"The gender financing gap persists. Women-led startups raise significantly less capital than startups led by only men. According to PitchBook Data, in 2021, 85.4% of global VC dollars went to startups with only men on the founding team.
That number has hardly budged over the past decade — despite the fact that data continues to suggest that women-led startups outperform startups with all-men founding teams. For example, a BCG study found that women-led companies generate more than twice as much additional revenue per dollar invested (78 cents versus 38 cents) and a PitchBook study found that women-led startups reach their exit stage a full year earlier than all-male-founded startups (median 6.4 years versus 7.4 years).
For investors, focusing on only a fraction of all entrepreneurs means they leave significant opportunities for returns on the table. For startups, this gender financing gap means promising innovations do not receive the resources they need to scale.
That is why Village Capital partnered with IFC, We-Fi, the World Bank, and researchers Amisha Miller and Saurabh Lall to identify and test several concrete ideas for how to help close the gender financing gap. With the support of a research coalition that also includes Visa Foundation, Moody’s, ANDE’s Advancing Women’s
Empowerment Fund, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and ANDE’s SGB Evidence Fund, we have identified several promising interventions.
Now we are sharing our results, and encouraging investors and accelerators to take action."
ANDE spoke with Ajay Menon, Senior Practice Leader at TechnoServe India, to learn more about their new initiative GreenR, a one-of-a-kind accelerator, nurturing high-growth businesses disrupting the Environment Action space.
"Un corpus de investigación en crecimiento ha mostrado que los programas de aceleración de negocios pueden ser efectivos para ayudar a los emprendimientos a pasar a la siguiente etapa de crecimiento. Sin embargo, un examen más profundo ha revelado que las emprendedoras no reciben los mismos beneficios que sus contrapartes masculinas, evidenciando que las mujeres están infrarepresentadas y que tienen un desempeño bajo en los programas de aceleración.Este informe sintetiza los hallazgos clave de cuatro proyectos de investigación y deriva perspectivas viables para ayudar a cerrar esta brecha en la evidencia sobre las necesidades de las emprendedoras y en qué forma las aceleradoras pueden responder a las barreras clave."
"A growing body of research has shown that business accelerators programs can effectively help ventures move to the next stage of growth. However, further examination has revealed that women entrepreneurs do not experience the same benefits as their male counterparts, showing that women are still underrepresented and underperforming in accelerator programs. This brief synthesizes the key findings of four selected research projects and draws actionable insights for practitioners aiming to fill the evidence gap on the needs of women entrepreneurs and in what ways accelerators can address key barriers."
"A growing body of research has shown that business accelerators programs can effectively help ventures move to the next stage of growth. However, further examination has revealed that women entrepreneurs do not experience the same benefits as their male counterparts, showing that women are still underrepresented and underperforming in accelerator programs. This brief synthesizes the key findings of four selected research projects and draws actionable insights for practitioners aiming to fill the evidence gap on the needs of women entrepreneurs and in what ways accelerators can address key barriers."