Pay attention, venture investors! As explained in “>Outstanding Women in Business: Tracking the Change in the Denver Business Journal (DBJ, 8/24/18), women’s entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley have received less than 20 percent of venture funds although they returned more than twice return on the dollar and 10 percent more in value, year after year. More broadly, Szczurek points to figures from venture capital data firm Pitchbook showing only $1.9 billion in funding for all-women startup teams in 2017. While that number might sound like a lot, it equates to only about 2 percent of the $85 billion in total venture capital invested in 2017, according to Fortune, which originally reported on the Pitchbook study.
Theresa Szczurek, Radish’s CEO, highlighted this incongruity in the DBJ article which honors women with the Outstanding Women in Business (OWIB) award. Szczurek references the 20-year analysis by the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network. As an inaugural OWIB winner, Szczurek (photo) noted in the DBJ article, “We’re seeing increased numbers of women-led businesses and good performances. I have found, however, two big areas seem to be lacking, and one is women in STEM — and especially in the information technology arena … the other area that I think really hasn’t changed enough is funding for women-owned businesses.”
So with over 118 thousand women-owned companies per a 2018 American Express-commissioned report, there’s a lot of opportunity for venture capital investors to benefit from the success of start-ups by women.