‘The Only Woman In The Room’ – Is There Still A Gender Gap In Tech Investing?
There is a compelling business scenario for even more ladies to invest in technology, but a lot more needs to happen.
Tessa Wanders’ professional experience includes roles as an angel investor, founder, and venture capital investor. She has founded two successful businesses, was a founding member of the FJ Labs, and is presently an investment adviser for VNV Global. Her professional accomplishments are impressive by any standard, but especially so given that she is frequently the only woman in the room.
Wanders has always continued to refuse to be labeled as a “token woman,” even though she has been on occasion. Indeed, she is hopeful about female representation in tech-making investments and has witnessed some positive changes in her decade-long career.
However, much more work remains to be done. According to Deloitte’s VC Human Capital report in 2021, while female employees included 16 percent of investing associates in the previous year (up from 14 percent in 2018 and 11 percent in 2016), 75 percent of companies that were found to have female public-private private sector only worked with a single female asset partner.
This is even though the business case for diversification in technology investing is stronger than ever. According to studies, diverse companies outperform, hire good skills, have more engaged employees, and retain employees better than businesses that do not prioritize diversity and inclusion.
According to the Deloitte report, businesses that enhanced their proportion of female companion hires by 10% had a 1.5 percent increase in overall market return each year. So, why are women being under in venture capital and as business owners?
According to Deloitte, a Goldman Sachs analysis of investment gains found that all-female and mixed-gender asset management groups at US large-cap equities outperformed all-male teams, even after the risk was adjusted.
Professor Luisa Alemany, educational director of London Business School’s Institute of Entrepreneurialism and Private Capital, collaborates closely with the Newton Venture Program, which seeks to increase investor diversity by trying to recruit 50% of its fellows from under-represented groups. According to her, the goal is for greater variety in the VC industry to result in a more diverse collection of founders having received venture funding.
Although venture capital investments in the United States have quadrupled in the last ten years, there has been no comparable increase in the percentage of VC funding that goes to start-ups led by women or people of color. According to Crunchbase, 2.8 percent of funding went to ladies start-ups in 2019, but that figure fell to 2.3 percent in 2020, despite global VC funding increasing 4 percent from 2019 to $300 billion.
According to Alemany, women continue to face challenges in obtaining funding.
