of decision makers at venture capital funds are male.

20. Even so, there is more venture for women, and the women's entrepreneurial ecosystem is gaining traction, as angel investor Kelly Hoey points out in Inc.

What women entrepreneurs say they need

29. Almost half-of female founders (48 percent) cite a lack of available mentors or advisers as holding them back.

30. Only a third say lack of capital is a constraint.

According to data from a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, 43 percent of Americans believe that women in executive business positions are held to higher standards than men, and the same percentage believes that the U.S. is not prepared to hire women for these top-tier positions. A relatively smaller, but still significant, number of Americans (23 percent) believe that women don’t have the time to hold an executive position, given their “family responsibilities” [3]